Obedience: Dispositional Explanations Flashcards
Who investigated dispositional explanations of obedience?
Adorno et al
Describe Adorno’s procedure
2000 middle class white American men
Tested for unconscious attitudes to racial groups
F-scale
What does the F-scale test?
Measures the authoritarian personality
What did Adorno find?
High score on the F-scale identify with strong people and very conscious of status.
Authoritarian personalities have fixed cognitive styles and stereotypes
Characteristics of someone with an authoritarian personality
Obedient to authority and respect it. Controversial attitudes to race, gender, sex etc. (traditional/ black and white thinking)
Positive correlation with prejudice
Explain the origins of an authoritarian personality
Formed in childhood as a result of harsh parenting. Eg. High standards and loyalty. Conditional love. Fears displaced into obedience for higher status individuals, dismissive of weaker individuals.
Explain the supporting evidence for the authoritarian personality. (AO3)
Milgram and elms
Interviews with small sample obedient PPS who scored highly on the F-scale
Correlation between obedience and AUTH PERS. (Correlation doesn’t mean causation)
Low education also associated with it
Describe one limitation of the authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience (AO3)
Limited explanation
In terms of individuals personality, hard to explain it on a whole culture/ country setting
Eg. Pre war Germany majority racist and antisemitism but this was not because all are AUTH PERS
Why is there a bias surrounding Adorno’s research. (AO3)
Politically bias.
F-scale tendency towards extreme right wing ideology so politically bias explanation of authoritarian personality. Not comprehensive as cannot explain it across all political viewpoints.
