dispositional factors

Dispositional explanations are those that are focused on personality factors that lead to higher obedience.

Authoritan personality

• Adorno wanted to understand the holocaust

• His research suggested that a high level of obedience was a psychological disorder believing that the cause lay in the individual’s personality.

• More likely to show obedience

Authoritarian personality traits

• Extreme respect for submissiveness to authority

• View the world weaker

• A need for strong leaders

• Inflexible outlook on the world

Developing an authoritarian personality

• Adorno believed that the AP developed in childhood

• Parenting featured strict discipline

• Parents would provide unconditional love

• Adorno suggest these experiences cause resentment

• Child cannot take this out on parents- psychodynamic explanations