Obedience: Dispositional Explanations - Evaluation

Question 1

What is a strength of authoritarian personality related to Milgram?

Answer 1

Milgram conducted interviews with a small sample of fully obedient participants, scored highly on the F scale suggesting a link between obedience and authoritarian personality

Question 2

Whats a counterpoint to the strength of authoritarian personality?

Answer 2

May simply be a correlation between 2 measured variables, impossible to say authoritarian personality causes obedience

Question 3

What limitation is noted regarding the explanation of obedience using personality?

Answer 3

It cannot explain obedience in the majority of the population as pre war Germany, millions displayed obedient and racist behaviour. Must have differed in personality as its unlikely theyre all authoritarian

Question 4

What’s a limitation of authoritarian personality regarding F scale?

Answer 4

Christie and Jahoda argue its a politically biased interpretation of authoritarian personality as it measures tendency to right wing ideology. They highlight the existence of left wing authoritarianism that emphasise obedience to legitimate political authority.

Adornos explanation cannot account for obedience to authoeiry across whole political spectrum

Question 5

What’s another limitation of authoritarian personality regarding methodology?

Answer 5

According to Greenstein the F-scale is a ‘comedy of methodological errors’ as every item is worded in the same ‘direction’ making it likely to score high if you tick the same collumn

Scale could be measuring tendency to agree with everything (acquiescence bias) highlighting correlation isnt causation