obedience: dispositional explaination

Question 1

Explain where Adorno thought our personality came from

Answer 1

He suggested that the
parents were cold and controlling and that the child growing
up could not express themselves to the parent so ‘bottled up’
the hostility they felt for them and displaced this on people
who as adults they saw as inferior to them.

Question 2

define dispositional factor

Answer 2

personality

Question 3

why did Adorno do his research

Answer 3

he wanted to understand the anti Semitism of the holocaust

Question 4

what are the characteristics of the authoritarian personality

Answer 4

traditional values
view society as weaker than it once was
need strong authority figures
fixed stereotypes
see the world in black and white
show extreme respect for and submissiveness to authority

Question 5

what was the procedure of adorno’s study

Answer 5

studied more than 2000 middle-class white American men and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups by using the F scale

Question 6

what was the F scale

Answer 6

potential for fascism scale

Question 7

define fascism

Answer 7

way of organizing society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of people and they aren’t allowed to disagree with the government

Question 8

what were the findings of Adorno’s study

Answer 8

1. people higher on the F scale identified with a strong contemptuous (dislike) of the weak

2.
strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice

Question 9

what is the research that provides research support for the dispositional explaination

Answer 9

Milgram and Alan Elms (1963) found a correlation between obedience and authoritarian personality.

20 obedient participants scored higher on the F scale than the 20 disobedient participants