Obedience: Dispositional Explanation

Who is the key psychologist and what theory did they come up with?

Adorno

The Authoritarian personality

What did Adorno believe about obedience?

Unquestioning obedience is a psychological disorder

Describe the procedure of Adornos study about the authoritarian personality

Investigated unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic grouls of more than 2000 middle class white Americans

The F-scale was developed in order to measure wether someone had an authoritarian personality

Pps had to rate statements on a scale of 1-6 with 6 meaning they strongly agree

What were the findings of Adornos study about the authoritarian personality

Authoritarians (those who scored high on the F-scale) identified with ‘strong’ ppl and were contemptuous of the ‘weak’

They were conscious of their own/other status and showed excessive respect to those of higher status

They also had fixed and distinctive stereotypes/prejudices about other groups

A03 Strength: Evidence that authoritarians are obedient

Elms and Milgram - interviewed 20 fully obedient pps from Milgram’s original obedience studies

These pps scored significantly higher on the F-scale compared to a group of disobedient pps

Suggests that obedient ppl share many characteristics of ppl with an authoritarian personality

A03 Limitation: Authoritarianism cant explain a whole countrys behaviour

Many individuals in Germany displayed obedient and anti-semitic behaviour but cant have all had the same personality

Unlikely that majority of Germanys population had an authoritarian personality

More likely explanation is that Germans identified with the Nazi state

Social identity theory may be a better explanation

A03 Limitation: F-scale is politically biased

Psychologists suggest the F-scale aims to measure tendency towards extreme right wing ideology

Right/left wing authoritarianism both insist on complete obedience to political authority

Adornos theory isn’t a comprehensive dispositional explanation as it doesn’t explain obedience to left wing authoritarianism

A03 Limitation: Flawed evidence

F-scale has been used in many studies which have led to an explanation of obedience based on the authoritarian personality

However the F-scale is flawed - ppl who tend to agree to the statement are scored as authoritarian. - response bias

Explanations of obedience based on research with the F-scale may not be valid