Dispositional Explanation - Authoritarian Personality

Question 1

What are dispositional factors?

Answer 1

Dispositional factors involve internal characteristics

• personality

Question 2

KEY STUDIES

Answer 2

• ADORNO
• MILGRAM AND ELMS

Question 3

ADORNO

Answer 3

ADORNO

proposed the concept of the authoritarian personality:

• hostile to people seen as inferior
• servile to people seen as superior
• contemptuous of weakness
• rigid and inflexible
• unwilling to introspect

studied 2000 white middle-class Americans to reveal unconscious attitudes towards minority groups

• Anti-semitism
• Ethnocentricity
• Fascism (F-scale)
• found positive correlation between AP measured of F-scale and prejudice
• harsh, punishing disciplinarian upbrining with little affection
• creates resentment and hostility displaced onto minorities - psychodynamic explanation

Question 4

MILGRAM AND ELMS

Answer 4

MILGRAM AND ELMS

• carried out small scale study on ppts who had obeyed to max voltage
• found positive correlation between AP (higher scores on F-scale) and obedience
• they admired the experimenter

Question 5

EVALUATIONS

Answer 5

EVALUATIONS

• F-sclae methodological weaknesses
• Milgram and Elms correlation
• Struggles to explain whole population - Nazi Germany

Question 6

EVAL: Methodological weakness in using the F-scale

Answer 6

Methodological weakness in using the F-scale

• questions worded in the same direction
• ppts could have a natural tendency to find agreement in new info - acquiescence bias
• response bias, social desirability bias
• lacks internal validity and not accurately measure personality type

Question 7

EVAL: Milgram and Elm’s study was correlational

Answer 7

Milgram and Elm’s study was correlational

• compared F-scale for 100% obedient ppts to thos who disobeyed
• intervening variables not controlled e.g education level, less educated more likely to display AP characteristics
• only measures relationship between 2 variables so does not mean AP is the only/most significant cause of obedience
• weakness- exact relationship not established

Question 8

EVAL: Struggles to explain whole population - Nazi Germany

Answer 8

Struggles to explain whole population - Nazi Germany

• unlikely whole population has the same personality type - whole of Nazi Germany unanimously supported Hitler during the holocaust
• situational factors and conformity may have been present
• identity theory - individual identifies with the community - Nazi Germany were oppositon to the outgroup (Jews)
• weakness, incomplete explanation in real life examples, lacks explanatory power