SI, Explanations for Obedience

Question 1

Outline the authoritarian personlity

Answer 1

• dispositional
• type of personality that shows extreme respect to figures in power, have rigid beliefs, disciplined parenting led to expectation of ‘perfect’ behaviour

Question 2

Outline Adorno’s research on the authoritarian personality

Answer 2

• Adorno et al (1950)
• developed a questionnaire called the F-Scale
• aim was to measure how fascist a person was
• studied over 2000 white US M/C families & unconscious attitude toward other racial groups
• people who scored highly often identified with ‘strong people’ with black & white views, strong positive correlation between authoritarianism & prejudice

Question 3

Strengths

Answer 3

• Elms & Milgram: interviewed small sample of Milgram’s original participants who fully obeyed, they took the F-Scale & scored significantly higher than those who didn’t obey
• Real life application: similar behaviour in dictators like Mussolini, real-life evidence for the authoritarian personality

Question 4

Limitations

Answer 4

• Greenstein (1969): self-report studies open to social desirability, easy to manipulate the test (answering with agree each time)
• Extreme left-wingers also show authoritarianism (Stalin)