dispositional explanation for obedience

• What is meant by the term "dispositional explanation"?

  Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual's personality (I.e. their disposition). Such explanations are often contrasted with situational explanations.
• What is meant by the key term "authoritarian personality"?


  A type of personality that Adorno argues was especially susceptible to obeying people on authority. Such individuals are also thought to be submissive to those of higher status and dismissive of inferiors.
• Describe the procedure which was used by Adorno in his 1950 research


  The study investigated unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups of more than 2000 middle class white Americans. Several scales were developed including the potential for a fascism scale (F-scale). An example from the F-scale: 'Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues for children to learn'. & 'there is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel great love gratitude and respect for his parents'
• What were Adorno's findings?

  Authoritarians (who scored high on the F-scale and other measures) identified with 'strong' people and were contemptuous of the weak. They were conscious of their own and others status, showing excessive respect and deference to those of a higher status. Authoritarians also had a cognitive style where there was no 'fuzziness' between categories of people.
• According to Adorno, what are the characteristics of someone with an Authoritarian personality?

  -Exaggerated respect for authority and submissiveness to it.

  -Express contempt for people of inferior social status.

  -Conventional attitudes towards race and gender.
• How did Adorno explain the origins of an authoritarian personality?

  Authoritarian personality forms in childhood through harsh parenting; extremely strict discipline, expectation of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards and severe criticism. It is also characterised by conditional love - parents' love depends entirely on how their child behaves.
• How did research by Milgram and Elms support Adorno's dispositional explanation?

  Elms and Milgram (1966) interviewed 20 fully obedient participants from Milgram's study - they scored significantly higher on the F-scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient participants. this suggests that obedient people may share many of the same characteristics of people with an authoritarian personality.
• Why must Milgram and Elm's research evidence be treated with caution?

  The link is just a correlation between measured variables. We cannot conclude from the data that authoritarian personality causes obedience. A 'third factor' may be involved. Both obedience and authoritarian personality may be caused by a lower level of education (Hyman and Sheatsley 1954)
• Why might social identity theory be a better explanation of obedience in Nazi Germany than Adorno's personality theory?


  Millions of individuals in Germany displayed obedient and anti-semitic behaviour - but didn't have the same personality. It seems unlikely the majority of Germany's population possessed an authoritarian personality. A more likely explanation that germans identified with the Nazi state. therefore Social Identity Theory may be a better explanation
• It has been suggested that the F-scale represents a politically biased interpretation of an authoritarian personality. Explain this view.


  Christine and Jahoda (1954) suggest the F-scale aims to measure tendency towards extreme right-wing ideology. But right-wing and left-wing authoritarianism both insist on complete obedience to political authority. Adorno's theory is not a comprehensive dispositional explanation of obedience to authority because it doesn't explain obedience to left-wing authoritarianism.
• What is meant by the term acquiescence bias? How has this been used as a methodological criticism of the F-scale?


  Greenstein (1969) Acquiescence bias - Tendency for a person to respond to any questionnaire/interview with agreement regardless of the actual content. Geeenstein suggests the F-scale is a 'comedy of methodological errors' because items are worded in the same direct so the scale just measures the tendency to agree with everything.
• Why is it that Adorno is unable to claim that a harsh parenting style causes an authoritarian personality?

  No matter how strong a correlation is between two variables, it does not mean the one causes the other.
• counterpoint to elms and milgrams research 1966

  the subscales of the F-scale showed that obedient participants had characteristics that were unusual for authoritarians e.g. they did not experience high levels of punishment in childhood. this suggests a complex link and means that authoritarianism is not a useful predictor of obedience