Dispositional Explanations of Obedience
Dispositional explanation – an explanation of human behaviour that highlights the importance of personality. This approach contrasts with situational explanations
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Authoritarian personality – People who are susceptible to obeying people of authority
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When does this personality start to develop?
The authoritarian personality originates in childhood due to harsh parenting
Parenting styles?
Strict discipline, expectation of loyalty, high standards and criticism
Love that parents give?
Parents give conditional love – based on how well the child behaves
How does this influence a child and develop into the authoritarian personality?
This creates resentment and hostility in the child – the child displaces their fears and hostility onto others. This is why the authoritarian individual appears to hate and resent those who are socially inferior.
Adorno’s research on the Authoritarian personality
Aim – Adorno et al (1950) wanted to understand the anti-Semitism of the Holocaust, not just in the Nazi’s but in the general German population that followed the orders of Hitler
Procedure – Adorno investigated the causes of obedience in 200 white, middle-class Americans – particularly their attitudes towards other racial groups. Several scales were developed to investigate these obedience attitudes, one example is the F-scale = potential for fascism scale
Findings – Those who scored high on the F-scale (strong emphasis on obedience) identified with people who had a ‘strong’ status and generally disregarded the weak. Those authoritarian people (high scores of F-scale) were also found to have a very clear and distinct cognitive style with very fixed stereotypes about other groups. A strong positive correlation was found between the authoritarian personality trait and prejudice.
Conclusion – It was concluded that authoritarian people have a tendency to be particularly obedient to authority figures. They have highly conventional attitudes towards sex, gender and race. They believe society needs strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional rules in society regarding religion and family. Everything is right or wrong – they’re uncomfortable with uncertainty.
Evaluation
Methodological Issues
The F-scale is flawed – all of the items on the scale are directed in a particular direction. There is either an agree or disagree option for each question. There is the risk of acquiescence bias – people tend to rush questionnaires and find it easier to simply agree with a scale than disagree. Therefore, the scale could have measured those who are acquiesces rather than authoritarian. Issues with internal validity.
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Correlation, not Causation
A range of variables were measured but only correlations were found. E.g. Authoritarian personality strongly correlated with prejudice towards minority groups. But correlation = relationship/connection. It does not = causation. The relationships between variables could be due to a number of extraneous variables, and this limits Adorno’s assumptions because conclusions cannot be made the authoritarian personality, i.e. harsh parenting causes the development of authoritarian personality cannot be concluded. It could have been to the children’s social group or interests rather than the parenting.