Social influence - dispositional explanations of obedience

• Authoritarian personality


  Associated with higher levels of obedience
• Authoritarian personality


  • Laid in early childhood due to harsh or strict parenting
  • Parental love is conditional and dependent on behaviours
  • Creates resentment as they displace feelings and are seen as weak or inferior
  • Leads to scapegoating
• Adorno et al. 1950: 'Authoritarian personality is associated with higher levels of obedience'
• Pum: 2000 study on middle class Caucasian Americans to find out unconscious views towards other racial groups
• Method


  1. Number of questionnaires (one being the F-scale which measures fascist tendencies and right-wing ideology)

  2. Completed F-scale
• Obedience and respect for authority


  Most important virtue for kids to learn
• • Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals and should be severely punished
  • Nothing lower than a person he doesn't feel deserves one's respect for parents
• Findings


  • Those who scored high on the scale identified with strong people and disrespected the weak
  • Respected those in power
  • Authoritarian people had a cognitive style leading to a strong correlation between authoritarianism and prejudices
• Evaluating authoritarian personality


  • Individual differences, less educated may be more obedient
  • Methodological critics: social desirability
  • Political bias