Obedience - Dispositional Factors

• Study by Adorno Aim + Procedure

  AIM: to investigate the causes of obedient personality

  PROCEDURE: studied 2,000 middle class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups using questionnaires.

  researchers developed several measurement scale e.g. F-scale to measure authoritarian personality
• Study by Adorno - Findings and Conclusion

  FINDINGS: those who scored high on F-scale identified with 'strong' people and generally disrespectful of 'weak'

  were very conscious of their own and others' status

  CONCLUSION: authoritarian people has a cognitive style which there was no fuzziness between categories of people (i.e. 'black and white' thinking).

  they'd fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other groups of people

  strong positive correlation between authoritarian and prejudice
• Authoritarian characteristics


  people with authoritarian personality have tendency to be especially obedient to authority

  extreme respect for authority + submissiveness to it

  show contempt for people have perceive as having inferior social status and having highly conventional attitudes towards sex, race, gender.

  inflexible to their outlook

  everything is right or wrong and are very uncomfortable with uncertainty
• Origin of authoritarian personality

  Adorno et la concluded the origin formed in children, result of harsh parenting.

  parenting style features extremely strict discipline, expectation of absolution loyalty, impossibly high standards + severe criticism of perceived failings

  Adorno argued these experiences create resentment + hostility in child, but child can't express this feelings directly against parents due to well-founded fear of repisals

  feelings are displaced onto other who are perceived to be weaker, scapegoating.

  explains hatred towards others considered to be socially inferior or who belong to other social groups
• Strength - support for authoritarian personality

  Zillmer et al reported 16 Nazi war criminals scored highly on 3 of F-scale dimensions

  Elms and Milgram found highly obedient ppts in Milgram's study scored highly on F-scale than the less obedient ppts

  Both studies offer some support for view personality may lead to higher levels of obedience.
• Weakness - research is correlational

  difficulty establishing cause and effect between authoritarian personality and obedience.

  Elms and Milgram's study, can't say that having an authoritarian personality caused higher obedience as there may have been another unaccounted for variable

  e.g. Hyman and Sheatsley found the authoritarian personality is more likely to exist among people who are less well educated and of low economic status

  it's not possible in any retrospective study, where we're trying to explain a behaviour through something that's happened in the past, establish the direction of effect.

  could be authoritarian view of ppts resulted from experience of being part of Nazi regime
• Weakness - limited explanation of obedience

  any explanation of obedience in terms of individual personality will find it hard to explain obedient behaviour in majority of country's population

  e.g. in pre-war Germany, million of individuals displayed obedient and anti-semitic behaviour but didn't have same personality. seems unlikely majority of Germany's population possessed an authoritarian personality.

  Weakness of Adorno's theory - clear that an alternative explanation is much more realistic - social identity explains obedience.
• Weakness - methodological issues with f-scale

  Elms and Milgram used Adorno's F scale to determine levels of authoritarian personality.

  possible that f-scale suffers from response bias or social desirability, where ppts provide answers are socially acceptable.

  e.g. ppts may appear more authoritarian as they believe their answers are socially 'correct' and consequently they're incorrectly classified as authoritarian when they're not

  Weakness - not a true reflection of their personality