authoritarian personality- dispositional explanation

• dispositional explanation

  any explanation of behaviour that considers the importance of the individual’s personality rather than situational influences in the environment
• authoritarian personality

  • Is a distinct personality pattern characterised by strict adherence to conventional values and a belief in absolute obedience or submission to authority.
  • One of the various characteristics of the authoritarian personality was that the individual is hostile to those who are of inferior status, but obedient of people with high status.
• the F scale

  used by Adorno to measure the different components that made up the authoritarian personality.It contained statements and agreeing with such items demonstrated an authoritarian personality.Individuals with this type of personality saw the world as black and white and followed strict adherence to social rules and hierarchies. Adorno found that those who scored high on the F scale were raised by parents who used an authoritarian parenting style.
• elms and milgram study

  One of the major debates concerning Milgram’s study of obedience was whether participants’ behaviour was due to the specific situational conditions or whether it was dispositional(the result of a particular personality pattern).
• procedure of elms and milgram

  • The researchers carried out a follow up study of Milgram’s experiment using participants who had previously participated in Migram’s experiment 2 months before.They selected 20 obedient participants (who had continued to the final shock level)and 20 defiant participants (who had refused to continue the experiment at one point).
  • They completed a MMPI scale and the F scale.They were asked open questions about their upbringing and their attitudes to the experimenter and learner during their participation in Milgram’s study.
• findings for elms and milgram

  There was little difference between obedient and defiant participants on MMPI variables.Those who were classified as obedient had higher levels of authoritarianism than those classified as defiant.Obedient participants saw the authority figure in Milgram’s study as more admirable than the learner.This was not the case with defiant participants.These findings were consistent with the idea of the authoritarian personality.