A Social-Psychological Theory of the Authoritarian Personality

Abstract

A specific, middle-range social-psychological theory of the authoritarian personality-namely, that the degree of so-called authoritarianism manifested by a particular individual is, on the average, negatively correlated with the number of social roles he has mastered-is suggested to meet the deficiencies in current theories. Psychoanalytic theory, which has dominated research on the concept of authoritarianism, is inadequate because it has stressed a type of family environment that is common to selected authoritarians only. Numerous other studies, considered as a whole, indicate that all autoritarians identified to date manifest inadequacies in role-taking and role-playing.