Obedience: Dispositional Explanation

Question 1

Explain Dispositional Explanation?

Answer 1

Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of an individuals behaviour

Question 2

What is the Authoritarian personality?

Answer 2

• A type of personality that Adorno argued was for people obeying people in authority. Also submissive to those in higher status

Question 3

Explain the authoritarian personality and obedience?

Answer 3

• Adorno argued that people with AP show extreme respect for people of authority. And we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values which will make people with AP obey.
• People with AP also show contempt for those in inferior social status. For example everything is write or wrong therefore people from other ethnicities are responsible for ills of society.

Question 4

Explain the origins of Authoritarian personality?

Answer 4

• Ardono thinks it forms from childhood mostly from harsh parenting.
• E.g strict discipline ,loyalty and not to fail
• Parents give conditional love (I will love you if)
• Child can’t express feelings to child as they fear punishment so they fears are displaced onto others who they think is weaker.
• This explains why there is hatred to people who are socially inferior .
• Psychodynamic explanation

Question 5

Explain Adorno at Al research?

Answer 5

• Procedure: Adorno studied more than 2000 white men and their unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic groups.
  Developed the F scale. The scale is used to measure the AP.
• Two examples are Obedience and respect for authority are the most important for children.
• Findings - People with AP score high on F scale and identified with strong people and were contemptuous with the weak
• They showed extreme respect. AP people had a certain cognitive style in which there was no fuzziness between coloured people. They just had fixed stereotypes.

Question 6

Evaluate One strength of AP?

Answer 6

• Milgram supported AP. With Elms they interviewed a small sample of people who participated in the original obedience studies. They all completed the F scale as part of the interview . The participants scored high compared to disobedient participants.

Question 7

Evaluate One limitation of AP?

Answer 7

• Authoritarianism cannot explain obedient behaviour in the majority of. countries population. Many Germans displayed obedient and antisemitic behaviour Even though they all have different personalities.
• Unlikely they all have AP.
• Majority of German identified with antisemitic and Nazi state and scapegoated the Jews.

Question 8

Another limitation of AP?

Answer 8

• F scale only measures the tendency towards an extreme form of right wing ideology.
• Christie and Jahoda argued that the F scale is politically biased interpretation of AP.
• The extreme right wing and left wing have a lot in common. they both emphasise the importance of complete obedience to political authority.