reasons for obedience: dispositional explanation

Question 1

what did Theodor Adorno conclude about high level obedience

Answer 1

he concluded that high level obedience was basically a psychological disorder. This lead him to try and locate the cause of it in the personality of the individual

This conclusion is different to Milgram’s

Question 2

how did Adorno et al (1950) investigate the causes of the obedient personality

Answer 2

Adorno et al (1950) conducted a study with 2000 white, middle - class Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups

they developed several scales to investigate this including the potential for fascism scale (F - scale) which is still used to measure authoritarian personality

two examples that were on the F scale are: “Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn” and “There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel a great love, gratitude and respect for his parents”

Question 3

what was the findings of Adorno’s study about other people

Answer 3

the most interesting discovery from this study was the people with authoritarian learning ( those who scored high on the F - scale and other measures) identified strongly with strong people and were generally contemptuous of the “weak”

• they were very conscious of their own and other’s status, showing excessive respect, deference and servility to those of higher status
• people who had an authoritarian personality had a cognitive style where there was no “fuzziness” between categories of people with fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other people - essentially there was a positive correlation with prejudice and authoritarian

Question 4

what are the characteristics of an authoritarian personality

Answer 4

Adorno concluded that:

• people with authoritarian personality have a tendency to be especially obedient
• have extreme respect for authority and are submissive
• show contempt for people who they perceive to have an inferior social status and have highly conventional attitudes towards:
• sex
• race
• gender
• believe society is “going to the dogs” and therefore believe that we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values such as love of country, religion and family
• are inflexible in their outlook and they are very uncomfortable with uncertainty

Question 5

what is the origin of an authoritarian personality

Answer 5

Adorno concluded that the authoritarian personality formed in childhood, as a result of harsh parenting.

This parenting style includes extremely strict discipline, an expectation of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standard, severe criticism of perceives failings.
It is also characteristed by conditions love- that the parents’ love for their child depends on how he or she behaves

Question 6

how does strict parenting lead to an authoritarian personality

Answer 6

Adorno argued that these experiences created resentment and hostility in the child, but the child cannot express these feelings directly against their parents because of well - founded fear of reprisals

so their emotions are displaced onto others who are perceived to weaker, in a process known as scapegoating. This explains a central trait of obedience to higher authority. This explains a central trait of obedience to higher authority which is a dislike ( and even a hatred) for people considered to be socially inferior or who belong to other social groups