authoritarian personality

is a pattern of attitudes and values revolving around adherence to society's traditional norms, submission to authorities who personify or reinforce those norms, and antipathy to the point of hatred and aggression toward those who either challenge in-group norms or lie outside their orbit.

During and after World War II, psychologist conceived of the authoritarian personality as a pattern of attitudes and values revolving around adherence to society's traditional norms, submission to authorities who personify or reinforce those norms, and antipathy to the point of hatred and aggression toward those who either challenge in-group norms or lie outside their orbit.

is composed of nine social psychological traits that tended to cluster around authoritarianism. These include conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intellectualism, anti-intraception, superstition and stereotypy, power and 'toughness', destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and exaggerated concerns over sex.

is defined in terms of degree of conventionalism, authoritarian aggression and authoritarian submission.

Drawing on Theodor Adorno 's The Authoritarian Personality, Robert Altemeyer further defines three facets of this authoritarian personality: conventionalism, authoritarian aggression and authoritarian submission. In order to measure this cluster of beliefs, Altemeyer

 derives from immense anger towards the parent for harsh parenting which leads one to identify with and idolize authority figures. It also suggested a redirecting of anger toward the father on account of suppressed homosexuality.

A central idea of The Authoritarian Personality is that authoritarianism is the result of a Freudian developmental model. Excessively harsh and punitive parenting was posited to cause children to feel immense anger towards their parents... yet fear of parental disapproval or punishment caused people to not directly confront their parents, but rather to identify with and idolize authority figures.[page needed] Moreover, the book suggested that authoritarianism was rooted in suppressed homosexuality, which was redirected into outward hostility towards the father, which was, in turn, suppressed for fear of being infantilized and castrated by the father.[14] ' (wikipedia)

is the personality of the average man, a man who likes nothing better than to obey. And if he ceases to obey one force he immediately begins to obey another.

There is nothing that the average man likes better than to obey... if he ceases to obey one force he immediately begins to obey another.

authoritarian personality, n.Definitions

authoritarian personality