How did millions form the nazi party if obedience is dispositional?
Its clear that there's other factors involved, such as social identity
Political bias
Only measures the tendency towards an extreme right-wing ideology
Left wing can be equally destructive
Both seek obedience to legitimate authority - Chinese Maoism
Is therefore not very comprehensive
Methodological problems
Greenstein (1969) - "F-scale is a comedy of methodological errors"
The wording encourages agreement
Those deemed authoritarian are now those who are most willing to agree
Issues with correlation
Correlation looks at the relationship between two variables
Authoritarianism + Obedience
Authoritarianism + prejudice
Harsh parenting + Obedience
Correlation does not always equal causation
Elms and Milgram (1966) - Aim
They researched into whether people with authoritarian personalities are more likely to obey an authoritative figure
Elms and Milgram (1966) - Procedure
Found participants from Milgram's last experiment (2 months prior)
20 'obedient' participants and 20 'defiant' participants (the ones that continued shocking and the ones that didn't)
Took a personality test and an F-scale test
Then asked open ended questions about things such as childhood, parents and their attitudes towards observer, teacher and participant in the prior experiment
Elms and Milgram (1966) - Findings
Little difference between 'defiant' and 'obedient' on personality test
Elms and Milgram (1966) - Conclusion
The link is merely a correlation, not a causation - meaning that authoritarian personalities and obedience are not dependent on each other
