Obedience: dispositional explanations

• Dispositional explanations focus on the role of personality traits in obedience, as opposed to situational factors. A key dispositional explanation is the authoritarian personality, introduced by Adorno et al. (1950).
• Adorno proposed that individuals with an authoritarian personality are more likely to obey authority figures and show prejudice towards lower-status individuals. Key traits of the authoritarian personality include:

  • Rigid adherence to conventional values.
  • Unquestioning respect for authority.
  • Aggression towards those who defy social norms or are perceived as inferior.
• Adorno suggested the authoritarian personality results from a strict upbringing, often involving harsh discipline, conditional love, and little opportunity for the child to express dissent.

  • This leads to hostility towards authority, which is repressed and displaced onto weaker individuals, fostering obedience and prejudice.
• Adorno et al. developed the F-Scale (Fascism Scale) to measure authoritarian personality traits.

  • He studied their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups.
• A strength of the dispositional explanation is that Milgram’s research provides support for the authoritarian personality. Elms and Milgram (1966) conducted a follow-up study with participants from Milgram’s obedience experiment. They found that those who obeyed to the highest level (450V) scored higher on the F-scale compared to disobedient participants and showed authoritarian personality traits. This strengthens this explanation of obedience as it indicates that dispositional factors influence obedience, increasing its credibility.
• A limitation is that the authoritarian personality explanation ignores situational influences. Milgram’s studies showed that obedience levels could be altered by changes in situational variables, such as when the authority figure was absent or the participant was in close proximity to the learner. Many participants who obeyed did not exhibit authoritarian traits, suggesting that personality alone cannot fully account for obedience. This makes the explanation reductionist, as it oversimplifies obedience by focusing solely on dispositional factors.
• A weakness of dispositional explanation is the F-scale used to measure authoritarian personality has been criticised for being culturally biased and methodologically flawed. It was developed in a Western context and reflects middle-class, American values, making it less applicable to other cultures. Additionally, the F-scale is prone to response bias, as participants can give socially desirable answers to avoid social rejection. This undermines the validity of the findings and the usefulness of the authoritarian personality as a universal explanation for obedience.
• Adorno et al found that individuals with high F-scale scores were more likely to obey authority figures and hold rigid, prejudiced attitudes.

  • This supported their theory that an authoritarian personality predisposes people to be more obedient.