Social Influence- Obedience: Dispositional Explanations Flashcards
Meaning of dispositional explanation
Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual’s personality
Dispositional explanations of obedience focus on internal (personality) characteristics within humans that contribute to obedience.
Authoritarian personality
The authoritarian personality was proposed by Adorno et al (1950). He believed that the foundations for an authoritarian personality were laid in early childhood because of harsh and strict parenting. This creates resentment within the child as they grow up and, since they cannot express it at the time, the feelings are displaced onto others who are seen as weak or inferior. According to Adorno, this personality type is correlated with prejudice and discrimination as well as obedience.
A type of personality that Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority. Such people are also thought to be submissive to those of higher status and dismissive of inferiors.
Adorno et al (1950)
Conducted a study to using 2000 middle class, Caucasian Americans to find out their unconscious views towards other racial groups by developing a number of scales to measure aspects of behaviour and attitudes, including ethnocentrism (the preference for one’s own racial group), anti-semitism (prejudice against Jewish people) and the potential for fascism, which has become known as the f-scale. The F scale measures the authoritarian personality. Those high on the f scale were status-conscious, more obedient to authority figures and showed an extreme submissiveness and respect. They also believed that society requires strong leadership to enforce rigid, traditional values, hence their dispositional preference for obedient behaviour. He also interviewed them about their political views and their early childhood experiences and used projective tests, neutral stimuli as pictures that could be used to gain access to people’s thoughts, to assess whether or not they were racially prejudiced. Found a strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice. Fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other social groups.
-Adorno found that people who had been brought up by strict parents who used harsh, physical punishments and were given conditional love when they were children often grew up to be very obedient. Under these conditions, children quickly learn to obey and develop a strong respect for authority. He argued that harsh and physical punishments led to the child feeling hostile and angry towards their parents. This hostility was uncomfortable for the child and created feelings of conflict, so it might be repressed or locked away into the unconscious mind. The child then displaces these hostile feelings onto others, often of a different racial group, which then become an alternative target for their hostility.
The child can’t express their feelings directly against their parents because of a well-founded fear of reprisals. So the hostility is displaced onto others who are perceived to be weaker, in a process called scapegoating. =obedience to authority/ dislike for socially inferior people. This is a psychodynamic explanation
Authoritarian Personality as an explanation for obedience strengths (AO3)
-research support- Milgram and Elms (1966) conducted post- experimental interviews with ps who were fully obedient in Milgram’s original study, to see if their was a link between high levels of obedience and an authoritarian personality. It was found that the obedient ps scored higher on the F-scale in comparison to the disobedient ps. Furthermore, the obedient ps were less close to their fathers during childhood and admired the experimenter in Milgram’s study, which was quite the opposite for disobedient ps. It was concluded that the obedient ps in Milgram’s original research displayed more characteristics of the authoritarian personality. This is a strength because it supports the explanation of the authoritarian personality.
Authoritarian Personality as an explanation for obedience limitations (AO3)
-individual differences- Middendorp and Meleon (1990) has found that less educated people are more likely than well-educated people to display authoritarian personality characteristics. This is a limitation because if these claims are correct, then it is possible that it is not authoritarian personality characteristics alone that lead to obedience, but also other factors, including levels of education.
-it is based on a flawed methodology- Greenstein (1969) suggests the F-scale is a ‘comedy of methodological errors’ for example items are worded in the same ‘direction’ so the scale just measures the tendency to agree to everything. It therefore scan be said to suffer from response bias and social desirability, where ps provide answers that are socially acceptable. In addition, researchers knew the ps test scores when they interviewed them. Therefore, they knew who had authoritarian personalities. They also knew the study’s hypothesis, which makes biased results likely. This is a limitation because it suggests that the data collected is meaningless and the concept of authoritarian personality lacks internal validity meaning other factors/explanations may be responsible for obedient behaviour.
-f-scale suffers from political bias- Christie and Jahoda (1954) suggest the F-scale aims to measure tendency towards extreme right-wing ideology. But extreme right-wing and left-wing authoritarianism (e.g Maoism) both insist on complete obedience to political authority. This is a limitation because it means that Adorno’s theory is not a comprehensive dispositional explanation of obedience to authority because it does not explain obedience to left-wing authoritarianism.
