evaluation

• strength - support from research part 1

  one strength is evidence from Milgram supporting the authoritarian personality

  milgram, together with Elms interviewed a small sample of people who had participated in the original obedience studies and been fully obedient. they all completed the f-scale as part of the interview.
• strength - support from research part 2

  these 20 obedient participants scored significantly higher on the overall f-scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient participants. the two groups were clearly quite different in terms of authoritarianism.

  this finding supports adorno et al's view that obedient people may well show similar characteristics to people who have an authoritarian personality.
• counterpoint 1


  however, when the researchers analysed the individual sub scaled of the f-scale, they found that the obedient participants had a number of characteristics that were unusual for authoritarians.

  for example, unlike authoritarians, milgrams obedient participants generally did not glorify their fathers, did not experience unusual levels of punishment in childhood and did mot have particularly hostile attitudes towards their mothers.
• counterpoint 2


  this means that the link between obedience and authoritarianism is complex. the obedient participants were unlike authoritarians in so many ways that authoritarianism is unlikely to be a useful predictor of obedience.
• limitation - limited explanation part 1

  one limitation is that authoritarianism cannot explain obedient behaviour in the majority of a country population.

  for example, in ore-war Germany, millions of individuals displayed obedient and anti-sematic behaviour. This was despite the fact that they must have differed in their personalities in all sorts of ways. it seems extremely unlikely that they could all possess an authoritarian personality.
• limitation - limited explanation part 2

  an alternative view is that the majority of the German people identified with the anti-sematic nazi state, and scapegoated the 'outgrip' of jews, a social identity theory approach.

  therefore Adorno's theory is limited because an alternative explanation is much more realistic.
• limitation - political bias part 1

  another limitation is that the f-scale only measures tendency towards an extreme form of right wing ideology.

  christie and jahoda argued that the f-scale is a politically biased interpretation of authoritarian personality. they point out the reality of left-wing authoritarianism in the shape of Russian bolshevism of Chinese Maoism.
• limitation - political bias part 2

  in fact, extreme right-wing and left-wing ideologies have a lot in common. for example, they both emphasise the importance of complete obedience to political authority.

  this means that Adornos theory is mot a comprehensive dispositional explanation that accounts for obedience to authority cross the whole political spectrum.
• weaknesses - flawed evidence

  research with the f-scale has provided the bias of an explanation of obedience based on authoritarian personality.

  however, green stein calls the f-scale a comedy of methodological errors' because it is a seriously flawed scale.

  for instance, it is possible to get a high score just by selecting agree answers. this means that anyone with this response bias is assed as having an authoritarian personality.

  therefore when considering research conducted using the f-scale we need to consider how useful is the f-scale in helping us understand obedience.