O- Dispositional explanation

• Obedience- Dispositional explanation-

  Authoritarian personality (AP)-

  • Adorno et al suggested that at first people show extreme respect and submissive to authority, second, they view society as weaker than before and that a strong powerful leader is needed to stay true to their country.
  • Both make the person more likely to obey to an authoritative figure.
  • They show pity for those with lower social status due to their inflexible outlook on the world since everything is either right or wrong in their eyes.
• Obedience- Dispositional explanation

  Authoritarian personality (AP)

  • Differences (origins, background, race) responsible for the ‘downfall’ of society making them a target, alike to Hitler and the Nazis.
  • AP is from the way people were raised through harsh parenting with strict discipline, high standards, extreme loyalty, and severe criticism for failing.
  • Adorno states that childhood experiences creates resentment and hostility towards the parents that can’t be expressed due to the fear of punishment, so they project onto those who are weaker or are different.
• Obedeince - Dispositional explanation-

  Authortarian personality (AP)-

  W- Can’t explain obedience in a majority of a country’s population – Germany pre-war population was obedient to the anti-semantic behaviour, despite all being different.
• Obedeince - Dispositional explanation-

  Authortarian personality (AP)-

  CPS- Elms and Milgram (1966) interviewed a sample from the original obedience study that had been fully obedient, completed the F-scale and the 20 scored significantly higher than the 20 that were disobedient.

  CPW- Participants also had unusual characteristics for authoritarians since the obedient participants didn’t glorify their father or have unusual levels of punishments in their childhood, making the link more complex.
• Obedience- Dispositional explaination-

  Adorno’s research-

  • over 2000 American middle-class males subconscious attitudes to other ethnic groups using the F-scale (fascism)
  • Looking for the views - ‘obedience + respect is important to learn towards authority‘ + ‘nothing lower than someone who doesn’t feel love for their parents’
• Obedience - dispositional explanation-

  Adorno‘s findings-

  • high f-scale= strong, hating the weak, status conscious, respectful of higher status
  • certain cognitive type of thinking very black and white, with fixed stereotypes of groups
  • positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice