Obedience: dispositional explanations

• Obedience: dispositional explanations

  The authoritarian personality

  Procedure

  Adorno et al. (1950) investigated the causes of the obedient personality in a study of more than 2000 middle-class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups. They developed the potential for fascism scale (F-scale) which is still used to measure authoritarian personality.
• Obedience: dispositional explanations

  The authoritarian personality

  Findings

  People w/ authoritarian leanings (i.e. scored high on the F-scale) identified w/ 'strong' people and were generally contemptuous of the 'weak'. Were very conscious of their own and others' status showing excessive respect, deference and servility to those of higher status. Had fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other groups. Strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.
• Obedience: dispositional explanations

  The authoritarian personality

  Authoritarian characteristics

  Concluded that people w/ an authoritarian personality have a tendency to be especially obedient to authority. Show contempt for people they perceive as having inferior social status and have highly conventional attitudes towards sex, race and gender. Believe we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values.
• Obedience: dispositional explanations

  The authoritarian personality

  Origin of the authoritarian personality

  Concluded that it formed in childhood as a result of harsh parenting. Typically, parenting style features extremely strict discipline, an expectation of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards and conditional love. Adorno argued that these experiences create resentment and hostility in the child, which is displaced onto others who are perceived to be weaker (scapegoating). Explains central trait of obedience to higher authority.
• Obedience: dispositional explanations

  The authoritarian personality- evaluation

  Only a correlation between obedience and authoritarian personality. May be that a 'third factor' is involved- e.g., obedience and authoritarian personality may be associated w/ lower levels of education and are not directly linked at all. Makes it impossible to draw conclusion that authoritarian personality causes obedience.
• Obedience: dispositional explanations

  The authoritarian personality- evaluation 2

  It is clear that an alternative explanation from individual personality is much more realistic- that social identity explains obedience. Goldhagen (1996) argued in 'Hitler's Willing Executioners' that majority of German people identified w/ the anti-Semitic Nazi state and scape-goated the 'outgroup' of Jews.
• Obedience: dispositional explanations

  The authoritarian personality- evaluation 3

  Political bias. F-scale measures tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology. Christie and Jahoda (1954) argued this is a politically biased explanation of authoritarian personality. They point out reality of left-wing authoritarianism (e.g., Russian Bolshevism). Therefore, not a comprehensive dispositional explanation that can account for obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum.