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Flight into Security: A New Approach and Measure of the Authoritarian Personality
Author(s) -
Oesterreich Detlef
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
political psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.419
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1467-9221
pISSN - 0162-895X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2005.00418.x
Subject(s) - authoritarianism , psychology , social psychology , personality , personality psychology , democracy , politics , political science , law
A basic pattern of human response to stressful and uncertain situations which provoke anxiety and insecurity is to seek security and shelter. Those who provide support become by a process of psychological attribution authorities. Therefore the mechanism of seeking support and shelter under strained conditions might be called an “authoritarian reaction.” Socialization involves a negotiation with this basic reaction of flight in situations of uncertainty. As individuals develop, they learn to overcome the authoritarian reaction by formulating their own strategies to cope with reality. The authoritarian personality emerges out of an inability to generate such individual coping strategies. Authoritarian personalities defer to the dictates and control of others who offer them the certainty and comfort they cannot provide for themselves. Extensions of this basic authoritarian response are the rejection of the new and the unfamiliar, rigid adherence to norms and value systems, an anxious and inflexible response to new situations, suppressed hostility, and passive aggression. A new measure based on items on one's own behavior, feelings, motivation, and the individual's concept of the self was developed and tested in several empirical studies. It obtained a good reliability and proved to be valid by correlating to measures of right‐wing extremism, negative attitudes toward immigrants and women.