Topic Summaries

Dispositional explanation for obedience

A-Level > Psychology > AQA > A-Level Psychology Topic Summaries > Social influence > Dispositional explanation for obedience
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Addiction

  • 👥 Adorno (1947) believed blind obedience was the result of a dispositional factor. He wanted to investigate whether there was a specific personality type who were more likely to accept authority. He created a questionnaire called the ‘F-scale’ and handed it to over 2000 middle class Americans. Those who scored highly on the F-scale: had more of a contemptuous view of those who were ‘vulnerable’ or ‘weak’ in society, were conscious of their own status, believed those of higher authority were more deserving of respect, had high levels of prejudice, and were overall heavily submissive to authority.
  • Adorno also theorised that this personality type originated in childhood as a result of harsh, loveless parenting where they were only shown conditional love when doing something good. They were raised strictly with a high expectation of loyalty regardless of the treatment towards them.

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