Social Influence - Dispositional Explanation For Obedience (The Authoritarian Personality)

Question 1

What is the dispositional explanation?

Answer 1

The perception of behaviour as caused by internal characteristics of individuals

Question 2

What is the authoritarian personality?

Answer 2

A description of a person who holds rigid beliefs, is intolerant of ambiguity, submissive to authority & hostile to those of a lower status or members of an out-group

Question 3

Who proposed the authoritarian personality?

Answer 3

Adorno

Question 4

What was the scale that Adorno developed to test the authoritarian personality?

Answer 4

The F scale

Question 5

What was procedure of Adorno’s study to find the causes of the obedient personality?

Answer 5

2000+ white, middle class, American men were used and completed several scales (including the F scale) to test their unconscious biases towards other racial groups

Question 6

What were the findings of Adorno’s study?

Answer 6

People who presented as more authoritarian (scored high on F scale & others) identified with ‘strong’ people & were generally contemptuous of the weak
They were very conscious of there own & other’s status & showed excessive respect to those of a higher status
They had very distinct categories for people & had fixed stereotypes about other groups
Strong correlation between the authoritarian personality & prejudice

Question 7

What are the characteristics of the authoritarian personality?

Answer 7

Very obedient & submissive to authority
Show contempt for others percieved to have a lower social status
Had highly conventional attitudes towards sex, race & gender
View society as ‘going to the dogs’ & believe we need a strong & powerful leader to enforce trad values e.g. love of your country
Black & white thinking
Very uncomfortable with uncertainty

Question 8

What did Adorno say is the origin of the authoritarian personality?

Answer 8

In childhood, caused by harsh parenting style e.g. strict discipline, expectation of absolute loyalty, impossible high standards & severe criticism of perceived failings.
Also caused by conditional love -> creates resentment & hostility in the child which they cannot express so the fears are displaced onto others who are perceived as weaker

Question 9

What are the strengths of the authoritarian personality explanation?

Answer 9

Research support -> Milgram & Elms conducted interviews with a small sample of fully obedient participants who scored highly on the F scale believing there may be a link between obedience & the authoritarian personality (only a correlation)

Question 10

What are the limitation of the authoritarian personality explanation?

Answer 10

Limited explanation -> dispositional explanations will not be able to fully explain obedient behaviour of the majority of a population e.g. Nazi Germany -> makes it clear that social identity is the cause of obedience

Political bias -> the F scale only tends to extreme right-wing ideology although left wing authoritarianism occurs as well (both emphasise the importance of complete obedience towards a political ideology) -> doesn’t show obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum

Correlation not causation -> Adorno cannot claim that harsh parenting causes the authoritarian personality as in correlational studies the co variables dont have an effect on each other