Obedience : Dispositional explanation

Dispositional explanation

Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individuals personality ie their disposition. Such explanations are often contrasted with situational explanations

Authoritarian personality

A type of personality that adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority , such individuals are also thought to be submissive to those of higher status and dismissive of inferiors.

Adorno et al believes this forms in childhood, mostly as result of harsh parenting.

Adorno et al authoritarian personality resaerch

Investigated the unconscious attitudes of more than 2,000 middle-class, white Americans towards other ethnic groups. To measure these attitudes, they developed several measurement scales, most notably the Potential-for-Fascism scale (F-scale), which is still used today to quantify an Authoritarian Personality. The scale includes test items assessing a person's core values, such as rating their agreement with statements like: "Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues for children to learn," and "There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel great love, gratitude and respect for his parents."

Adorno investigation findings

The researchers discovered that individuals who scored highly on the F-scale (those with authoritarian leanings) strongly identified with people they perceived as "strong" while holding deep contempt for those they viewed as "weak." These high-scorers were intensely conscious of social status—both their own and that of others—and exhibited extreme respect, deference, and servility toward individuals of higher status, which Adorno concluded forms the psychological basis of obedience.

Research support strength and counterpoint

Milgram and Alan Elms (1966) interviewed a small sample of fully obedient participants from the original obedience studies. These 20 obedient participants scored significantly higher on the F-scale compared to a control group of 20 disobedient participants. This supports Adorno et al.’s view that highly obedient people share the traits of an Authoritarian Personality.

counterpoint : However, when researchers analysed the individual subscales of the F-scale, they found that these obedient participants lacked many typical authoritarian traits. For example, they did not glorify their fathers, did not experience unusual childhood punishment, and did not hold hostile attitudes toward their mothers. This suggests the link between authoritarianism and obedience is highly complex and perhaps a poor predictor.

Limited explanation

A major limitation is that this dispositional theory cannot easily explain obedient behavior across an entire country’s population. In pre-war Germany, millions of individuals displayed obedient, anti-Semitic behavior despite all having vastly different personalities. It is highly unlikely they all possessed an Authoritarian Personality.

Political bias

Another limitation is that the F-scale suffers from severe political bias because it only measures a tendency toward extreme right-wing ideology. Christie and Jahoda (1954) argued that this ignores the reality of left-wing authoritarianism, such as Russian Bolshevism or Chinese Maoism.