Introduction: Strength and Weakness

123

Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford's The Authoritarian Personality is probably the most deeply flawed work of prominence in political psychology. The methodological, procedural, and substantive errors of this study are well known, but they are frequently simply attributed to poor methodological judgments, issues of scaling (such as response set), or Freudian theories that legitimated circular interpretations. But a more fundamental bias arose from the attempt to empirically verify the existence of a "type" of person whom the researchers thought dangerous and with whom they did not empathize. This attempt involved two dangerous procedures: (1) the fusion of nominalist research procedures (in which empirical results were used to type respondents) with a realist interpretation of types (in which some people "just were" authoritarians and others not), and (2) a theoretically rich critique of the authoritarians and a lack of interest in the psychodynamics of liberals. This combination led to an intrinsically biased interpretive project that could not help but accumulate damning evidence about authoritarians. These subtler problems have haunted contemporary work in political psychology that avoids the methodological problems of Adorno et al.; Altemeyer's work on authoritarianism, which not only is free from the defects of the Adorno et al. study but also involves some methodologically exemplary experiments, is similarly distorted by asymmetries. The same fundamental problems seem to be at the heart of the weaknesses of the theory of symbolic racism to which critics have pointed. Political psychologists should regard The Authoritarian Personality as a cautionary example of bias arising from the choice of methodological assumptions.

Section: The Studymentioning

confidence: 96%

The Authoritarian Personality, 50 Years Later: What Questions Are There for Political Psychology?

Martin

2001

123

“…Different studies have confirmed empirically the cluster of authoritarianism and particular orientation to the ingroup in various contexts (Altemeyer, 1988(Altemeyer, , 1996Duckitt, 1989;Stone et al, 1993). The relationship between threat and authoritarianism was found to involve interaction effects: Societal threat activates authoritarian predispositions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 88%

“…When the restraints against expression of these impulses are rigid and harsh, the individual becomes anxious, insecure, and unusually attuned to external authority sources for behavioral guidance. The aggressive feelings are easily directed or displaced against outgroup members, who are designated as being worthy of contempt by authority (Stone, Lederer, & Christie, 1993).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Authoritarianism and PoliticalSocialization in the Context of the Arab‐Israeli Conflict

Tibon

Blumberg

1999

This study explored the hypothesis that authoritarianism is negatively associated with peace supportiveness. A sample of 197 Jewish/Israeli university students responded to a questionnaire that included items on attitudes toward the Middle East peace process as well as a personality measure. The results confirmed the hypothesis: Individuals who were less supportive of the peace process were more authoritarian conformists than were supporters of the process. A significant association between religiosity and attitudes toward the peace process was also found; the split between peace supporters and non-supporters corresponded roughly, though not exactly, to the split between religious and non-religious. The pro-peace individual is generally non-religious, less authoritarian conformist, and less aggressive. Hence, the social cognitions studied-beliefs about the peace process-may be group beliefs. Certain characteristics of the groups in question, such as socialization practices and social structure, may account for the personality features that covaried with the beliefs. The data showing that peace attitudes, religiosity, and certain personality traits form one entity might thus be marshalled in discussing the identity issue and applied to other scenes in contemporary conflicts.

“…Despite these methodological concerns, the F‐scale has been widely used in psychological research across a number of countries and contexts (Altemeyer, 1981; Billig, 1978; Brown, 1965; Stone et al., 1993). Overall, these studies show some support for the basic finding of TAP that those who score high on the F‐scale demonstrate a generalized prejudiced towards out‐groups and minorities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective Rights and Personal Freedoms: A Discursive Analysis of Participant Accounts of Authoritarianism

Gray

Durrheim²

2012

This article presents a discursive analysis of participant accounts of authoritarianism, with the aim of understanding how participants construct accounts about authority, when, and for what purposes. Participants completed a 30‐item Right‐Wing Authoritarianism scale and were then interviewed about how they went about this task. Analyses revealed that, despite an overall consistency when answering items on an authoritarianism scale, participants in this study did not consistently choose to produce authoritarian responses in contrast to the nonauthoritarian alternative. Instead, the construction and expression of authoritarian ideas was found to be directly related to two rhetorical features of conversing about authoritarianism: (1) the ideological dilemma of society versus individual and (2) the mobilization of arguments about social and personal threat that allowed participants to construct accounts about collective rights or personal freedoms. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for current debates about how authoritarianism should be theorized and studied.