Obedience: Dispositional explanations

Question 1

Situational

Answer 1

Explanations that focus on the influences that stem from the environment in which the individual is found

Question 1

Dispositional

Answer 1

Explanation of individual behaviour caused by internal characteristics that reside within the individual’s personality

Question 2

Authoritarian personality

Answer 2

A collection of traits/dispositions that developed from strict/rigid parenting

Question 3

Examples of authoritarian personality

Answer 3

Conformist/conventional/dogmatic and unyielding
Obedient/servile towards people of perceived higher status

Question 4

Authoritarian personality theory

Answer 4

People obey, because unconsciously, they had harsh parenting

Question 5

Adorno - Dispositional explanations

Answer 5

Authoritarian personality:
Procedure-
Measured 2000 middle class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups.
Used the Fascist scale:still used to measure authoritarian personalities

Question 6

Authoritarian Personality Scale

Answer 6

Measures different aspects of personality:
Conventionalism
Preoccupation with power

Question 7

Authoritarian personality investigation findings

Answer 7

People who scored high on the F scale(authoritarian) identified with
‘strong’ people and were contemptuous of the ‘weak.’
They were conscious of their own and others’ status and showed a ‘blind respect’ to people with power.
Authoritarian people had a cognitive style-no “fuzziness” between categories of people(black and white) and were driven by stereotypes and prejudice.
Positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice

Question 8

Authoritarian characteristics

Answer 8

Obedient to authority
Submissive to authority - driven by blind respect
Inflexible with their outlook - no grey areas
Society is “going to the dogs”-need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values

Question 9

Why do people have an authoritarian personality?

Answer 9

Harsh parenting - strict discipline, expectations to be completely loyal, impossibly high standards, severe criticism of perceived failings, conditional love from parents.
These experiences create resentment, hostility and despair in the child - who displaces these feelings onto the weak(scapegoating)

Question 10

Right-wing authoritarianism(Altemeyer,1981):

Answer 10

High RWA people possess three important characteristics:
1. Conventionalism - adhering to conventional norms and values
2. Authoritarian aggression - aggressive feelings towards people wjo violate these norms.
3. Authoritarian submission - uncritical submission to legitimate authorities

Question 11

Negative evaluations(Adorno)

Answer 11

1. Criticism: explanation cannot easily account for obedience of entire social groups/societies
2. Evaluation: political bias
3. Extra evaluation: Methodological problems

Question 12

Evaluation: Research support(Adorno)

Answer 12

-Milgram and Elms(1966):
Interviewed fully obedient participants, who scored highly on the F-scale.
Is there a link between obedience and authoritarian personality?
Correlation between the variables - what causes what?
Third factor involved?
(Hyman and Sheatsley,1954)- Upbringing, gender, age

Question 13

a

Criticism: explanation cannot easily account for obedience of entire social groups/societies

Answer 13

Hyman and Sheatsley(1954) found the Authoritarian personality is more likely to exist among people who are less well educated and are of lower social economic status.
But these results are inconsistent with the explanation - these people should surely be considered the subordinates and rebellious, not the strict and oppressive, therefore perhaps personality isn’t needed to explain obedience

Question 14

Evaluation:
Political bias

Answer 14

Christie and Jahoda(1054)- F scale measures tendency towards an extreme right wing ideology(more capitalist, more Conventionalist)
Politically biased interpretation of authoritarian personality:
Left wing(more communist)?
Maoism or Bolshevism

Question 15

Evaluation - Dispositional explanations

Answer 15

Evidence clearly shows the situation plays a role in obedience, as demonstrated in Milgram’s extensive research.
Compare the methodology:
Milgram’s results on the situational variables, in comparison to Adorno and the use of the F scale, are more reliable and valid. Milgram’s rigorous and controlled experiments have shown obedience is affected by the situation.

Question 16

Extra evaluation:Methodological problems

Answer 16

Measurement of authoritarianism relies on self-report(F-scale) data, which may be invalid due to social desirability bias.
The F scale(with every item worded in the same direction ) causes acquiescence bias(the tendency to simply agree with everything). A decent scale would randomise this, so “agree” didn’t always lead in one direction.