Evaluate

• Dispositional explanations focus too much on the individual making generalisations difficult


  to take issues like disobedience and anti-social behaviour, we need to be able to identify situations where we can predict anti-social behaviour and create interventions that can address this and encourage pro-social behaviour instead.
• Dispositional explanations of conformity and obedience are reductionist


  they ignore the evidence that suggests that we are also influenced by those around. Therefore it does not give us a complete picture of why people conform and obey.
• Kohlberg’s research is not generalisable


  it is biased to Western Cultures and does not take into account other cultures’ perspectives on morality. This means that it may not give a valid idea of the levels of morality in other cultures.
• Locus of control may not be a good explanation for crowd behaviour as people can have a different locus of control depending on the situation that they are in 


  therefore this may make behaviour harder to predict and may not offer a useful explanation for how people behave in crowd situations.
• Authoritarian personality does not explain why people who have not experienced harsh parenting are obedient


  the theory is limited in that it only really explains one aspect of why people obey. It cannot be generalised to people who have not experienced harsh parenting.
• Kohlberg’s research is gender biased


  Research only used a male sample. The results were used to create the stages of his theory. Females generally score lower on the F-scale than males suggesting that females may view morality in a different way to males – males are more focused on justice, females on caring. This means the theory may not offer a good view of why females behave in pro or anti-social ways.