What are dispositional factors in psychology?

Psychologists have examined dispositional (internal) factors that also contribute to obedience. One particular characteristic is the authoritarian personality, which has been associated with higher levels of obedience.

Adorno et al. (1950) developed a questionnaire called the California F scale, to measure levels of authoritarian personality. In Milgram’s original research, psychologists questioned whether the obedience occurred due to situational factors, for example, uniform and location, or dispositional factors, such as a particular personality characteristic. In order to answer this question, Milgram conducted a follow-up study, using participants from his original research.

Elms and Milgram (1966) wanted to see if the obedient participants in Milgram’s research were more likely to display authoritarian personality traits, in comparison to disobedient participants. Their sample consisted of 20 obedient participants, who administered the full 450 volts and 20 disobedient participants, who refused to continue. Each participant completed several personality questionnaires, including Adorno’s F scale, to measure their level of authoritarian personality. In addition, participants were also asked open-ended questions about their relationship with their parents and their relationship with the experimenter and learner, during Milgram’s experiment.

Elms and Milgram found that the obedient participants scored higher on the F scale, in comparison to disobedient participants. In addition, the results also revealed that obedient participants were less close to their fathers during childhood [all of the participants in Milgram’s original experiment were male] and admired the experimenter in Milgram’s experiment, which was the opposite for disobedient participants. Elms and Milgram concluded that the obedient participants in his original research displayed higher levels of the authoritarian personality, in comparison to disobedient participants.

Evaluation

Although the results of Elms and Milgram suggest a link between authoritarian personality and obedience, these results are correctional and it is therefore difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about the exact cause of the obedience. In addition, there are many other situational factors that contribute to obedience, including proximity, uniform and location. Therefore, although it is likely that authoritarian personality contributes to obedience, a range of situational variables can affect the level of this contribution.

Furthermore, research by Middendorp and Meleon (1990) found that less-educated people are more likely to display authoritarian personality characteristics, than well-educated people. If these claims are correct then it is possible to conclude that it is not authoritarian personality characteristics that lead to obedience, but levels of education.

Finally, Elms and Milgram used Adorno’s F scale to determine levels of authoritarian personality. It is possible that the F scale suffers from response bias or social desirability, where participants provide answers that are socially acceptable. For example, participants may appear more authoritarian because they believe that their answers are the socially ‘correct’ and consequently they are incorrectly classified as authoritarian when they are not.

• Address the question 
  

• In the psychological world, there are many different methods and approaches to the understanding and explaining of why or how people behave in certain situations. 

• Introduce Fritz Heider 

• Heider (1958) suggested that all people have a tendency to try to predict, understand and explain human behaviour, in terms of what causes people to behave in the ways that they do. 

• Introduce "attributions 
• One way that people interpret and explain causal relationships in the social world is through attribution --> which has laid the foundations for the attribution theory (AT) proposed by Heider (1958). 
• Attributions are "the beliefs about why people behave as they do" the end result of a process in which people use available information to make inferences about the causes of a particular behaviour.

• Therefore, AT is concerned with explanations of how each of us attributes causes for our own and others" behaviour.

• Introduce Heider"s assumptions 
• According to Heider, when we observe somebody

  "s behaviour we are inclined to attribute its cause to either dispositional (internal) factors of that person or to situational (external) causes. 

• Describe the two types of attributions, with examples
  
• Dispositional attributions: We explain people"s behaviour in terms of factors which are specific to them as a person, such as their personality or other internal and generally unchanging characteristics, traits, feelings, moods and abilities. 
• Can be positive or negative 
• An example of a dispositional attribution (commonly seen as innate factors)
• They are always late; they have been like that since they were born, etc. 
• Situational attributions: One"s behaviour is assumed to be/dependent upon their current circumstances, situation or the environment that they are in. 
  

• An example: Blaming the weather for something that has happened

• Example of attribution situations you could use for your essay. There are many real-life examples of how these two attributions are used in a daily basis.
  
  
• The following scenario was observed by Evans-Pritchard among the Azande people of Central America.
  

• Situation: The situation was that several people in the village were killed when a granary doorway collapsed.
• This resulted in the villagers to have attributions on why the door collapsed and killed so many people.
• Their attributions for this circumstance was that:
• The Azande attributed their deaths, or the fact that they were standing next to the walls when it collapsed was to witchcraft. 
• However, although E-P noted and told the villagers that the doorway had been eaten through by termites (representing its unstableness), the Azande people still attributed the situation to occur because of witchcraft. 

• This study shows how people may have different ways of attributing causes to events.
   
  
• Another scenario would be for example,
  
• Situation: A person is sitting in a restaurant, waiting for their date to show up, but he or she is late.
• This would result in us looking for explanations or "attributing" possible situations as to why he or she has not yet arrived.
• Possible attributions might be:
• We attributed his lateness to the dispositional factor of their nature as being late all the time. 
• Or towards a situational basis, that he had missed his/her bus, or heavy traffic may have occurred or even the result of their car breaking down. 
• Thus, outline the purpose of your essay
• As such, this essay response will aim to give a detailed account in the role of dispositional and situational factors in explaining behaviour.

• Provide a brief explanation of why we tend to attribute behaviour?
• We tend to attribute behaviour because humans are "social animals" (as underlined by one of the fundamental principles of the SCLOA) and have a need to understand why things happen in the world around us.
• People tend to make attributions based on when they are performing it themselves or if they are observing it happen. This is known as the actor-observer effect.

• State the problems and possible errors that concerns making attributions
• However, when judgements are passed there is usually some form of bias, as both situational and dispositional factors are not considered from every viewpoint/angle.
• Errors can occur when attributing tne"s behaviour, however it is also important to note that people can accurately attribute causes of behaviour to these factors (situational or dispositional) as well.
• Give an example of an error that could occur in attribution
• An example of a common error when attributing one"s behaviour is humans tendency tver- emphasize dispositional factors over situational factors, especially when they are judging other people"s behaviour; this is known as the fundamental attribution error (FAE).
• Generally attributions follow this trend (optional) 
• Positive outcomes (individual behaviour) 
• Negative outcome (individual behaviour 
• Positive outcome (other individuals) 
• Negative outcomes (other individuals) 
• Explain FAE"s role in attributing one"s behaviour to dispositional/situational factors 

• Exploring FAE gives us more insight on the roles of situational and dispositional factors when explaining behaviour, and also helps us to be more open-minded to the possible alternative factors that cause people to behave in a certain way. 

• Give Example 
• An example of how people attribute dispositional and situational factors to explain behaviour is through Zimbardo

  "s Stanford Prison Experiment (1971). 

Aim: 

• To investigate how people react in difficult situations. 

• Zimbardo created a simulation of a prison in Stanford University basement. 
  
• He randomly assigned the volunteers/participants to be either the guard or prisoner in the prison simulation. Therefore the IV was role (prisoner or guard). 
  
• DV was behaviour observed through direct observation, video and audiotape. 

• After a while, the volunteers playing the role of guards started to show acts of empowerment, aggression and a more confident attitude compared to the volunteers playing the role of the prisoners. 
  
• Whilst the prisoners became passive, depressed, anxious and experienced loss of control over life. 
  
• The volunteers acted like what their roles in their situation/predicament would be in real life prison conditions. 

• This study demonstrated that situational rather than dispositional factors caused negative behaviour and thoughts found in prison settings. 
  
• Zimbardo

  "s study is a prime example of how people can use either dispositional situational attribution to explain the behaviours of certain people. 

Conclusion 

• Thus, it can be seen that dispositional and situational causes of behaviour are attributed by people to explain the cause of behaviour.