disposition explanation obedience

• Authoritarian Personality


  A psychological disorder characterized by extreme respect and submissiveness to authority, belief in the need for strong leaders, and contempt for those of inferior social status
• Adorno et al. believed that the causes of obedience lie in the personality of the individual rather than in the situation
• People with Authoritarian Personality


  • Show an extreme respect for (and submissiveness to) authority
  • View society as 'weaker' than it once was, so believe we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values
  • Show contempt for those of inferior social status
  • Have an inflexible outlook on the world with no 'grey areas', everything is either right or wrong
• People with Authoritarian Personality


  Are more likely to obey orders from a source of authority
• People with Authoritarian Personality are likely to obey orders from authority figures even when such orders are destructive (as in Nazi Germany)
• Origins of the Authoritarian Personality


  Formed in childhood, mostly as a result of harsh parenting featuring extremely strict discipline, expectation of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards, and severe criticism of perceived failings
• Harsh parenting in childhood


  Creates resentment and hostility in a child, which is then displaced onto others who are perceived to be weaker, in a process known as scapegoating
• Adorno et al. (1950) studied more than 2000 middle-class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic groups, developing measurement scales like the potential-for-fascism scale (F-scale)
• People with authoritarian leanings (high F-scale scores)


  • Identify with 'strong' people and are contemptuous of the weak
  • Are very conscious of status (their own and others) and show extreme respect, deference and servility to those of higher status
  • Have a 'black and white' thinking style with fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other groups
• Adorno et al. found a strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice
• Milgram's obedient participants scored significantly higher on the F-scale than a comparison group of disobedient participants, supporting Adorno et al's view
• However, the obedient participants differed from authoritarians in several ways, such as not glorifying their fathers, not experiencing unusual punishment in childhood, and not having particularly hostile attitudes towards their mothers
• This means the link between obedience and authoritarianism is complex, and authoritarianism is unlikely to be a useful predictor of obedience
• Milgram's experiment was criticised as it lacked ecological validity, with participants being deceived about the true nature of the experiment.