dispositional explanation SI

Question 1

dispositional explanation

Answer 1

any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual’s personality

Question 1

authoritarian personality

Answer 1

a type of personality that Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority

Question 2

contempt

Answer 2

the feeling that a person or a thing is worthless or beneath consideration

Question 3

‘other’

Answer 3

people who belong to a different ethnic group

Question 4

fascism

Answer 4

a way of organising a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government

Question 5

right wing

Answer 5

capitalism, wealth, keeping the wealthy wealthy

Question 6

left wing

Answer 6

keeping everything equal

Question 7

What did Adorno want to do?

Answer 7

understand anti-semitism of the Holocaust → very different conclusions from Milgram

Causes for disorder are personality not situation

Question 8

people with authoritarian perosnality

Answer 8

• Extreme respect ( + submissiveness) for authority
• View society as weaker than before
• Believe we need strong powerful leaders to enforce traditional values
  → love of country
  → love of family
• More likely to obey orders from authority
• Show contempt for people with inferior social status → fueled by inflexible outlook on world
• Very uncomfortable with uncertainty
• ‘Other’ people
  → responsible for bad parts of society
  → convenient target
  → Nazi germany

Question 9

origins of authoritarian personality

Answer 9

Adorno thinks the personality type forms in childhood as a result of harsh parenting

Parenting style features:
* Strict discipline
* Expectations of complete loyalty
* High standards
* Severe criticism of perceived failing
* Conditional love

These experiences create resentment and hostility in a child and they displace their fears onto others whom they perceive as weaker - scapegoating

Question 10

Adorno’s procedure

Answer 10

• 2000+ white American males
• unconscious attitudes to other ethnic groups
• several measurement scales

Question 11

Adorno’s findings

Answer 11

• identified with ‘strong’ people and comtemtouous towards ‘weak’ people
• conscious of status
• positive correlation between prejudice and authoritarianism
• certain cognitive style

Question 12

resarch support and counterpoint

strength + limitation

Answer 12

• Milgram and elms
• Interviewed small sample of original participants (fully obedient)
• F-scale was higher than when 20 disobeying participants took it

Obedient people might show similar characteristics to AP

BUT
* Researchers analysed individual subscales of F-scale
* Obedient participants had unusual characteristics for authoritarians

Complex link between authoritarianism and obedience

Question 13

limited explanation

limitation

Answer 13

• Can’t explain obedient behaviour in majority of a countries population
• Pre war germany, millions of individuals displayed obedient and anti-semitic behaviour
• Germans identified with the nazi state → social identity theory

An alternate explanation is more realistic

Question 14

political bias

limitation

Answer 14

• F-scale only measures tendency towards extreme form of right-wing ideology
• Christie and Jahoda
• Politically-biassed

Not a comprehensive dispositional explanation across the whole political spectrum

Question 15

flawed evidence

limitation

Answer 15

** greenstein** calls f-scale ‘a comedy of methodological errors’