Dispositional explanations of Obedience: Authoritarian Personality

define dispositional explanation

Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual’s personality.

define authoritarian personality

A type of personality identified by Adorno that is more susceptible to obeying people in authority

what did Adorno suggest as an explanation for obedience

 a particular personality type (the authoritarian personality)

what was Adorno’s method

Adorno studied 2000+ middle, class American white males and their unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic groups. They developed several scales to do so, including the potential-for-facism scale, the F-scale

what was Adorno’s findings

 People with authoritarian personalities identified with ‘strong’ people who were generally contemptuous of the ‘weak’. They were very conscious of status  and showed extreme respect, deference and servility to those of higher status. Adorno also found that authoritarian people had a certain cognitive style - a very black and white thinking about people with fixed stereotypes about other groups.

The authoritarian personality is characterised by … traits

4

a person with AP holds hostility towards…

people belived to be of a lower status

a person with AP holds respects for…

people belived to be of a higher status

a person with AP have an…

obsession with power

a person with AP have blind…

respect for authority

where does the AP origionate from

childhood

Adorno believed that the AP was formed in childhood as a result of…

harsh parenting

what does harsh parenting feature

extremely strict discipline, an expectation of loyalty, impossibly high standards, severe criticisms of perceived failings & parents give conditional love

what are the characteristics of AP

1. Hostility towards people believed to be of a lower status

2. Respect for people believed to be of a higher status

3. An obsession with power

4. Blind respect for authority

Adorno agured that harsh parenting creates…

resentment & hostility in the child

what happens to the resentment & hostility in the child

as the child cannot express these feelings against their parents their fears are displaced onto others who they perceive as weaker

what explains their hatred towards the socially inferior/ belonging to other social groups?

scapegoating

the AP is a … explanation

psychodynamic

explain the strength research support

Milgram conducted interviews with a small sample of fully obedient participants who scored highly on the F-scale. He thought that there might be a link between obedience and authoritarianism

explain the weakness F-scale link is correlations

impossible to draw conclusions that authoritarian personality causes obedience from a correlational link as correlation does not mean causation - there may be a third factor involved

explain the weakness limited explanation as it is in terms of an individual's personality

this explanation cannot behave obedient behaviour in a country’s majority, it is unlikely that the millions in pre-war Germany who displayed obedience, racist and anti-semetic behaviour all possessed a authoritarian personality

explain the weakness methodological problems

the theory of authoritarian personality is based on a flawed questionnaire. The F-scale means that someone could get a high score of authoritarianism by only ticking yes, this means that people may not be authoritarian but aquiescers. Furthermore, participants were interviewed by Adorno & his colleges who knew their F-scale scores, they may have been more inclined to identify authoritarianism within someone with a high score