A03

• What are the strengths of the dispositional explanation?

  1. Research support
• What are the limitations of the dispositional explanation?

  1. Political bias
  2. Methodological issues
  3. Individual differences
• Strength = research support

  • Elms and Milgram (1966) using participants from Milgram‘s original shock experiment
  • Sample consisted of 20 obedient participants who administered the full 450 volts and 20 disobedient participants who refused to continue
  • Completed several personality questionnaires - including Adorno’s F scale
  • Found obedient participants scored higher on the F-scale compared to disobedient participants
  • Obedient participants were also less close to their fathers during childhood
• Limitation = political bias

  • The F scale only measures the tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology
  • Christie and Jahoda (1954) argue that the F scale is a politically biased interpretation of the authoritarian personality as it does not consider evidenced cases of left-wing authoritarianism, such as Russian Bolshevism
  • In fact, right-wing and left-wing ideologies have a lot in common as they both emphasise the importance of complete obedience to political authority
  • It can therefore be said that Adorno’s theory is not a comprehensive dispositional theory as it cannot account for obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum
• Limitation = methodological issues

  • The authoritarian personality is based on flawed methodology - the use of the F-scale which is a questionnaire
  • All 30 items on the scale are worded in the same ‘direction’ which can lead to acquiescence bias, which is the tendency to agree with items on a questionnaire regardless of the content of the questions
  • As a result, people who agree with the items on the F scale may not necessarily display and align with authoritarian traits, they may be merely acquiescing
  • This, therefore, reduces the validity of the questionnaire method used in determining the degree of authoritarianism, suggesting that other factors or explanations may be responsible for obedience
• Limitation = individual differences

  • There may be individual differences that contribute to the development of the authoritarian personality
  • Middendorp and Meleon (1990) found that working class and less-educated people are more likely than well-educated people to display authoritarian personality characteristics
  • If these claims are correct, then it is possible that it is not authoritarian personality characteristics alone that lead to obedience, but also other factors, including levels of education and socio-economic status