Dispositional

• What is dispositional ?


  Obey due to your personality
• What is the main dispositional explanation ?

  authoritatian perosnality
• What is authoritarian personality ?

  • obedient personally
  • comes from strict parenting
  • strong understanding of social hierarchy
• What are characteristics of AP?

  • obedient to authority
  • respect for authority( submissive)
  • disobey people with inferior social status
  • high conventional attitudes towards sex , race + gender
  • believe need a strong leader to enforce traditional roles
  • in flexible outlook
  • no grey areas - right or wrong
  • uncomfortable with uncertainty
• What are origins of AP?

  • strict parenting
  • harsh punishment

  - expected loyalty

  - impossible standards

  - criticism of failings

  • conditional love
  • resentment + hostility in child
  • resent parents so take out on others
• What did adolf eichman do ?

  • organise holocaust
  • planned detail sending of jews to camps
  • authoritarian personality to hitler
  • legitimacy of authority - hitler is leader
  • agency theory - agent to hitler
• What research support for AP ?


  Adorno - prejudice against Jews
• What did Adorno do ?

  • 2000 middle class white American + unconscious attitude to racial groups
  • develop the F scale to measure AP traits
  • higher score higher AP
• Findings of F scale

  • like strong people not weak (hierarchy)
  • conscious or own + others status - show respect to those who are higher
  • fixed steryotypes about other groups
  • strong positive correlation between prejudice + AP
• What is the F - scale 


  -30 questions

  • showed how high on a scale someone was with an authoritarian personality
• Evaluation ?

  1. Research support
  2. self report
  3. hard to differentiate between situational + dispositional explanations