OBEDIENCE: DISPOSITIONAL EXPLANATIONS Flashcards
1
Q
ADORNO ET AL. (1950)
PROCEDURE
A
- investigated causes of obedient personality in 2000 middle-class, white Americans and their UNCONSCIOUS attitudes towards other racial groups
- developed the fascism scale (F-scale) used to measure AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
2
Q
FINDINGS
A
- those who scored high on the F-scale identified with ‘strong’ people and were generally contemptuous of the ‘weak’
- very conscious of their own and others’ status, showing excessive respect, deference and servility to those of higher status
- authoritarian people had no ‘fuzziness’ between categories of people –> had fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other groups
- STRONG POSITIVE CORRELATION between AUTHORITARIANISM and PREJUDICE
3
Q
AUTHORITARIAN CHARACTERISTICS
A
- tendency to be especially obedient to authority
- extreme respect and submissiveness for authority
- prejudice against people they perceive as having an inferior social status
- high controversial attitudes towards sex, race and gender.
- believe we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values such as love of country, religion and family
- INFLEXIBLE in their outlook
4
Q
ORIGIN OF THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
A
- formed in childhood, as a result of harsh parenting:
5
Q
ORIGIN OF THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
A
- formed in childhood, as a result of harsh parenting:
- extremely strict discipline
- expectation of absolute loyalty
- impossibly high standards
- severe criticism of perceived failing
- CONDITIONAL LOVE
creates resentment and hostility in the child, but the child cannot express these feelings directly to the parents due to a fear of punishment - fears are DISPLACED onto others who are perceived as inferior
- PSYCHODYNAMIC EXPLANATION
6
Q
AO3: RESEARCH SUPPORT
A
- interviews between fully obedient ppts, who scored highly on the F-scale –> link between obedience and authoritarian personality
HOWEVER, link = merely a correlation between 2 measured variables - impossible to draw the conclusions that authoritarian personality causes obedience
- may have a ‘third factor’ involved
- e.g. both obedience and authoritarian personality may be associated with a lower level of education and are not directly linked with each other at all
7
Q
AO3: LIMITED EXPLANATION
A
- any explanation of obedience in terms of individual personality will find it hard to explain obedient behaviour in the majority of a country’s population
- e.g. millions of pre-war Germany individuals displayed obedient, racist and anti-Semitic behaviour despite different personalities
- seems unlikely that they could all possess an authoritarian personality
- clear that an alternative explanation = much more realistic –> SOCIAL IDENTITY explains obedience
8
Q
AO3: POLITICAL BIAS
A
- F-scale measures tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology
- CHRISTIE & JAHODA –> politically biased interpretation of the authoritarian personality
- point out the reality of left-wing authoritarianism
- in reality, RW and LW ideologies have much in common –> both emphasise importance of complete obedience to legitimate political authority
- not a comprehensive dispositional explanation that can account for obedience across the whole political spectrum
9
Q
AO3: METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
A
- based on a flawed methodology
- every one of the F-scale’s items is worded in the same ‘direction’ –> possible to get a high score for authoritarianism just by ticking the same line of boxes down one side of the page
- people who agree with the items on the F-scale are not necessarily authoritarian; the survey respondents just have a tendency to agree with the statements
- not a true reflection of their own opinions
ALSO: the researchers knew the ppts’ test scores whilst interviewing about their childhood experiences, therefore creating LEADING QUESTIONS to try and force an explanation to match the results: RESEARCHER BIAS. - LOW INTERNAL VALIDITY
