Obedience: Dispositional explanation

• Authoritarian Personality and Obedience

  - Adorno et al argued that people with an AUthoritatian Personality(AP) first of all show and extreme respect for (And Submissiviness) to Authority

  - Second such people view society as weaker than it once was and so believe we need powerful leaders to enforce traditional values such as love of country etc

  - Makes people more likely to obey
• Further personality traits

  - People with an Authoritatian Personality show contempt for those in a inferior social status

  - This is fuelled by their inflexible outlook on the world

  - Everything is either right or wrong they are very uncomfortable with uncertainity.

  - Therefore people who are belonging to other ethnic groups are responsible for the ills of the world.
• Origins

  - Adorono et al Bleieved the Authoritarian Personality type forms in childhood mostly as a result of harsh parenting

  - This parenting style typically features strict discipline, an expectation of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards and server criticism of perceived failings

  - Adorono argued that these childhood experiences create resentment and hostility in the child.

  - But they cannot display these feelings to wards t here parents so they displace it onto others they perceive as weaker

  - Psycho-dynamic explanation
• Adornos Research- Procedure


  Studied more than 2000 middle classs white americans and their unconcious attitudes towards other ethnic groups

  - Researchers developed several measurement scale used to measure authoritarian personality:

  -- F scale
• Findings


  - People with authroitatarian learnings identified with 'strong' people and were generally contemptuous of the weak

  - They were very conscious of people and their own status and showed respect, defence and servility to those of a higher status- These traits are basisis of obedience.
• Research Support

  - Milgram supported the Authoritarian Personality

  - MIlgram and Elms interviewed a small sample of people who had participated in his og study and been fully obedience

  - They all completed the F scale as a part of the interview

  - These 20 obedience participants scored significantly higher overall than disobedient people

  -Supports Adorno
• Counterpoint


  - However when the researches analysed the individual subscales of the F scale they found that the obedience participants had a number of characteristics that were unusual for Authoritiatians

  - E.g Milgrams Obedient participants didn't generally Glorify their fathers and did not experience unusual levels of punishment and had no hostile attitude to mothers

  - this means the link between obedience and authoritarianism is complex.
• Political Bias (limitation)


  - F scale only measures the tendency to wards an extreme form of right wind ideology

  - Christie and Johoda argued that the f scale is a politically biased interpretation of the authoritarian personality

  - They point out the reality of left wing authoritarianism in the shape of the Russia Bolshevism or Chinese Maoism.

  - In fact extreme right and left wing ideologies have a lot in common

  - For example they both emphasise the importance of complete obedience to the political authority

  - Means Adorono is not comprehensive enough to span across the political sphere
• Limited explanatio

  -Authoritarianism cannot explain the obedience behaviour in the majority of a countries pop

  - E.g Pre war Germany million of individuals displayed obedient and anti Semitic behaviour

  - This was despite the fact they must have differed in the their personalities in all sorts of ways

  - It seems extremely unlikely that they could ass posses and authoritarian personality
• Alternative View


  - Is that majority of German people identified with the anti Semitic Nazi state and scapegoated the ' out group' of Jews

  - A social identity approach
• Flawed Evidence


  - On the positive side, research with the F scale has provided the basis of an explanation of obedience based on the Authoritarian Personality

  - On the other hand some call the F scale ' a comedy of methodological errors

  - Because it is seriously flawed as you are able to get a high score by just selecting 'Agree options'

  - This means that anyone with a response bias suddenly has a authoritarian personality