Timely Repost on this Subject: "How Authoritarian Followers Think"

[Emit]

Recall Bob Altemeyer's - The Authoritarians. Others have posted this information before, but I think it is highly relevant, and could use a revisit.

John Dean based his book, Conservatives Without Conscience, on Dr. Altemeyer's extensive research on Right Wing Authoritarianism.

Dr. Altemeyer's book is free to read on line at the link above.

In a nutshell: http://cognitive-psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/right_wing_authoritarianism#ixzz0jJs7xMvx
">Right Wing Authoritarianism: What Is the Allure in Being a Follower?

According to Professor Altemeyer, right-wing authoritarians are cognitively rigid, aggressive, and intolerant. They are characterized by steadfast conformity to group norms, submission to higher status individuals, and aggression toward out-groups and unconventional group members.

The right wing authoritarian personality has less to do with a political view than it does with a psychological personality structure.

Here below are 7 choice bits excerpted from Chapter Three of Dr. Altemeyer's The Authoritarians, "How Authoritarian Followers Think".

1. Illogical Thinking

.... Wegmann found High RWAs indeed had more trouble remembering details of the material they’d encountered, and they made more incorrect inferences on a reasoning test than others usually did. Overall, the authoritarians had lots of trouble simply thinking straight.

Intrigued, I gave the inferences test that Mary Wegmann had used to two large samples of students at my university. In both studies high RWAs went down in flames more than others did. They particularly had trouble figuring out that an inference or deduction was wrong. To illustrate, suppose they had gotten the following syllogism:

All fish live in the sea.
Sharks live in the sea..
Therefore, sharks are fish.

The conclusion does not follow, but high RWAs would be more likely to say the reasoning is correct than most people would. If you ask them why it seems right, they would likely tell you, "Because sharks are fish." In other words, they thought the reasoning was sound because they agreed with the last statement. If the conclusion is right, they figure, then the reasoning must have been right. Or to put it another way, they don’t "get it" that the reasoning matters--especially on a reasoning test.

This is not only "Illogical, Captain," as Mr. Spock would say, it’s quite dangerous, because it shows that if authoritarian followers like the conclusion, the logic involved is pretty irrelevant. The reasoning should justify the conclusion, but for a lot of high RWAs, the conclusion validates the reasoning. Such is the basis of many a prejudice, and many a Big Lie that comes to be accepted. ...

...

2. Highly Compartmentalized Minds

... authoritarians can stupify you with the inconsistency of their ideas. Thus they may say they are proud to live in a country that guarantees freedom of speech, but another file holds, "My country, love it or leave it."

It’s easy to find authoritarians endorsing inconsistent ideas. Just present slogans and appeals to homey values, and then present slogans and bromides that invoke opposite values. The yea-saying authoritarian follower is likely to agree with all of them. ...

3. Double Standards

When your ideas live independent lives from one another it is pretty easy to use double standards in your judgments. You simply call up the idea that will justify (afterwards) what you’ve decided to do. High RWAs seem to get up in the morning and gulp down a whole jar of rationalization pills. ...

I have found many other instances in which authoritarian followers show a double standard in their judgments of people’s behavior or the rightness of various causes. For example they will punish a panhandler who starts a fight with an accountant more than an accountant who (in the same situation) starts a fight with a panhandler. They will punish a prisoner in jail who beats up another prisoner more than they will punish a police officer who beats up that second prisoner. (Remember when I said in chapter 1 that high RWAs will go easy on authorities, and on a person who attacks someone the authoritarian wants to attack?) ...

4. Hypocrisy

You can also, unfortunately, find a considerable amount of hypocrisy in high RWAs’ behavior. For example, the leaders of authoritarian movements sometimes accuse their opponents of being anti-democratic and anti-free speech when the latter protest against various books, movies, speakers, teachers and so on. ...


5. Blindness To Themselves

If you ask people how much integrity they personally have, guess who pat themselves most on the back by claiming they have more than anyone else. This one is easy if you remember the findings on self-righteousness from the last chapter: high RWAs think they had lots more integrity than others do. ...

...

In fact, despite their own belief that they are quite honest with themselves, authoritarians tend to be highly defensive, and run away from unpleasant truths about themselves more than most people do. ...

High RWAs show little self-awareness when making these comparisons. Sometimes they glimpse themselves through a glass, darkly. For example they agree more than most people do with, "I like to associate with people who have the same beliefs and opinions I do." But they have no idea how much they differ from others in that way. And most of the time they get it quite wrong, thinking they are not different from others, and even that they are different in the opposite way from how they actually are. For example they are sure they are less self-righteous than most people are--which of course is what self-righteous people would think, isn’t it? And when I give feedback lectures to classes about my studies and describe right-wing authoritarians, it turns out the high RWAs in the room almost always think I am talking about someone else.

6. A Profound Ethnocentrism

As natural as this is, authoritarians see the world more sharply in terms of their in-groups and their out-groups than most people do. They are so ethnocentric that you find them making statements such as, "If you’re not with us, then you’re against us." There’s no neutral in the highly ethnocentric mind. This dizzying "Us versus Everyone Else" outlook usually develops from traveling in those "tight circles" we talked about in the last chapter, and whirling round in those circles reinforces the ethnocentrism as the authoritarian follower uses his friends to validate his opinions.

...

Authoritarian followers want to belong, and being part of their in-group means a lot to them. Loyalty to that group ranks among the highest virtues, and members of the group who question its leaders or beliefs can quickly be seen as traitors. Can you also sense from these items the energy, the commitment, the submission, and the zeal that authoritarian followers are ready to give to their in-groups, and the satisfaction they would get from being a part of a vast, powerful movement in which everyone thought the same way? The common metaphor for authoritarian followers is a herd of sheep, but it may be more accurate to think of them as a column of army ants on the march.


7. Dogmatism: The Authoritarian’s Last Ditch Defense

... But the leaders don’t have to worry, because their followers are also quite dogmatic. By dogmatism I mean relatively unchangeable, unjustified certainty.

From Chapter 7, "What’s To Be Done?"

Keep in mind, this was written back when Bush & Co. was POTUS, leading into the '08 elections, and mostly refers to actions when authoritarian leaders are in power. But it has some relevant points to today's situation.

Fear ignites authoritarian aggression more than anything else.

~snip~

Self-righteousness is the major releaser of authoritarian aggression, and it is often based on theology and teachings that seem to bring out the worst in people, not the best.

...

I similarly think you’ll likely be wasting your time trying to convince authoritarian followers that they are being systematically misinformed and played for dopes by their leaders. It’s too important to them to believe otherwise, and just your raising the question will likely put you into their huge out-group and make them suspicious of you.

...

But four years of undergraduate experience knocks their RWA scale scores down about 15-
20%. That’s a lot, especially when you’re talking about very dogmatic people.

...

Here’s a “Don’t.” Don’t use violence as a tool to advance your cause. Besides the dubious morality of such acts, they play straight into the hands of the people whose influence you’re trying to reduce. As I mentioned in chapter 2, studies show most people are spring-loaded to become more authoritarian when violence increases in society. (Besides, when a reform movement turns to violence, it paves the way for any social dominators within the movement to come to the fore, and “The Revolution” seeds the next dictatorship.)

~snip~

So what’s to be done right now? The social dominators and high RWAs
presently marshaling their forces for the next election in your county, state and
country, are perfectly entitled to do what they’re doing. They have the right to
organize, they have the right to proselytize, they have the right to select and work for
candidates they like, they have the right to vote, they have the right to make sure folks
who agree with them also vote. The late Jerry Falwell declared in 2006, “We absolutely
are going to deliver this nation back to God in 2008!”

Postscript on the 2008 Election (PDF)

This was written in November 5, 2008, pre-dating the tea baggers' town halls, yet it's of interest because it predicts some of the actions we are witnessing today:

~snip~

Another thing High RWAs will readily believe is that their side is losing because the Democrats are cheating in voter registration (which certainly appears true in some instances, but doesn’t explain the lead in the polls), or because the media “will not tell the truth” about Obama (such as, he’s a Muslim terrorist). Similarly they’re ready to believe that the housing mortgage crash that has hurt the Republicans so much was in fact caused by Democrats forcing lenders to give mortgages to poor (that is, African-American) people.

It all reminds me of Hitler’s Big Lie as he rose to power that the only reason Germany lost World War I was because the army was stabbed in the back by Jews in Berlin. Because high RWAs will always believe these falsehoods about the election of 2008, I doubt they’ll ever become reconciled to the Democratic victory that seems ahead. They will forcefully oppose many of the proposals the new administration will enact. They aren’t going to go away. They’re too frightened, and now they’re too angry as well.

~snip~

Despite all the factors handicapping the Republicans from the start, and the painfully inept, lurching, hypocritical, unfocused campaign they ran, some 60 million Americans voted for McCain/Palin. That’s a pretty sobering realization. I think it shows Barack Obama was working against a significantly stronger headwind than John McCain was, yet he prevailed.

Unfortunately, the wretchedly divisive 2008 GOP campaign will, I fear, poison the country for some time. High RWAs have been told over and over again by their trusted sources that Barack Obama is a Muslim socialist/Communist America-hating dictatorial terrorist intent on destroying the country. They have been led to intensely dislike, if not hate the president-elect, and it’s no accident, I submit, that the Secret Service noted a sharp increase in the number of threats to the Democratic standard-bearer as Palin’s crowds became more rabid. Furthermore the Republican National Committee, Fox News, and so on have sold authoritarian followers the myth that the Democrats won through massive voter fraud, because the media conspired to keep Americans from discovering “the truth” about Obama, and that the Democrats caused all the problems that have occurred over the past eight years. You could easily find postings on various blogs in the last weeks of the campaign saying people should be ready to “take up arms” against an “illegal Obama tyranny” to “preserve democracy and the Constitution.”

Thus while Barack Obama may genuinely seek a more inclusive, consensual approach to the country’s dire problems, many high RWAs may say “Count me out.” Their leaders--social dominators pursuing their own agendas--will instead stoke the often racist dislike for Obama that was so evident at Republican rallies in the closing days of the campaign.

[RKP5637]

1. 1930's Germany! n/t

[will_in_chicago]

28. An article touching on the mindset of authoritarians

In the article, http://www.jewishjournal.com/rob_eshman/article/tea_party_dangers_ahead_20100323/">Tea Party dangers ahead?, Rob Eshman references the work of Eric Hoffer, author of the 1951 book "The True Believer." Here is an excerpt from Eshman's article.



True believers, he wrote, tend to be the “new poor,” people who, “throb with the ferment of frustration.” In Germany and Italy they were from the ruined middle class. The Tea Partiers have seen their net worth collapse, their jobs evaporate. Check.

True believers seek a common enemy, preferably one they admire. “We cannot hate those we despise,” Hoffer wrote. “An American’s hatred for a fellow American (for Hoover or Roosevelt) is far more virulent than any antipathy he can work up against foreigners.” The Tea Partiers shout down insufficiently radical Republicans. Check.

“... the genius of a great leader consists in concentrating all hatred on a single foe,” wrote Hoffer. “ ... the ideal devil is a foreigner. To qualify as a devil, a domestic enemy must be given a foreign ancestry.” Obama ... Birthers ... Indonesia. Check.

Finally, there is this: “There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of the facts,” wrote Hoffer. Death panels. Wholesale abortion. “Government takeover.” Check.


A key difference between some past movements in Europe is that the Tea Party movement has no single unifying figure who will organize them and make them into a mass movement to take power.

[Emit]

34. Thanks for posting that article

Interesting, but I can't help but think that the ptb in the GOP do not really care at the moment whether there is a leader ~ they will create one. They did with Scott Brown. As I understand it, they made the 'true believers' think Brown was 'one of them' ~~ and the $$ poured in ~~ when in reality he's a pro-choice moderate Repub who crossed party lines on his second major vote in the Senate when he voted with the Dems on the jobs bill. 'Baggers were very upset, but, hey, it mattered not at that point because he was already in there.

[polichick]

2. Thanks for posting! k&r

[RKP5637]

3. BTW- This is an excellent post! Thanks! n/t

[Emit]

10. Thanks, RKP5637

I hope others get the opportunity to read Dr. Altemeyer's work. His work did a lot in helping me to gain an understanding of the underlying structure of these personalities.

[anigbrowl]

4. Big kick - this is essential reading, A long time fan of this work here.

[Emit]

14. Thanks, anigbrowl

I think Altemeyer's work on RWAs is important reading, too ~ if anything, just to help understand the underlying personality structures of these folks. I think Altemeyer's work is fascinating. I found his post script following the '08 elections interesting in that his comments are wholly predictive of what we see unfolding with these high RWA followers, aka tea 'baggers.

[zeemike]

5. That post script on the election nailed it.

that is exactly what happened in the last year or so.
Thanks for posting that again.

[Emit]

15. It sure does, doesn't it? They will forcefully oppose many of the proposals the new administration

"They will forcefully oppose many of the proposals the new administration will enact. They aren’t going to go away. They’re too frightened, and now they’re too angry as well.

...

Their leaders--social dominators pursuing their own agendas--will instead stoke the often racist dislike for Obama that was so evident at Republican rallies in the closing days of the campaign."

Altemeyer nailed it.

[Marr]

6. I thought Altemeyer's book was one of the most illuminating things I've ever read.

It makes all the otherwise baffling behavior you see on the far-right suddenly make sense.

[Emit]

32. It really helped me to understand the "baffling behavior," too.

My father is a high RWA and now, in retrospect, I can see why it was best that I gave up arguing with him on certain subjects long ago! In fact, to this day, when we discuss politics, it results in an amazing dance of decorum on my part - the old man's 80 now and not in good health. I know he'll never change and therefore, there's no need to get his blood pressure up. On the other hand, I always want to stand firm to my convictions, so I just smile a lot, change the subject often and listen more than I talk.

[Odin2005]

7. K&R

[D23MIURG23]

8. Yes. Thank you. The authoritarians is an excellent book.

K&R

[Lyric]

9. A very good analysis, although I didn't see much there that most of us

don't already know by instinct. It was fantastic to have all of those things that I've always intuited about right-wingers laid out and picked apart so thoroughly and logically. However, it's also depressing--because it reinforces the fact that there's nothing we can do about it. These are not people who will ever be willing to change. In our "Lord of the Flies" world, these people are Jack's tribe members--terrified of The Beast and willing to commit pretty much ANY atrocity that Authority tells them to commit in the name of defending themselves from The Beast. They will never realize or accept that they ARE The Beast...and have been all along. There's no higher authority that's going to land on our island, snap them out of their violent frenzy, and mete out punishment and shame. We have only ourselves to turn to for help.

If we can't reason with them and we can't convert them, then the only thing left to do in a civilized democracy is to try and limit the damage they can do. Education is key. This information needs to be taught in schools, and if the schools won't teach it, then the parents need to do it. Teach kids how to recognize this kind of reactionary, authoritarian thinking, and teach them as early as you possibly can. The only way to defeat the animalistic tribe is with logic, reason, and a deep respect for civilization and government.

[proteus_lives]

11. Wow, that's the Antis to a T.

[upi402]

12. It's past time to lift the taboo against Nazi analogies.

Ya have to wonder where that taboo came from.

"It all reminds me of Hitler’s Big Lie as he rose to power that the only reason Germany lost World War I was because the army was stabbed in the back by Jews in Berlin. Because high RWAs will always believe these falsehoods about the election of 2008, I doubt they’ll ever become reconciled to the Democratic victory that seems ahead. They will forcefully oppose many of the proposals the new administration will enact. They aren’t going to go away. They’re too frightened, and now they’re too angry as well."

[Ysabel]

13. thanks for reposting this...

to me a number of these things (the inconsistencies, seeing themselves through a glass darkly, the confused logic) seem schizophrenic...

- editing to k and r...

[alfredo]

16. I recommend John Dean's "Conservatives Without Conscience."

Amazon has both Altemeyer's and Dean's books.

After reading Dean's book, read "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein, "The Family" By Jeff Sharlet, and "The Dark Side" by Jane Mayer. They will give you more insight into the real world actions of the authoritarian.

To cleanse your palette read, "American on Purpose" by Craig Ferguson. Everyone needs a good laugh.

[azul]

20. Just finished reading The Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam

It puts together some scientific studies that make some sense out of how people act in ways contrary to their reason, and then have to confusedly apologize about it.

(Also has a chapter on the tunnel of group membership that produces suicide bombers. Needs to be openly discussed, elsewhere.)

[alfredo]

26. There will always be suicide bombers as long as death

holds more promise than life.

[lumberjack_jeff]

17. Fascinating stuff. Thanks. n/t

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. Personally, I don't think you can change high RWA people.

The best you can hope for is to make 'em scared of the right stuff.

[upi402]

19. kick

:applause: :woohoo:

[coti]

21. Great post. nt

[lonestarnot]

22. So what causes the illogical thinking, brain damage?

[Odin2005]

33. Humans are naturally illogical.

Logic must be learned, people by default think associatively (It rained after I danced so dancing makes it rain), not logically. You can see this illogical thinking in the "Vaccines cause Autism" nonsense.

[branders seine]

23. also beware centrist authoritarians

the mindset, as the author points out, is not really a matter of politics, but of personality.

[upi402]

24. The most insidious of them all

Moving the left to the center eliminates the left. DLC anybody?

kick

[branders seine]

29. last week, it was DLC everybody

[name not needed]

25. K&R. This should be permanently pinned to the front page of GD.

[Ardent15]

27. Agressive sociopathic behavior...

..is common in right-wingers.

[EFerrari]

30. Big kick!

:kick:

[Juche]

31. Good post

[Naturalist111]

35. That isn't just a Bullseye he did a William Tell

and split the arrow!!!!