Dispositional explanations of obedience

• What is the dispositional explanation of obedience?

  Authoritarian personality
• 5 characteristics of an authoritarian personality

  Susceptible to obeying and being submissive to authority

  Dismissive of inferiors and show contempt towards them

  Highly conventional attitudes towards sex, race, and gender

  Extreme respect for authority as they believe we need strong leaders to enforce traditional values

  Inflexible - everything is either right or wrong
• Origin of the authoritarian personality

  Forms in childhood as a result of harsh parenting characterized by strict discipline, absolute loyalty, high standards, criticism, and conditional love
• How does harsh parenting create an authoritarian personality?

  Creates resentment and hostility that can't be expressed due to fear of reprisals, so the resentment is displaced onto others who are seen as weaker
• Who investigated the authoritarian personality?

  Adorno et al
• Procedure of Adorno's study

  They investigated unconscious attitudes towards racial groups in 2000 white Americans

  Developed the potential for facism sclale (F scale) to measure authoritarian personality
• Findings of Adorno et al's study

  People with authoritarian leanings (high on the F scale) identified with 'strong' people and were contemptuous of the 'weak'

  Very conscious of their own and others' status

  Excessive respect, deference, and servility to higher status

  Cognitive style with no 'fuzziness' between categories of people with fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other groups

  Positive correlation between authoritarian personality and prejudice