Obedience - Dispositional Explanation

• Dispositional Explanations

  • any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual’s personality
• Authoritarian Personality

  • a type of personality Adorno argued that was susceptible to obeying people in authority
  • individuals are thought to be submissive to those of higher status and dismissive of inferiors
• Adorno et al research (1950)

  • studied 2000 middle class white americans and their unconscious attitudes towards racial groups and used the F-Scale.
  • people with authoritarian learnings identified with strong people and contemptuous of the weak
  • conscious of their status, showed extreme respect, deference and severalty to those with higher status
  • had fixed stereotypes about groups
  • strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice
• Research support

  Elms and Milgrim (1966)

  • interviews small sample of people who took part in the original study and were fully obedient
  • all completed the F scale as
  • 20 obedient participants scored highly of the scale compared to disobedient participants
• Limited explanation

  • pre-war germany many dispalyed obedient and racist personalities
  • unlikely they all possessed an authoritarian personality
  • majority of german people identified with the anti-semantic Nazi state
• F - Scale

  • measure different aspects of the authoritarian personality
  • conventionalism - obedience and respect for authority are the most important values a child should learn
  • authoritarian aggression - sex crimes on children deserve more than imprisonment
  • power and toughness - people can be divided into two distinct classes, strong and weak
  • rate their level of agreement with statements so that a score can be calculated