Dispositional Explanation

• Authoritarian Personality

  • Adorno
  • people with authoritarian personality show high levels of respect for authority
  • view society as weaker than it once was
• Origins of authoritarian personality

  • result of harsh parenting in childhood
  • conditional love
  • psychodynamic explanation
• Adorno et al. (1950)

  • 2000 middle-class white americans
  • developed several measurement scales e.g. F-scale
• Strengths of Authoritarian personality

  • research support from Milgram - the participants that obeyed in his study scored higher on F-scale
• Limitations of authoritarian personality

  • political bias - extreme right wing ideology
  • cannot explain obedience of majority of a country - germany - all people have different personalities