The publication of The Authoritarian Personality, by Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford (1950), was a landmark event in personality and social psychology. The book was arguably the first, and certainly the most influential, systematic investigation of how personality shapes attitudes and belief systems. It proposed that prejudice, ethnocentrism, and the predisposition to accept right-wing ideology and fascist governments, were deeply rooted in the psychology of the individual. After a long decline during the later decades of the 20th Century, the study of authoritarianism has been greeted with renewed interest in the past few years. Indeed, a great number of contemporary social and political issues, such as increased opposition to immigration, debates over how to handle suspected terrorists, and proposed constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage all point to the continued relevance of the authoritarian personality today. According to Altemeyer (1996), authoritarianism can be defined as the co-variation of three specific psychological tendencies. These include submission to authority, aggression toward individuals targeted by authority, and adherence to social conventions established by authorities. Stated another way, authoritarians are submissive toward authority figures and the norms of ingroups, and aggressive toward deviants and the members of outgroups. Decades of research support this interpretation of the construct (but see Kreindler, 2005) and indicate strong to moderate correlations with racial prejudice, anti-homosexual attitudes, punitive jury decisions, and many related attitudes and behaviors (Altemeyer, 1996; Stone, Lederer, & Christie, 1993). The authoritarian potential for prejudice, hostility, and aggression is well documented, yet there has been considerably less empirical research on their other emotional tendencies. One conspicuous gap in our knowledge concerns the level and varieties of fear that authoritarians experience. This is rather surprising considering the frequency with which fear is mentioned in theories and discussion about authoritarianism.
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