Obedience: Dispositional explanations Flashcards
Who created the dispositional explanation?
Theodor Adorno (et al.)
What is the function of the F-Test?
It measures the unconscious tendiencies to fascism.
Who was the first person to propose the authoritarian personality explanation?
Fromm (1941).
Why did Adorno (1950) investigate the personality?
He wanted to find out the conditions that had allowed Nazism to grip Europe following Hitler’s rise to power in the early 1930’s.
Why did Fromm (1941) initially propose the personality?
To explain those holding right wing, conservative views.
What characterises an authoritarian personality?
A belief in absolute obedience and submission to authority.
Who created the F-Test?
Theordor Adorno (1950).
What does the F-Test stand for?
Fascism-test, it measures an individuals tendencies to fascism.
How many people did Adorno use the F-Test on?
2,000 white, middle-class, Americans
What is Fascism?
A radical and dictatorial scheme.
What was scapegoating?
Placing the blame of actions on an ‘inferior’ group.
Put simply, what did Adorno say caused this personality type?
A very strict upbringing by critical and harsh parents.
What is an example of real-life scapegoating seen in history?
The Nazi’s placing blame on the Jews for their actions during the Holocaust.
What were Adorno’s findings from his studies with the F-Test?
- Association with the ‘strong’ and contemptuous of the ‘weak’.
- Highly conscious of status in hierarchies, showing excessive respect to those of higher status.
- Fixed cognitive style with no ‘grey areas’.
- Strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.
A high score on the F-Test would show what?
An authoritarian personality.
What was the cognitive style of an authoritarian person?
They have fixed and rigid stereotypes with no exceptions allowed and no blurred boundaries (‘grey areas’).
How does an authoritarian person respond to someone lower than them in a hierarchy?
Authoritative towards those of a lower status, somewhat disciplinary.
How does an authoritarian person respond to someone higher than them in a hierarchy?
They show excessive respect, deference and servility to those of higher status.
What sort of attitudes do authoritarian personalities towards things such as sex, race and gender?
Highly conventional attitudes.
Describe the morals of people with an authoritarian personality:
They have inflexible outlooks, clear ideas of right and wrong and there are no ‘grey areas’ in their eyes.
Explain how a strict upbringing by harsh parents can lead to an authoritarian personality:
High expectations from the parents and demands of absolute loyalty mean the child receives severe criticism for failure. The child cannot show their hostility towards their parents as they would be punished, therefore they displace their anger.
AO3 - Statistical infrequency.
In a normal distribution, most people fall on or around the mean lines with very few people at either extreme. It is highly unlikely that a majority of hte population (of Nazi Germany) were in the extreme right.
AO3 - Researcher bias and retrospective validity.
After the F-Test, Adorno interviewed participants about their childhood. This introduces researcher bias as Adorno may have only written data to support his hypothesis, memory in this context is also unreliable as it is retrospective data.
AO3 - Political bias.
The F-scale measures the tendency towards right-wing ideology, Christie and Jahoda (1954) argued that this is a politically biased interpretation of the personality. This is a limitation of Adorno’s theory as it is not comprehensive enough to use on the whole political spectrum.
AO3 - Methodological errors.
Greenstein (1969) described the F-Test as a “comedy of methodological errors”, this is due to the many faults such as same direction phrasing and patterned ticking. This introduces acquiescence bias which lowers the internal validity of the test.
AO3 - Correlation, not causation.
Adorno measured an impressive range of variables and found many significant correlations between them, however, there is no way to determine is these are a result of causation or merely a correlation.
What is a right-wing stance and what are typical values of this position?
Conservative
- Traditional
- Hierarchical
- Privatisation
What is a left-wing stance and what are typical values of this position?
Labour
- Equality
- Progression
- De-privatisation
AO3 - Opposing research.
Zilmer (1995) studied if there was a Nazi personality, he studied 16 Nazi soldiers on 9 different scales. He found they scored highly on 3 of 9 scales which oppose the authoritarian personality.
