Dipositional explanation

What is the dispositional explanation?

High level of obedience is a psychological disorder - personality, not situation

Why did Adorno have different conclusions to Milgram?

• He was Jewish

• Alive during the Holocaust

• Saw firsthand the Nazis enjoying inflicting pain

What are the characteristics of the Authoritarian Personality?

• Shows extreme respect + submissiveness to authority

• Believes society as in need of strong + powerful leaders to enforce traditional values

• Inflexible perspective on the world

• Contempt towards those inferior

• Those of a different ethnic groups are responsible for society’s ills.

Where does the AP originate?

• Forms in childhood as a result of harsh parenting, where love is conditional and discipline is strict.

• These experiences create hostility and resentment in a child, but they cannot express it directly to the parents as they’ll be punished, so it is displaced onto others who are seen as weaker.

What is the F-Scale?

Potential-for-fascism scale to measure Authoritarian Personality

What kind of questions are on the F-Scale?

Statements seen as controversial - eg ‘obedience and respect for authority are the most important value for children to learn’

What was the procedure of Adorno’s research?

Studied over 2000 middle-class white Americans’ unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic groups through the F-Scale

What were Adorno’s findings?

• High scorers identified with ‘strong’ people and hated the ‘weak’.

• They showed high respect to those of a higher status.

• They had fixed thinking

• Strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice

What research support is there for AP?

• Elms & Milgram (1966) interviewed a sample of participants from the original obedience study who had been fully obedient.

• They all completed the F-Scale, and they scored significantly higher than those who were disobedient.

• Supports Adorno’s theory that obedient people show characteristics of AP

Why can obedience not always be linked with authoritarianism?

When researchers analysed participants’ scales, they found characteristics within the obedient people that were unusual for those with an AP - they did not glorify their parents, nor experience punishment in childhood

Why might other explanations for obedience be more realistic?

• In pre-war Germany, millions displaced obedient and anti-Semitic behaviour → unlikely they all had an AP.

• SIT may be more fitting → suggests majority of Germans identified with the anti-Semitic Nazi state, and scapegoated the Jews.

Why is the F-Scale biased?

• Christie & Jahoda (1954) argue the F-Scale is a politically biased right-wing interpretation of AP.

• Russian Bolshevism and Chinese Maoism show the existence of left-wing authoritarianism.

• Shows F-Scale to not be a comprehensive explanation for obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum.