Obedience (OCR A-Level Psychology): Revision Notes
1.2.3 Authoritarian Personality
Dispositional factors affecting obedience
Authoritarian Personality
Obedient people are the result of a psychological disorder. They obey because unconsciously, due to having harsh parenting as a child.
ADORNO et al (1950)
Study: Measured 2000 middle-class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
- People who scored highly on the F-SCALE identified with 'strong' people and were contemptuous of 'the weak' (F-SCALE = Fascism scale).
- Showed a 'blind respect' to people with power
- Everything is very black and white - driven by stereotypes and prejudice
Authoritarian Personality Characteristics
- Blind obedience to authority
- Inflexible with their outlook - no grey areas
- Submissive to authority - driven by blind respect
- Need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values - society is "going to the dogs"
- Hostile to inferiors
- Strict upbringing
- Preoccupied with power and toughness
- Rigid in opinions and beliefs
- Obsessed with rank and status
- Submissive to superiors
Why?
Harsh parenting - strict discipline, expectations to be completely loyal, high standards, unconditional love for parents even if they do not agree with them
These experiences create hostility and despair in the child who displaces these feelings onto the 'weak' (scapegoating) This is anyone who is not the same as you (gender, race, sexuality)
Measurement of authoritarianism relies on self-report data (F-scale) which may be invalid due to social desirability bias
Greenstein (1969) - The way the questionnaire is set up you could tick the same line of boxes down one side as it is easier
Research support
Milgram and Elms (1966)
Interviewed a small sample of obedient participants who scored highly on the F-scale
This would indicate that the obedience being due to their fascist beliefs was a correlation
This makes it impossible to draw conclusions based on correlational research - therefore cannot conclude that obedience was caused by dispositional factors e.g., an authoritarian personality.
Results
Third variable problem/alternative explanation:
(not situational or dispositional) - may be due to another variable e.g., level of education
Hyman and Sheatsley (1954)
Found that the Authoritarian Personality is more likely to exist among people who are less well educated and are of a low economic social status
However, these results are inconsistent with the explanation.
Perhaps personality is not needed to explain obedience
Situational factors have more of an influence on obedience because the methodology is more valid and reliable