OBD - Dispositional Explanations

• what is the definition of Authoritarian Personality?

  • a personality that is possibly more susceptible to obeying people in authority positions
  • such individuals are submissive to superiors and intolerant/dismissive of inferiors
• What are the characteristics of Authoritarian Personality?

  • extreme respect to authority
  • black and white view of life -> right and wrong
  • thinking that society is weak
  • show contempt to inferior social status
• what are the origins of Authoritarian Personality?

  forms in childhood -> as a result of harsh parenting e.g.

  • parents having impossibly high standards of loyalty and strict discipline
  • conditional love -> only when the behaviour or actions of the child are good
• what does this harsh parenting in a child create?

  • resentment in a child towards their parents
  • displaced hostility towards others
  • other people (in the world) are perceived as weak -> called scapegoating
• what was Adorno's F-Scale?

  Adorno's Fascism scale measured authoritarian personality
• what was the procedure of Adorno's F-Scale?

  • sample = 2000 white Americans
  • the questionnaire scale tested their views and unconscious attitudes on other racial groups
• what were the findings of Adorno's F-scale?

  • people with a high authoritarian personality score are contemptuous of the weak, strong people & showed extreme respect and were conscious of their status
  • have a certain cognitive style of thinking -> very black and white views
  • stereotyped group -> correlation of high authoritarian personality with prejudice
• Research Support of Authoritarian Personality

  Milgram & Elms 1966 study:

  • interviewed a small sample (of participants from Milgram's original obedience test) who were fully obedient
  • they completed the F-Scale (+ other measures)
  • findings: the 20 obedient people scored significantly higher on the F-scale than the 20 who were disobedient. The two groups showed difference.

  These findings support Adorno et al's view that obedient people will show similar characteristics to people who have an authoritarian personality
• Counterpoint of Authoritarian Personality

  Researchers analysed individual subscales of the F-scale

  -> found that obedient participants had a number of unusual characteristics for Authoritarians

  -> e.g. Milgram & Elms participants didn't glorify their fathers

  Showing that the link between obedience and authoritarianism is complex, and authoritarian personality is an unlikely a useful predictor of obedience
• Another counterpoint of Authoritarian personality

  Results of Milgram & Elm's research is correlational -> meaning it is difficult to draw a meaningful conclusion about the cause of obedience.

  Additionally, research from Middendorp & Meleon 1990 found that less-educated people are more likely to display authoritarian personality characteristics then well-educated people. If these claims are correct then it is possible to conclude that it isn't authoritarian personality that leads to obedience but education
• Limitation of Authoritarian Personality

  • cannot explain obedient behaviour to a majority of a country
  • an example of this is pre-war Germany when millions displayed obedience and Anti-Semitic views/behaviour, but all their personalities were different.
  • it seems unlikely that they could possess Authoritarian Personality as an alternate idea suggests that the million of Germans identified with the Anti-Semitic views and scapegoated them -> social identity theory -> this explanation is more realistic
• Flawed Evidence of Authoritarian Personality

  Greenstein 1969 -> thinks that the F-scale is flawed as it has methodological errors. e.g. the respoonse bias of 'agree' means that you have an Authoritarian Personality.

  • therefore Milgram & Elms' study could have suffered from social desirability bias or response bias where the participants provide socially acceptable answers instead of their personal thoughts.