Authoritarian personality

Authoritarian personality is a state of mind or attitude characterized by belief in absolute obedience or submission to one's own authority, as well as the administration of that belief through the oppression of one's subordinates. It usually applies to individuals who are known or viewed as having an authoritative, strict, or oppressive personality towards subordinates.

Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford theorized about a personality type that involved the "potentially fascistic individual". They labeled it the "authoritarian personality" based on earlier writings by Erich Fromm that used this term. Because the historical influences for their theory included the rise of fascism in the 1930s, World War II, and the Holocaust, a main component of the "authoritarian personality" is being susceptible to anti-Semitic ideology and anti-democratic political beliefs. Their large body of research (known as the Berkeley studies) focused mainly on prejudice within a psychoanalytic/psychosocial theoretical framework (i.e., Freudian and Frommian).

Adorno et al. (1950) viewed the authoritarian personality as having a strict superego that controls a weak ego unable to cope with strong id impulses. The resulting intrapsychic conflicts cause personal insecurities, resulting in that person's superego to adhere to externally imposed conventional norms (conventionalism), and to the authorities who impose these norms (authoritarian submission). The ego-defense mechanism of projection occurs as indicated when that person avoids self-reference of the anxiety-producing id impulse, by displaying them onto "inferior" minority groups in the given culture (projectivity), with associated beliefs that are highly evaluative (power and toughness), and rigid (stereotypy). Additionally, there is a cynical view of humanity and a need for power and toughness resulting from the anxieties produced by perceived lapses in society's conventional norms (destructiveness and cynicism). Other characteristics of this personality type are a general tendency to focus upon those who violate conventional values and act harshly towards them (authoritarian aggression), a general opposition to subjective or imaginative tendencies (anti-intraception), a tendency to believe in mystic determination (superstition), and finally, an exaggerated concern with promiscuity.

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