Authoritarian Personality Essay ⋆ Sociology Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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The authoritarian personality is a psychological syndrome of traits that correlates highly with outgroup prejudice. Three personality traits in particular characterize the syndrome: deference to authorities, aggression toward outgroups, and rigid adherence to cultural conventions. Thus, authoritarians hold a rigidly hierarchical view of the world.

Nazi Germany inspired the first conceptualizations. The Frankfurt School, combining Marxism, psychoanalysis, and sociology, introduced the syndrome to explain Hitler’s popularity among working-class Germans. Social psychologists soon demonstrated the syndrome in the USA. In 1950, the major publication by Adorno et al., The Authoritarian Personality, appeared. The product of two German refugees and two US social psychologists from Berkeley, this publication firmly established the concept in social science. Its easily administered F (for fascism) Scale led to an explosion of more than 2,000 published research papers. Critics disparaged the work on political, methodological, and theoretical grounds.

Methodological critics unearthed a host of problems. The most important objection concerned the 1950 study’s neglect of the social context. Authoritarianism rises in times of societal threat, and recedes in times of calm. Crises invoke authoritarian leadership and encourage equalitarians to accept such leadership. Moreover, the syndrome’s link to behavior is strongly related to the situational context in which authoritarians find themselves.

Nonetheless, research throughout the world with various measures shows that authoritarians reveal similar susceptibilities. In particular, high scorers favor extreme right-wing politics and exhibit prejudice against outgroups. This remarkable global consistency of results suggests that the authoritarian personality is a general personality syndrome with early origins in childhood that center on universal issues of authority and security. A plethora of theories attempt to define the personality type and its origins. The original Berkeley theory stressed the effects of a stern father in early life. Later formulations emphasize the syndrome’s focus on strength and weakness, its intense orientation to the ingroup, and the importance of modeling of authoritarian behavior by parents.

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