OBEDIENCE EXPLANATIONS [dispositional factors] Flashcards
Who came up with this theory? AUTH
Adorno
How did Adorno identify and measure authoritarian personality?
Using a questionnaire - the ‘F Scale’
How does an authoritarian personality link to obedience?
They are submissive to those with authority & dismissive to inferiors
How did Adorno test his ‘F-Scale’?
On 2000 middle-class, white Americans
What did Adorno find when he tested it?
Those with authoritarian leanings were very conscious of status and had a cognitive style with fixed stereotypes of other groups.
POSITIVE CORRELATION BETWEEN AUTHORITARIANISM AND PREJUDICE
What is the psychodynamic explanation for an authoritarian personality?
It is formed in childhood, from harsh parenting
- the child experiences conditional love
- strict discipline causes resentment
- child displaces their resentment onto other people who are weaker
What are the characteristics of someone with an authoritarian personality?
- fixed ideas
- dismissive
- want strong leadership
- blind allegiance to traditional values
- project feelings of inadequacy onto others
Is the psychodynamic explanation necessarily true? AUTH PERS
The two variables have a correlation, but it is not necessarily causation - there could be another variable involved
How has the ‘F Scale’ been criticised?
Questionnaire = social desirability bias
1950 = temporal validity
Every answer scale is in the same ‘direction’, therefore someone could choose two extremes and average in the middle
What’s the problem with Adorno creating this in 1950?
Society’s values have since changed, some questions aren’t valid anymore and answers will be different
How was the questionnaire affected by variables at the time? F SCALE
The experiment was affected by the 1950s political bias of right-wing authoritarianism and not left-wing authoritarianism - it does not explain obedience across the political spectrum
