Obedience: dispositional explanations Flashcards
dispositional explanation
definition
-explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individuals personality (their disposition)
└often contrast with situational explanations
dispositional explanation
Person
Adorno et al (1950)
dispositional explanation
procedure
Adorno et al (1950)
- investigated the causes of the obedient personality
- in the study of more than 2000 middle-class white Americans
- and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
-used F scale to measure authoritarian personality
└e.g.’obedience and respect for authority is one of the most important virtues children should learn’
└e.g. ’nobody ever leaned anything really important except through suffering’
dispositional explanation
Findings
└people who scored high on the F-scale had authoratarian characteristics e.g.
└strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice
authoritarian personality
definition
-a collection of traits/dispositions developed from strict parenting
└obedient towards people of perceived higher status
└conformist/conventional
-hostile towards those of perceived
lower status (scapegoating)
- especially susceptible to obeying people in authority
└highly controversial attitudes towards sex, race and gender
└believe we need strong powerful leaders to enforce values such as love of country, religion and family
└everything is right or wrong/uncomfortable with uncertainty
Origin of the authoritarian personality
- developed from strict/rigid parenting
in childhood└extremely strict discipline, expectation of complete loyalty, impossibly high standards, severe criticism of failings, conditional love (love depending on how child behaves)
└he said these experiences create resentment and hostility but the child cant directly express these feelings against their parents because of fear of reprisals
└so fears displaced onto others who are perceived to be weaker (scapegoating)
└explains central trait of obedience to higher authority and dislike of people considered to be socially inferior/other social groups
└psychodynamic explanation
dispositional explanation
strengths
Research support
└Milgram and Elms (1966)
└conducted interviews with a small sample of fully obedient participants who scared highly on the F-scale
└looking for a link between obedience and authoritarian personality
-HOWEVER correlation not causation
└3rd factor may be involved
└e.g. both associated with lower IQ (Hyman and Sheatsley 1954)
dispositional explanation
limitations
summary
Limited explanation
Political bias - Christie and Jahoda (1954)
Correlation, not causation - Adorno et al
Methodological problems - Greenstein (1969)
dispositional explanation
limitations
Limited explanation
-dispositional explanations cannot explain obedience in entire societies
└e.g. in pre-war Germany millions of individuals all displayed obedient, racist and anti-sematic behaviour
└unlikely they all that an authoritarian personality
└more realistic alternative explanation- social identity theory
└majority of German people identified with the anti-sematic Nazi state and scapegoated the ‘out group’ of Jews
dispositional explanation
limitations
Political bias
-the F-scale measures the tendency towards extreme right-wing ideology
-Christie and Jahoda (1954)
└politically biased interpretation of authoritarian personality
└they point out the reality of left-wing authoritarianism (e.g. Russian Bolshevism or Chinese Maoism)
└extreme right-wing and left-wing ideologies have much in common- both emphasise the importance of complete obedience to legitimate political authority
└limitation as theory is not a comprehensive dispositional explanation that can account for obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum
dispositional explanation
limitations
Correlation, not causation
-Adorno et al measured many variations and found significant correlations between them
└e.g. authoritarianism strongly correlated with prejudice against minority groups
└e.g. harsh parenting style correlated with development of the authoritarian personality
└correlation not necessarily causation
dispositional explanation
limitations
Methodological problems
-Greenstein (1969)
└described the F-scale as ‘a comedy of methological errors’
-all items worded in same direction
└can get a high score for ticking the same boxes down a side of the page
└people may be aquiescers (agree with everything) rather than authoritarian
-Adorno et al interviewed people about their childhood experiences after knowing their test scores and the hypothesis of the study
