2. Today’s session You will learn about Context Describing theories
Using research findings to support or challenge theories
Situational and dispositional explanations of obedience

3. Explaining obedience
Agency theory
Authoritarian personality theory

4. Agency theory A situational explanation of obedience
People have two ways of acting
Autonomous –direct own behaviour, and take responsibility for consequences
Agentic –allow someone else to direct their behaviour, pass responsibility to them
People are conditioned to respond to certain types of cue with agentic behaviour

5. What sorts of cue might produce agentic behaviour?
When and where do we learn to respond to such cues agentically?

6. Evidence for agency theory
Studies have demonstrated agentic behaviour when…
Authority explicitly takes responsibility (Milgram, 1963)
Authority is wearing a uniform (Bickman, 1974)
Authority claims/appears to have higher status than PP (Hofling et al, 1966)

7. Authoritarian personality
A dispositional explanation of obedience
Adorno (1950) claims a particular personality type (authoritarian) is more likely to obey an authority
Authoritarian traits:
Status oriented
Conventional and conformist
Suspicious & hostile

8. Authoritarian personality
Harsh and
punitive
upbringing;
little love,
much
punishment
Fear of
parents
Excessively respectful of authority figures
Hatred of
parents
Hate & anger displaced onto others
Based on Sigmund Freud’s idea that the adult personality is determined by childhood experiences

9. Does Milgram’s study suggest that obedience is confined to a particular personality type?
How far do you accept that there may be a personality type that makes people more likely to obey an authority figure?

10. Authoritarian personality
High F-Scale score
High obedience to authority
Low SES & poor education
Hyman & Sheatsley (1954)

11. Low Social Economic Status & poor education
The purpose of the F-scale is to measure an antidemocratic personality structure, usually defined by authoritarianism.
Low Social Economic Status & poor education

12. Authoritarian personality
Authoritarianism is linked to having right-wing political views. Are only right-wing people obedient to authority?