Dispositional Explenations For Obedience

Question 1

Dispositional explanations are

Answer 1

Explanations of behaviour that focus on internal characteristics of the individual

Question 2

Why did Adorno want to do his study

Answer 2

Because he was interested in investigating the willingness of Nazi soldiers to kill members of minority groups in WW2

Question 3

What are Adorno’s claims

Answer 3

-Particular personality types are more likely to obey authority
-A high level of obedience is a psychological disorder

Question 4

What was Adorno’s sample

Answer 4

More than 2000 middle-class, white Americans.

Question 5

Adorno’s procedure

Answer 5

-Study unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups.
-They developed an ‘F’ scale (potential-for-fascism) to measure the relationship between a person’s personality type and prejudiced beliefs.
-A question being “obedience and respect for
authority is the most important virtue for children to learn”

Question 6

Adorno’s findings for high F scale

Answer 6

-You identify with ‘strong’ people and are more disapproving of the ‘weak’.
-Your very conscious of yours and others’ status
-Show blind obedience and submissivness to those of higher status

Question 7

Cognitive reasoning of people high on the F scale

Answer 7

-Black and white thinking
-fixed distinctive stereotypes of others
-strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice

Question 8

Authoritarian Personality

Answer 8

-characterized by strict adherence to
conventional values and a belief in absolute
-obedience or submission to authority

Question 9

the authoritarian personality can originate from

Answer 9

Harsh parenting
-Strict discipline,
-expectation of
absolute loyalty,
-severe criticisms,
-not enough love

Question 10

harsh parenting can develop into

Answer 10

-Fear of parents so that they are excessively respectful of
authority figures
-Hatred of parent which is then displaced onto others that they deem as weaker

Question 11

Research support

Answer 11

-Milgram and Elms
-They found that those who went up to 450V scored higher on tests of authoritarian personalities
-These findings support Adorno’s claim but only correlation

Question 12

Limited explanation

Answer 12

-Isn’t a valid explanation of obedient
behavior in the majority of a country’s population
-pre-war Germany, millions of individuals all displayed obedient, racist and anti-Semitic behavior -They cannot all have had the same personality!

Question 13

Methodological issues

Answer 13

-Interviews were vulnerable to interviewer bias as the interviewer was aware of the aims of the study.
-Knowing the test score of the interviewee in advance also caused a bias