Social influence (obedience) - dispositional explanation

• what is the dispositional explanation? any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of an individuals personality
• what are the characteristics of an authoritarian personality? - respect and submissive to authority

  - view society as weaker than it once was

  - believe we need strong/powerful leaders to enforce traditional values

  - show contempt to those with a lower status

  - black and white thinking

  - distinct stereotypes about other groups
• what are the origins of an authoritarian personality? forms in childhood as a result of harsh parenting (disciplined, high standards, severe criticism, give conditional love)
• what did adorno argue was the impact of this? creates resentment in a child

  child cannot express feelings against parent due to fear of punishment

  their fears are displaced onto those they perceive to be weaker
• what is scapegoating? displacing fears onto those that they perceive to be weaker
• when did adorno conduct his research?


  1950
• who did adorno study?


  2000 caucasian middle class americans
• what was the aim of adornos research? to look at people's unconscious attitudes to ethnic groups
• what did adorno use to study this? the 'f' scale
• what is the f scale? Fascism scale used to measure authoritarian personality
• what were adornos findings? those who scored high identified with strong people and were contemptuous of the weak - conscious of status - showed respect to higher status

  - they had a certain cognitive style - fixed stereotypes
• what did adorno find a positive correlation between? authoritarianism and prejudice
• strengths - research support: P - research support from milgram

  E - Elms and Milgram 1966 - interview small sample who were in original obedience studies and been obedient - they completed F scale and scored higher on the overall f scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient pps

  T - supports adorno's view that obedient people may show similar characteristics to those with authoritarian personality
• counterpoint to strength - research support: P - researchers analysed individual subscales of f scale

  E - obedient pps had characteristics that were different for authoritarians e.g they didn't glorify fathers, experience increased punishment in childhood or have hostile attitudes towards their mothers

  T - link between obedient and authoritarianism is complex
• limitation - limited explanation: P - can't explain obedient behaviour in majority of countries population

  E - pre war germany, millions displayed obedient behaviour but it is unlikely they all had authoritarian personality

  alternative view is that the majority of germans identified with anti semitic nazi state and scapegoated the our group of jews (social identify theory)

  T - adornos theory is limited as an alternative explanation is more realistic
• limitation - political bias: P - f scale only measures tendency towards extreme form of right wing ideology

  E - richard christie and jahoda 1954 argued the f scale is a politically biased interpretation of authoritarian personality

  - points out left wing authoritarianidm in the shape of Russian Bolshevism or Chinese Maoism

  - extreme right and left wing ideologies have lots in common e.g both emphasise important of obedience to political authority