Outline and evaluate the authoritarian personality as a dispositional explanation for obedience. (16 marks)

Explanations attributing obedience to dispositional factors focus on internal, specifically personality, characteristics within individuals. A prominent explanation in this realm centers on the authoritarian personality, as proposed by Adorno. According to Adorno et al. (1950), the roots of an authoritarian personality are established in early childhood through harsh and strict parenting, fostering resentment in the child. Unable to express these emotions at the time, individuals with an authoritarian personality displace their feelings onto others perceived as 'weak' or 'inferior.' Adorno asserts that this personality type is associated with prejudice, discrimination, and obedience.

Adorno et al. (1950) conducted a study involving 2000 middle-class Caucasian Americans to explore their unconscious views towards other racial groups. Employing various questionnaires, including the F-scale measuring fascist tendencies, they found that individuals scoring high on the F-scale exhibited status-consciousness, greater obedience to authority figures, extreme submissiveness, and a preference for strong leadership to enforce traditional values. This dispositional inclination towards obedient behavior was linked to the authoritarian personality.

Support for the authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience comes from Milgram and Elms (1966). Through post-experimental interviews with participants fully obedient in Milgram's original study, it was observed that obedient individuals scored higher on the F-scale compared to their disobedient counterparts. Additionally, obedient participants reported less closeness to their fathers during childhood and admired the experimenter in Milgram's study, contrasting with the experiences of disobedient participants. This suggests that obedient participants in Milgram's study displayed more characteristics of the authoritarian personality.

However, methodological criticisms arise concerning the measures used to assess authoritarian personality traits. The F-scale may be susceptible to response bias or social desirability, potentially leading participants to provide socially acceptable answers, falsely categorizing them as authoritarian. This raises concerns about the internal validity of using questionnaire research methods to determine authoritarianism, suggesting the possibility of alternative factors or explanations contributing to obedient behavior.

Adorno et al. viewed a high degree of authoritarianism as akin to a psychological disorder, asserting that its origins lie within an individual's personality (nature), shaped by early parental treatment (nurture). Consequently, they argued that obedient behavior is determined by socialization experiences rather than free will. However, critics, such as humanistic psychologists, dispute these claims, asserting that humans possess the capacity for free will and change, and deem dispositional explanations for obedience as excessively deterministic.