Theodor W. Adorno, along with Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson and Nevitt Sanford, all researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, defended authoritarian personality theory.
The research that eventually shaped the concept was created in the middle of the last century and was motivated by a U. S. government commission interested in finding the roots of anti-Semitism.
- Adorno argued that some deeply rooted personality traits predispose some individuals to be very sensitive to totalitarian and undemocratic ideas.
The evidence proposed to support this conclusion includes case studies (Nazis, for example), psychometric tests (use of the F scale, fascism) and clinical interviews.
Thus, the collected data seemed to defend the existence of the authoritarian personality, which could help explain why some people are more reluctant to change their prejudices.
According to authoritarian personality theory, people with authoritarian personality would tend to be:
Adorno concluded that individuals with authoritarian personalities were more likely to categorize people as “we” and “them,” sensing their own group as superior.
People with a very strict education, led by strict and critical parents, were more likely to develop an authoritarian personality.
Adorno believed that this was because the individual in question could not express hostility towards his parents (because they were strict and critical), so the person redirected his hostility to objects that did not penalize him, because they were in a weak position, as is the case with ethnic minorities.
Authoritarian personality resulted in a set of criteria for defining personality traits; in turn, the reference tool for evaluating authoritarian personality was called the F-scale (being fascist F).
Adorno believed that the configuration of these traits was strongly influenced by childhood experiences. These features include:
The truth is that there are many points of view of this theory that we have no evidence of, yes, there is evidence of some, but point in the opposite direction to what this theory postulates, some of its most controversial points are:
In addition, Adorno has also been criticized for its small sample size, participants were recruited through formal organizations, which has already imposed an initial bias, and the representativeness of the sample was questioned to generalize the conclusions of his study.
Another problem is that the elements of the F scale were drafted assents and were not mutually exclusive; Finally, the procedures for validating clinical interviews offered no guarantees, as the researchers had previously known each interviewee’s scores on the scale and could be influenced by the way the questions were asked.
However, authoritarian personality theory has inspired in-depth research on the relationship between personality traits, behavior and political beliefs, in fact, even if it is not considered a benchmark today, without it it would be difficult to understand the history of personality psychology.