Obedience - dispositional explanation

Question 1

AO1

Answer 1

authoritarian personality = type of personality where Adorno argued was susceptible to obeying people in authority
- Adorno et. al argued those with this personality had an excessive respect for authority, view those below them as ‘weak’ (inflexible outlook), traditional values, wanted strong/powerful leaders etc.
- origins = childhood due to disciplinary/harsh parenting, conditional love & high standards etc. –> create resentment/hostility in the child & fears are displaced onto others who are ‘weaker’ = scapegoating

Question 2

AO1 - Adorno et. al’s research (1950)

Answer 2

• 2000+ middle-class white Americans & unconscious attitudes to other ethnic groups
• several measurement scales eg. potential-for-fascism scale (F-scale)
  findings:
• people with authoritarian leanings (high on F scale) identified with ‘strong’ people, conscious of status & extreme respect to higher status –> also had certain cognitive style (no ‘fuzziness’ between categories of people) - fixed/distinctive stereotypes
• strong correlation between prejudice & authoritarianism

Question 3

strength - evidence from Milgram to support

Answer 3

E: Elms & Milgram (1966) interviewed small sample (20) who’d participated in original obedience studies & were fully obedient. Completed F-scale during - they scored significantly higher on F-scale than comparison group of 20 disobedient participants.
T: supports Adorno et. al’s view that obedient people show similar characteristics to those with an authoritarian personality

BUT when researchers analysed individual subscales of the F-scale, found that they obtained many characteristics unusual for authoritarians eg. didn’t experience high levels of childhood punishments, glorify their fathers or have hostile attitudes towards their mothers –> thus, the link between obedience & authoritarianism is complex

Question 4

weakness - authoritarianism cannot fully explain obedient behaviour in majority of countries population

Answer 4

E: eg. in pre-war Germany, may displayed obedient & antisemitic behaviour despite they all had different personalities. an alternative view is the majority of german people identified with the anti-semitic nazi state & scapegoated the ‘outgroup’ of jews (social identity theory approach0
T: adorno’s theory is limited as an alternative explanation is more realistic

Question 5

weakness - F-scale only measures tendency to extreme form of right-wing ideology (political bias)

Answer 5

E: Christie & Jahoda (1954) argued it’s a politically-biased interpretation of authoritarian personality (reality of left-wing authoritarianism eg. Russian Bolshevism/Chinese Maoism) - ideologies of extreme left/right wing have a lot in common (complete obedience to political authority)
T; Adorno’s theory isn’t a comprehensive dispositional explanation that accounts for obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum