Obedience - Dispositional Explanations

• What does a dispositional explanation for obedience suggest?

  Due to having an Authoritarian personality
• What characterizes an Authoritarian personality?

  It makes individuals more likely to be obedient and respectful to higher-status people.
• How do individuals with an Authoritarian personality behave towards those of lower status?

  They tend to be hostile towards people they see as having a lower status.
• What is the origin of the Authoritarian personality according to the dispositional explanation for obedience?

  It develops in childhood due to having overly strict parents.
• What scale is used to measure Authoritarian personality?

  The F-scale.
• Who developed the F-scale for measuring Authoritarian personality?

  Adorno et al.
• What does the agentic state suggest about obedience?

  We obey because we act on behalf of an authority figure
• How does the agentic state challenge the authoritarian personality explanation?

  It shows that situational factors also influence obedience
• What is one strength of authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience?

  • It is supported by research by Milgram and Elms
  • Participants who were obedient in the original study scored higher on the F-Scale , compared to participants who were disobedient
  • This suggests that there is a positive relationship between having an authoritarian personality and obedience
  • The implication is that authoritarian personality is a valid explanation for obedience
• What is a counterpoint to Milgram and Elm's resarch that supports authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience?


  • It may suffer from social desirability bias, therefore authoritarian personality scores may not have been valid
  • This is because participants may have changed there answers to look good to other people
  • Milgram and Elms’ study cannot accurately conclude that there is a relationship between authoritarian personality and obedience
  • This weakens the validity of an AP as an explanation for obedience
• What is one limitation of authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience?

  • There is alternative explanations
  • Agentic state suggests we obey as we are acting on behalf of an authority figure, so we feel less personally responsible for our actions
  • This suggests that authoritarian personality isn’t a complete explanation for obedience as it only focuses on how disposition influences obedience, and doesn’t account for the impact of the situation.
  • The implication of this is that authoritarian personality lacks validity as an explanation for obedience
• One weakness of authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience?

  • It can't explain why societies are obedient
  • For example, during World War 2, a large population of Germans were obedient to Hitler
  • The authoritarian personality cannot account for this because it would be unrealistic to suggest that all followers of Hitler had the same personality
  • The implication of this is that authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience lacks internal validity as it can’t explain all real-life examples of obedience