Dispositional explanation for obedience

• Dispositional explanation of obedience

  Adorno's authoritarian personality theory
• State what Adorno's authoritarian personality theory is

  • People obey destructive orders if they have an authoritarian personality
  • People with this personality believe in strict adherence to social rules, absolute obedience towards people with more power than them and they look down on people with less power than them
  • As a result, their personality tends to be strict, rigid and aggressive
• Explain what the cause of an authoritarian personality is

  • The authoritarian personality results from over-strict parenting, which causes children to become frustrated and angry
  • Since the children feel unable to express their frustration to their parents, they take it out on people who have less power than them
• How is the authoritarian personality measured?

  To measure the extent to which a person displays authoritarian personality traits, Adorno devised a questionnaire called the F-scale
• Strength: Authoritarian personality theory has supporting evidence

  • Supported by findings from Milgram's experiemtns into obedience
  • In one variation, he asked participants to fill in the F-scale, and found a positive correlation between authoritarian personality traits and obedience: people who scored high on the F-scale were more likely to obey in his experiment
  • This provides support for Adorno's claim that those with an authoritarian personality are more likely to obey destructive orders
• Limitation: Authoritarian personality supporting research is correlational

  • Much of the support for his theory is correlational
  • Although Milgram observed a positive correlation between authoritarian personality traits and obedience, this does not mean that authoritarian personality traits cause obedience, since correlation does not mean causation
  • It is possible that a third variable, such as a level of education, underlies the correlation between authoritarian personality traits and obedience
  • This is a problem because it weakens the support for Adorno's theory
• Limitation: Adorno's authoritarian personality theory ignores situational variables

  • The theory ignores situational variables that affect obedience
  • Adorno's theory views obedience as being caused by personality, which is an individual variable
  • However, in Milgram's experiments, he found that situational variables, such as the location of the experiment and the proximity of the authority figure all affected obedience rates
  • This is a problem because it shows that Adorno's theory cannot provide a complete explanation of obedience
• Limitation: Adorno's authoritarian personality theory and real world examples

  • It cannot easily explain real world examples of destructive obedience
  • According to the theory, not everyone obeys destructive orders; it is only those who have an authoritarian personality who are likely to obey
  • Therefore, the theory cannot account for why entire social groups or societies obey, such as the obedience displayed by the Germans towards Nazis during the Second World War
  • This is a problem because it means that the theory is limited in its ability to account for real world behaviour
• Counter argument: real world application of Adorno's authoritarian personality theory

  • However, it should be noted that Adorno's theory may nonetheless explain some instances of real world obedience
  • For instance, assessments of Nazi war criminals after the war revealed that some of them did score highly on authoritative personality traits