obedience: dispositional influences

Question 1

Who investigated personality as a cause of obedience?

Answer 1

Adorno

Question 2

What is the dispositional explanation for obedience?

Answer 2

Authoritarian personality

Question 3

Describe Adorno’s procedure

Answer 3

2000 middle class white Americans
Assessed unconscious attitudes to other races
Used F-scale

Question 4

What is the F-scale?

Answer 4

Potential for fascism scale

Question 5

Describe Adorno’s findings

Answer 5

People with authoritarian leanings identified with strong people
Hated the weak
Conscious of status, showed respect
Authoritarian people have a cognitive style with no fuzziness in categories of people - stereotypes
Positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice

Question 6

What are authoritarian characteristics?

Answer 6

Obedient to authority
Extreme respect for authority
Hate those with inferior status
Traditional attitudes
Think we need strong leaders
No grey areas

Question 7

What is the origin of the authoritarian personality type?

Answer 7

Formed in childhood due to harsh parenting
Strict discipline
Severe criticism of failure
Conditional love - love depends on behaviour

Question 8

How does childhood create an AP?

Answer 8

Experiences create resentment
Cannot express feelings to parent
Fears displaced onto weaker people - scapegoating
Psychodynamic explanation

Question 9

Evaluation - research support

Answer 9

Interviews with those who scored highly on F scale
Link between obedience and AP is just a correlation
Third factor such as bad education

Question 10

Evaluation - limited explanation

Answer 10

Can not explain a whole country’s behaviour
Unlikely all of Germany had same personality
Social identity explaining obedience is more likely
Germany identified with Nazi state

Question 11

Evaluation - political bias

Answer 11

Left wing authoritarianism can also occur
Eg Chinese Maoism
Both emphasise complete obedience
Theory not comprehensive because it does not account for obedience across political spectrum

Question 12

Evaluation - methodological problems

Answer 12

F scale is a comedy of methodological errors
Every item worded in the same direction
Acquiescence bias - measuring tendency to agree with everything

Question 13

Evaluation - correlation not causation

Answer 13

Found correlation between prejudice against minorities and authoritarianism
One does not cause the other
Cannot claim parenting causes authoritarianism