obedience - dispositional explanations

• Adorno:

  • wanted to understand anti semitism of holocaust
  • considered obedience to be a psychological disorder caused by personality of person
• authoritarian personality:

  • show extreme respect + submissiveness to authority
  • view society as weak - need for strong leaders to explore traditional values
  • contempt for those with inferior social status
  • inflexible outlook on world
• origins of authoritarian personality:

  • strict discipline
  • absolute loyalty
  • conditional love
  • impossibly high standards + criticisms of failings
  • resentment cant be voiced against parents - displaced on others who are perceived as weaker
• adorno's procedure:

  • studied more than 2000 middle class white americans + unconscious attitudes towards racial groups
  • developed f scale to measure personality
  • participants asked to agree/disagree with statements e.g homosexuals are hardly better than criminals
• adornos findings(high scores identified with):

  • strong people conscious of status
  • contemptuous of weak
  • showed excessive respect for higher status
  • authoritarian personality = higher obedience
• certain cognitive style:

  • no fuzziness between categories of people
  • fixed + distinct stereotypes
  • strong positive correlation between authoritarian and prejudice
• EVALUATION: research support for authoritarian as explanation

  • milgram + elms - post experimental interviews with 20 participants, link between authoritarian personality + obedience
  • obedient people scored higher on f scale + less close to fathers in childhood + admired milgram experimenter - opposite for disobedient
  • supports view that obedient people have similar characteristics to authoritarian personality
• EVALUATION: limited explanation

  • cant explain obedience in majority of population - pre war germany, millions displayed racism + antisemitism despite personality
  • extremely unlikely they all had authoritarian personality - alternative view, majority identified with nazi state, scapegoated outgroup of jewish people
  • alternative explanation is more realistic
• EVALUATION: methodological issues with way of determining traits

  • greenstein - f scale as comedy of methodological issues, every item worded in same direction + possible to get higher by picking agree
  • f scale suffers from social desirability bias - appear more authoritarian because views appear socially correct, incorrectly classified
  • lowers internal validity, provides flawed evidence of determining degree of authoritarianism