Theodor Adorno

Theodor Adorno
(The Authoritarian Personality)

"Fortified by a better knowledge of individual* dynamics, we are now concerned with group dynamics."* (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"This school of philosophers [Cartesian rationalism] demonstrated that the previously accepted belief in the immediate effect of spiritual factors on the realm of the corporal is an illusion." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"the impact of Sigmund Freud's work on modern culture ...the connection between the suppression of children (both within the home and outside) ... the psychological dynamics of the life of the child and the adult alike." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Events of early childhood are of prime importance for the happiness and work-potential of the adult." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Our aim is not merely to describe prejudice but to explain it in order to help in its eradication. Eradication means re-education." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The Berkeley Public Opinion Study . . . hit upon the close correlation between overt prejudice and certain personality traits of a destructive nihilistic nature, suggested by an irrationally pessimistic ideology of the intolerant." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
Berkeley Public Opinion Study "prejudice in terms of social psychology" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The Institute of Social Research was dedicated to the principle of theoretical and methodological integration from its earliest days at the University of Frankfurt." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The American Jewish Committee grants sustained their research during a period of two and one-half years." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
Forward by Max Horkheimer American Jewish Committee May, 1944
"two day conference on religious and racial prejudice." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Ideology stands for an organization of opinions, attitudes, and values – a way of thinking about man and society." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Ideology depends upon the individual's needs and to the degree to which these needs are being satisfied or frustrated." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Opinions, attitudes, and values [Ideologies/Paradigms] are expressed more or less openly in words." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Affective-laden questions. . . . The degree of openness with which a person speaks will depend upon the situation in which he finds himself." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The scientific study of ideology can only be made on the basis of theory." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"To study ideology at this ‘readiness level' ─ when climate changes, some individuals adapt themselves much more quickly than others ─ a discrepancy between what he says and what he ‘really thinks." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The individual may have ‘secret' thoughts which he will under no circumstances reveal to anyone else if he can help it." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"To gain access is particularly important, for precisely here may lie the individual's potential for democratic or antidemocratic thought and action in crucial situations." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"What is the degree of relationship between ideology and action?" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"What kinds and what intensities of belief, attitudes, and value are likely to lead to action?" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"What forces within the individual serves as inhibitions upon actions?" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Ideology-in-readiness and ideology-in-words and action are essentially the same stuff." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Personality evolves under the impact of the social environment and can never be isolated form the social totality within which it occurs." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"According to the present theory, the effects of environmental forces in molding the personality are, in general, the more profound the earlier in the life history of the individual they are brought." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The major influences upon personality development arise in a setting of family life." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Economic factors affect directly the parent's behavior toward the child." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Changes in social conditions and institutions will have a direct bearing upon the kinds of personalities that develop within a society." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The present research seeks to discover correlations between ideology and sociological factors operating in the individual's past." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"To explain these correlations the relationships between personality and ideology are brought into the picture." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Why it is that people whose behavior has been changed through psychological manipulation lapse into their old ways as soon as the agencies of manipulation are removed?" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Personality is mainly a potential; it is a readiness for behavior." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"What are the conditions under which antidemocratic propaganda would increase in pitch and volume and come to dominate in press and radio to the exclusion of contrary ideological stimuli, so that what is now potential would become actively manifest?" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The answer must be sought in the process at work in society itself." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"A man who is hostile toward one minority group is very likely to be hostile against a wide variety of others.." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Individuals, out of their needs to conform and to belong and to believe, often take over more or less ready-made the opinions, attitudes, and values that are characteristic of the groups in which they have membership." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"A correlation between group memberships and ideology is usually made, according, it may be supposed, to the needs of his personality." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The task of fascist propaganda is rendered easier to the degree that antidemocratic potentials already exist in the great mass of people." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"These programs should be devoted to increasing the kind of self-awareness and self-determination that makes any kind of manipulation impossible." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Since all ideologies, all philosophies, derive from non-rational sources there is no basis for saying that one has more merit than another." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"According to theory, the personality variables which have most to do with determining the objectivity and rationality of an ideology are those which belong to the ego." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The attempt was made to bring methods of traditional social psychology into the service of theories and concepts from the newer dynamic theory of personality." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"to make ‘depth psychological' phenomena more amenable to mass statistical treatment."
"Subjects were never told what was the particular concern of the questionnaire." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The statements conveyed little or nothing to the subject as to the nature of the real question being pursued." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The questions are not ambiguous in their formal structure, but in the sense that the answers are at the level of emotional expression and the subject is not aware of their implications." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"inspired by a dynamic theory of personality." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"When the group leadership was conservative, the procedure was more difficult." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"A more successful approach to conservative leaders was to present the whole project as a survey of general public opinion, ‘like a Gallup poll,' being carried forwarded by a group of scientists at the University." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The traditional Christian values of tolerance, brotherhood, and equality are more firmly held by people who do not affiliate with any religious group." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"An attitude of complete submissiveness toward ‘supernatural forces' and a readiness to accept the essential incomprehensibility of ‘many important things' strongly suggest the persistence in the individual of infantile attitudes toward the parents, that is to say, of authoritarian submission in a very pure form." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"It is a well-known hypothesis that susceptibility to fascism is most characteristically a middle-class phenomenon, that it is ‘in the culture' and, hence, that those who conform the most to this culture will be the most prejudiced." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Probably superstition and stereotype tend to go with low intelligence." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"It appears likely that superstition and stereotype embrace dispositions in thinking which are closely akin to prejudice." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Superstition indicates a tendency to shift responsibility from within the individual onto outside forces beyond one's control . . . the ego has ‘given up,' renounced the idea that it might determine the individual's fate by overcoming external forces." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"A tendency to transmit mainly a set of conventional rules and customs, may be considered as interfering with the development of a clear-cut personal identity in the growing child." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
Similarity between anti-Semitism and anticommunism (Adorno) Religious Ideology (note fn. p. 729) (Adorno) E scale listings (Levinson) Conclusions "Techniques for overcoming resistance, . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
Adorno, et al. The Authoritarian Personality Bettelheim and Janowitz Dynamics of Prejudice Ackerman and Jahoda Anti-Semitism and Emotional Massing Rehearsal for Destruction Lowenthal and Guterman Prophets of Deceit (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"to explain 'prejudice' in order to eradicate it." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Eradication means re-education, scientifically planned." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"the rise of an ‘anthropological' species" "the authoritarian type of man" irrational and anti-rational beliefs superstitious individualist jealous of his independence inclined to submit blindly to power and authority the suppression of children and society's (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The present work seeks to develop and promote an understanding of social-psychological factors which have made it possible for the authoritarian type of man to threaten to replace the individualistic and democratic type." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Progressive analysis of this new ‘anthropological' type . . . will enhance the chances of a genuinely educational counterattack." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
Institute of Social Research "the principle of theoretical and methodological integration from its earliest days at the University of Frankfurt" on authority and the family a link between psychological dispositions and political leanings (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
The potentially fascistic individual: "one whose structure renders him susceptible to anti-democratic propaganda" "a threat to our traditional values and institutions." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . individuals differ in their susceptibility . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"to study ideology at this ‘readiness level'. . . to gauge the potential for fascism " (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The forces of personality are primarily needs. . . which interact with other needs in harmonious or conflicting patterns " (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
" personality development arise in the course of child training . . . carried forward in . . .family life" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Social, ethnic, and religious ... factors affect . . . the parent's behavior toward the child" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"broad changes in social conditions and institutions will have a direct bearing upon the kinds of personalities that develop within a society" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
" personality is a product of the social environment of the past . . . a structure within the individual . . . very resistant to fundamental change" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"A natural step in the present study, therefore, was to conceive of a continuum extending from extreme conservatism to extreme liberalism and to construct a scale which would place individuals along this continuum." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"This would permit the determination of the quantitative relations of conservatism to anti‑Semitism and to general ethnocentrism." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"conservative values, pro‑business attitudes, and the like ‑‑ commonly go together" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . should fascism become a powerful force in this country, it would parade under the banners of traditional American democracy. . . ‘rugged individualism'" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Extreme prejudice of a violent and openly antidemocratic sort does not seem to be widespread in this country, especially in the middle class." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Outgroups are the objects of negative opinions and hostile attitudes," "ingroups are the objects of positive opinions and uncritically supportive attitudes;" . . . outgroups should be socially subordinate to ingroups" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The initial E scale consists of thirty-four items arranged in three subscales dealing respectively with Negroes, various other minorities, and patriotism (extranational outgroups)." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The phenomena of ‘contempt for the masses' and the subordination of women were considered examples of ethnocentrism . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Can the attitude that ‘women's place is in the home' be considered a prejudice? It would appear that it is so" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Patriotism . . . viewing America as an ingroup in relation to other nations as outgroups." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
. . . ‘patriotism' . . . involves blind attachment to certain national cultural values, uncritical conformity with the prevailing group way, and rejection of other nations as outgroups" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"... genuine patriotism, love of country and attachment to national values is based on critical understanding appreciate the values and ways of other nations permissive toward much that he cannot personally accept for himself free of rigid conformism, outgroup rejection, and imperialistic striving for power." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . each facet of ethnocentric ideology. . . is accepted by most high scorers, rejected, by most low scorers." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"they have in common a general way of thinking about groups, but there are wide individual differences in the imagery and attitudes regarding various groups." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . ‘motivated' is used to distinguish this type of downward mobility. . . psychologically desired and sought. . . the desire for comfort, leisure, and so on; this is psychologically different from that upward mobility in which the desire for status and power, and identification with powerful groups." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Upward‑Downward Mobility type : conservative‑Status Quo democratic‑Revolutionary cause : economic ‑ undesired psychologically ‑ desired desire: status and power comfort, pleasure." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The major outgroups in America . . . Jews, Negroes, the lower socioeconomic class, labor unions, and political radicals, especially Communists." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
" Other groups . . . Catholics; Oklahomans & Japanese; pacifists, . . . homosexuals." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"ethnocentrism takes the form of pseudopatriotism; ‘we' are the best people and the best country in the world, and we should either keep out of world affairs altogether (isolationism) or we should participate ‑‑ but without losing our full sovereignty, power, and economic advantage (imperialism)." "And in either case we should have the biggest army and navy in the world, and atom bomb monopoly." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Protestant sects . . . religious‑nonreligious, Christian‑Jewish, Protestant‑Catholic. . . ‘we'. . . ingroup‑outgroup." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The ethnocentric "need for an outgroup" prevents that identification with humanity as a whole which is found in anti‑ethnocentrism . . . . the ethnocentrists' inability to approach individuals as individuals." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The inability to identify with humanity takes the political form of nationalism and cynicism about world government and permanent peace." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"(Since ethnocentrism is structured on pseudo‑scientific views of human nature they therefore believe that) evil, since it is unchangeable, must be attacked, stamped out, or segregated wherever it is found, lest it contaminate the good. (Parenthesis added)" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The democratic alternative, humanitarianism, (is) the ability to like and dislike, to value and oppose, individuals on the basis of concrete specific experience;" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"justice requires dominance by the superior ingroup," (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"considers hierarchy and power conflict "neutral" ... has difficulty in grasping a conception of group relations in which power considerations are largely eliminated and in which no group can control the lives of other groups." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Obedience and loyalty are the first requirements of the ingroup member. What is called power‑seeking and clannishness in the outgroup is transformed into moral righteousness, self‑defense, and loyalty in the ingroup." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The conception of the ideal family situation for the child: uncritical obedience to the father and elders, pressures directed unilaterally from above to below, inhibition of spontaneity and emphasis on conformity to externally imposed values." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The ingroup must be kept pure and strong. The only methods of doing this are to liquidate the outgroups altogether, to keep them entirely subordinate, or to segregate them in such a way as to minimize contact with the ingroups." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Attitudes that the main outgroups should be subordinated and segregated are characteristic of American ethnocentrism." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Ethnocentrism is based on a pervasive and rigid ingroup‑outgroup distinction it involves stereotyped negative imagery and hostile attitudes regarding outgroups, stereotyped positive imagery and submissive attitudes regarding ingroups, a hierarchical, authoritarian view of group interaction in which ingroups are rightly dominant, outgroups subordinate." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"a. SUPPORT OF THE AMERICAN Status Quo. Perhaps the definitive component of conservatism is an attachment, on the surface at least, to ‘things as they are,' to the prevailing social organization and ways." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"b. RESISTANCE TO SOCIAL CHANGE. Another aspect of traditionalism is the tendency to oppose innovations or alterations of existing politic‑economic forms. ‘The best ways to solve social problems is to stick close to the middle of the road, to move slowly and to avoid extremes.'" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"c. SUPPORT OF CONSERVATIVE VALUES. One of the primary value systems underlying conservative ideology is concerned with practicality, ambition, and upward class mobility." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"These values are reflected in the raising and indoctrination of children ..." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The values for practicality and rugged competitiveness stand in rather marked contrast to other, psychologically related, values for charity and community service." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"On the other hand our religious tradition is one of charity and tolerance; if one cannot excuse the poor, one can at least soften their plight. . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Item 8 was intended to measure: ‘Every adult should find time or money for some worthy service organization (charity, medical aid, etc.) as the best way of aiding his fellow man.'" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"From the ‘liberal' point of view charity is mainly a soothing of conscience and a means of maintaining an unjust state of affairs." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"liberals tend to view social problems as symptoms of the underlying social structure, while conservatives view them as results of individual incompetence or immorality. In short, political problems tend to be seen in moral rather than sociological terms." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Item 22 was intended to measure this trend. ‘A political candidate, to be worth voting for, must first and foremost have a good character, one that will fight inefficiency, graft and vice.'" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Conservatism is taken to mean traditional economic laissez faire individualism, according to which our economic life is conceived in terms of the free (unregulated) competition of individual entrepreneurs." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Conservative ideology has traditionally urged that the economic functions of government be minimized. Fear of government power (like union power) is emphasized, and great concern is expressed for the freedom of the individual, particularly the individual businessman." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The attempt to minimize government functioning extends also to the sphere of social security, socialized medicine, and the various other programs designed to help the ‘common man.'" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"What characterized the left and distinguishes it from the right is the desire for a change, slight or great, in the balance of power." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"increase the functions of government so as to reduce the power of business, increase the power of labor, and diminish somewhat the extreme class differences that now exist." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"(the) left‑wing (‘radical') ideologies . . . thesis is that capitalism, no matter how it is modified by reforms, must necessarily produce social problems such as depression, war, and mass poverty . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
" . . . they want nationalization of industry, planned production, and production for use rather than for profit." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
" Only when the process of production is organized on a socialist basis, they argue, can there be true economic democracy, equality or management and labor, and a high national standard of living." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The PEC (Politico‑Economic Scale) attempted to measure only a general right‑left dimension" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"low score .. left‑of center viewpoints: status quo; a tendency to think in sociological rather than moral‑hereditarian terms; a tendency to identify with labor and the ‘common man' and to oppose the power of business; support for extension of the political and economic functions of government." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
pp. 176 - 177 Identification of the Liberal (Levinson)
"The prototypic "liberal" is . . . an individual who actively seeks progressive social change, who can be militantly critical (though not necessarily totally rejective) of the present status quo," (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"who opposes or de‑emphasizes numerous conservative values and beliefs regarding business success, rugged individualism, human nature, and the like," (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
" and who would diminish the power of business by increasing the power of labor and the economic functions of government." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"politically pacifistic liberal . . . feels that ‘powerful unions are as dangerous as powerful business.' . . . fear of government power often leads him to oppose liberal measures" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
p. 207 Conclusion - Anti-Semitism and Ethnocentrism (Levinson)
"The Anti‑Semitism and Ethnocentrism scales, our primary measures of antidemocratic trends, show statistically significant relationships with the right‑left dimension of politico‑economic ideology." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"subjects professing the same religion as the mother have a higher score." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
pp. 213 - 215 Religious Affiliation of Parents (Sanford)
"the lowest means appear when neither the subject nor the mother is religious." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"submission to and dependence upon parental authority is an important determinant of ethnocentrism;" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"subjects, particularly women, who profess a religion that is different from that of the mother have probably been able to free themselves from these attitudes and hence, to a considerable degree, from prejudice." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"men who side with the mother in the matter of religion may gain thereby something of that Christian humanism which works against prejudice." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
p. 218 -- "The fact of acceptance or rejection of religion is not as important as the way in which it is accepted or rejected." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"the ‘supernatural force' item . . . was significantly correlated with . . . antidemocratic trends." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"agreement between the parents in matter of religious affiliation . . . lessen the chances of an awakening on the part of the subject. . . indicative of submissiveness toward authority, tend to be associated with ethnocentrism." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"conformity, conventionalism, authoritarian submission, determination by external pressures, thinking in ingroup‑outgroup terms and the like vs. nonconformity, independence, internalization of values, and so forth." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Subjects who profess to some religious affiliation express more prejudice than those who do not. Unitarians and a group of minor Protestant groups, [with] some spirit of nonconformity or some lack of identification with the status quo, score lower than the others." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"people who reject organized religion are less prejudiced than those who accept it." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"When the religious affiliation of the subject is considered in relation to that of his parents," (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"it appears that ethnocentrism tends to be more pronounced in subjects whose parents presented a unified religious front than in cases where the religious influence from the parents was inconsistent, partial, or nonexistent." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"acceptance of religion mainly as an expression of submission to a clear pattern of parental authority is a condition favorable to ethnocentrism." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"A quantitative approach to religious ideology was made by including in one form of the questionnaire an open‑ended question concerning the importance, in the subject's mind, of religion and the church." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"it turned out that the subjects who considered both religion and the church important were very considerably more anti‑Semitic than were subjects who considered neither important" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"or emphasized the ethical aspects of religion or differentiated between the church and ‘real' religion and, while rejecting the former, stressed the more personal and more rational aspects of the latter." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
pp. 228 - 241 Measurement of Antidemocratic Trends (Sanford, Adorno, et. al.)
"It is a well‑known hypothesis that susceptibility to fascism is most characteristically a middle‑class phenomenon, . . . those who conform the most to this culture will be the most prejudiced." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Submission to authority, desire for a strong leader, subservience of the individual to the state, and so forth, have so frequently and, as it seems to us, correctly, been set forth as important aspects of the Nazi creed that a search for correlates of prejudice had naturally to take these attitudes into account." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"E. Fromm (42), E. H. Erikson (25), A. Maslow (79), M. B. Chisholm (18), and W. Reich (96) are among the writers whose thinking about authoritarianism has influenced our own." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Authoritarian submission was conceived of as a very general attitude that would be evoked in relation to a variety of authority figures‑‑parents, older people, leaders, supernatural power, and so forth." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Conventionalism, authoritarian submission, and authoritarian aggression all have to do with the moral aspect of life‑‑with standards of conduct, with the authorities who enforce these standards, with offenders against them who deserve to be punished. . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . all three can be understood as expressions of a particular kind of structure within the personality. . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
" . . .the conscience or superego is incompletely integrated with the self or ego," (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality) (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"the ego here being conceived of as embracing the various self‑controlling and self‑expressing functions of the individual . . . permit[ting] gratification without inviting too much punishment by the superego," (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"the ego seeks in general to carry out the activities of the individual in accordance with the demands of reality." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"It is a function of the ego to make peace with conscience, to create a larger synthesis within which conscience, emotional impulses, and self operate in relative harmony." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"When this synthesis is not achieved, the superego has somewhat the role of a foreign body within the personality, and it exhibits those rigid, automatic, and unstable aspects discussed above." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Intraception is a term . . . to stand for ‘the dominance of feelings, fantasies, speculations, aspirations‑‑an imaginative, subjective human outlook.'" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The opposite of intraception is extraception, ‘a term that describes the tendency to be determined by concrete, clearly observable, physical conditions (tangible, objective facts).'" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"An important feature of the Nazi program, it will be recalled, was the defamation of everything that tended to make the individual aware of himself and his problems . . . every kind of psychology except aptitude testing came under attack." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
" This general attitude easily leads to a devaluation of the human and an overvaluation of the physical object . . . human beings are looked upon as if they were physical objects to be coldly manipulated." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . so many of the ideas and observations needed for an adequate account are not allowed to enter into the calculations: because they are affect‑laden and potentially anxiety‑producing, the weak ego cannot include them within its scheme of things." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . those deeper forces within the personality which the ego cannot integrate with itself are likely to be projected onto the outer world; this is a source of bizarre ideas concerning other peoples' behavior and concerning the causation of events in nature." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Superstitiousness . . . indicates that the ego might already have ‘given up,' that is to say, renounced the idea that it might determine the individual's fate by overcoming external forces." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . in modern industrial society the capacity of the individual to determine what happens to himself has actually decreased, so that items referring to external causation might easily be realistic and hence of no significance for personality." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
p. 257 ¶ "sado-masochistic theme . . . high scorer" (as above) (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
pp. 310 - 317 Religion, Family, Childhood (Else Frenkel-Brunswik)
"authority deciding what is good and what is bad, thus relieving the individual from making his own decisions and assuring him at the same time of membership in a privileged group. The rejection of outgroup religions goes hand in hand with this attitude." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"God is conceived more directly after a parental image and thus as a source of support and as a guiding and sometimes punishing authority." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The group memberships of the parents were to be taken as an indication of how much stress was placed by the family on the idea of ‘belonging' and of how much the parents considered themselves as individuals or mainly as members of different groups and organizations." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The whole socioeconomic picture of the parents, and possibly of the grandparents, the status achieved as well as that aspired to, had to be understood in order to throw light on the security or the tensions existing within the family." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"dominated by the authoritarian aspects of the parent‑child relationship or by a more democratic type of relationship, the ability of the subject to appraise his parents objectively, as contrasted with an inclination to put the parents on a very high plane." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The power‑relationship between the parents, the domination of the subject's family by the father or by the mother, and their relative dominance in specific areas of life also seemed of importance for our problem." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The sources within the family of satisfactions and tensions in general were also explored." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"One of the primary functions of these [matter‑of‑fact] questions was to encourage the subject to talk freely." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"This was attempted by indicating, for example, that critical remarks about parents were perfectly in place, thus reducing defenses as well as feelings of guilt and anxiety. . . . matter‑of‑fact questions were also designed to catch general attitudes with as little distortion as possible." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"conventionalized values . . . with great intolerance toward disobedience and any deviations, especially when the deviations seemed to the parents to be manifestations of lower‑class behavior," (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"or were the values the parents tried to transmit less conventional and more in the nature of internal and humanitarian values for which the child's understanding and cooperation could be secured?" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"A person with a mature integrated, and internalized conscience will certainly take a different stand on moral and social issues than a person with an underdeveloped, defective, or overpunitive superego," (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"or a person who still, as in childhood, clings to a set of rules and values only as they are reinforced by an external authority, be it public opinion or be it a leader." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
p. 370 last ¶ Note matriarchal emphasis and authors listed
"domination, or just ‘domination,' in the families of the high‑scoring, and toward mother‑orientation, in contradistinction to mother‑'domination,' in the families of the low‑scoring men." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"It would then be more understandable why the German family, with its long history of authoritarian, threatening father figures, could become susceptible to a fascist ideology." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The son of such a father figure can apparently never quite establish his personal and masculine identity; he thus has to look for it in a collective system where there is opportunity both for submission to the powerful and for retaliation upon the powerless." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
p. 372 rules vs. principles, threatening vs. assimilable "‘moralistic,' was contrasted with discipline for violation of principles, primarily ‘rationalized'. . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . the choice between these two opposite alternatives on the part of the parents would seem to be crucial for the establishment of the child's attitude toward what is considered right or wrong:" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"it probably decides the externalization vs. internalization of values. In the first case, discipline is handled as a force outside of the child, to which at the same time he must submit. The values in question are primarily the values of adult society . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The second type of discipline invites the cooperation and understanding of the child and makes it possible for him to assimilate it." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"submission and surrender of his ego, thus preventing his development." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The second type contributes to the growth of the ego; . . . seems an important condition for the establishment of an internalized superego, and thus crucial for the development of an unprejudiced personality." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
pp. 375 - 376 Note last line on p. 375f and authors listed
pp. 384 - 389 Consider the political implications of this summary by Else
"Prejudiced subjects tend to report a relatively harsh and more threatening type of home discipline which was experienced as arbitrary by the child." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Family relationships are characterized by fearful subservience to the demands of the parents and by an early suppression of impulses not acceptable to them." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The goals which such parents have in mind in rearing and training their children tend to be highly conventional." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The status‑anxiety so often found in families of prejudiced subjects is reflected in the adoption of a rigid and externalized set of values:" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . what is socially accepted and what is helpful in climbing the social ladder is considered ‘good,' and what deviates, what is different, and what is socially inferior is considered ‘bad.'" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The more urgent the ‘social needs' of the parents, the more they are apt to view the child's behavior in terms of their own instead of the child's needs." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Since the values of the parents are outside the child's scope, yet are rigorously imposed upon him, . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . conduct not in conformity with the behavior, or with the behavioral facade, required by the parents has to be rendered ego‑alien and ‘split off' from the rest of the personality with a resultant loss of integration." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"moral indignation first experienced in the attitude of one's parents toward oneself is being redirected against weaker outgroups." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The lack of an internalized and individualized approach to the child, on the part of the parents, as well as . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"a tendency to transmit mainly a set of conventional rules and customs, may be considered as interfering with the development of a clear‑cut personal identity in the growing child." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality) [repeated from above]
"The superficial character of the identification with the parents and the consequent underlying resentment against them recurs in the attitudes to authority and social institutions in general." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The fact that his helplessness as a child was exploited by the parents and that he was forced into submission must have reinforced any existing antiweakness attitude." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"the prejudiced man has more possibilities available to him to compensate for underlying weaknesses . . . Prejudiced women, with fewer outlets . . . for the expression of their underlying feelings, show . . . stronger underlying hostilities and more rigid defenses than their male counterparts." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The unprejudiced man . . . seems oriented toward his mother . . . to absorb a measure of passivity in his ideal of masculinity. . . . The humanitarian approach can then be adopted on the basis on identification both with the mother and with the father." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The unprejudiced women, on the other hand, seems to have more often a genuine liking and admiration for the father, for, say, his intellectual‑aesthetic abilities. This often leads to conscious identification with him." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"unprejudiced subjects often succeed in attaining a considerable degree of independence from their parents, and freedom in making their own decisions." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"this type of independence recurs in the unprejudiced subjects' attitude toward social institutions and authorities in general. . . the existing identification with the parents is often accompanied by a more basic identification with mankind and society in general." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"the ethnically unprejudiced in our culture tend to be more creative and imaginative than the prejudiced and that they are characterized by a fuller integration of their personalities." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . the increasing disproportion of the various psychological 'agencies' within the total personality is undoubtedly being reinforced by such tendencies in our culture as . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . division of labor, the increased importance of monopolies and institutions, and the dominance of the idea of exchange and of success and competition" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Conflicts and inadequacies, being faced more openly, have a greater chance of being worked out successfully." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Since the typical low‑scoring man more readily accepts his own femininity than the high scorer, and the low‑scoring woman her masculine striving, one important source of hidden aggression toward the opposite sex‑‑and toward other people in general, as it seems‑‑is reduced." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
pp. 461 - 464 Cognitive rigidity (Else)
pp. 597 - 599 Achievement Values vs. Conventional Values (Levinson)
"What is particularly important here is that recognition of one's own individuality is the basis for recognition of the individuality of everyone, and for the democratic concept of the dignity of man." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"(Footnote: This point has also been made by Fromm (43). His distinction between ‘humanistic' and ‘authoritarian' ethics corresponds very closely to the present one between ‘achievement' and ‘conventional' values," (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . and is based on a similar attempt to distinguish two broad psychological approaches to man and society.)" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The difference between achievement values based on inner authority (internalized conscience), and conventional values based on external authority (and thus replaceable when the authority changes), results also in a difference in reaction to value‑violations." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"This is the difference between guilt and shame. . . . guilt is most characteristic of lows, shame of highs." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The highs, so moral on the surface, are essentially most concerned with underlying anxiety and with the gratification of impulses . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . whereas the lows, often so rebellious and so opposed to traditional morality on the surface, have more fully internalized moral principles and in their emotional functioning are more troubled with moral conflict." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
p. 726 Similarity between anti-Semitism and anti-communism (Adorno)
pp. 727 - 729 Religious Ideology (note fn. p. 729) (Adorno)
"On one hand the Christian doctrine of universal love and the idea of ‘Christian Humanism' is opposed to prejudice." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"On the other hand, Christianity as the religion of the ‘Son' contains an implicit antagonism against the religion of the ‘Father' and its surviving witnesses, the Jews." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"This antagonism, continuous since St. Paul, is enhanced by the fact that the Jews, by clinging to their own religious culture, rejected the religion of the Son and by the fact that the New Testament puts upon them the blame for Christ's death." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"many of the usual rationalizations of anti‑Semitism originate within Christianity or at least have been amalgamated with Christian motives." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . unconscious trends such as expressed in the idea of the crucifix and the sacrifice of blood. Although these latter ideas have been more or less successfully replaced by ‘Christian Humanism,' their deeper psychological roots have still to be reckoned with."1 (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
1 " A detailed theoretical analysis of the relationship between Christianity and anti‑Semitism has been contributed by Max Horkheimer and T. W. Adorno" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"In attempting to evaluate the influence of such elements of religion upon the existence or absence of prejudice today, one has to take into consideration the position in which Christianity presently finds itself: . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . it is faced with an "indifference" which often seems to make it altogether unimportant." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The Christian religion has been deeply affected by the process of Enlightenment and the conquest of the scientific spirit." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The ‘magical' elements of Christianity as well as the factual basis of Christian belief in biblical history have been profoundly shaken. . . .has largely become neutralized." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"This neutralization of religious beliefs is strikingly exemplified by the following statement of a high‑scoring Roman Catholic who attends church regularly. . . . he considers religion a ‘thoroughly important part of existence, perhaps it should occupy 2 to 5 percent of leisure time.'" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Some of the formal properties of religion, such as the rigid antithesis of good and evil, … still exercise considerable power." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Severed from their roots and often devoid of any specific content, . . . they assume an aspect of rigidity and intolerance such as we expect to find in the prejudiced person." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
pp. 922-924 E scale listings (Levinson)
For high scorers 1. countercathectic defenses: reaction formations particularly anal reaction formation for women; counteraction of passivity for men 2. lack of concern with love‑object 3. extra‑ and impunitiveness masochism 4. externalized superego	For low scorer 1. other defenses: particularly sub‑projection libations into artistic, intellectual, humanitarian, interests and activities 2. oral‑dependent‑ love‑seeking 3. intrapunitiveness 4. internalized superego (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"the low‑scoring subjects (but hardly ever high‑scoring ones) spoke about the interference of their symptoms with their work, which was in this connection described in such a way that one could infer the patient's true involvement in his work." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"A striking proportion of the low scorers had artistic occupations or interest." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"low scorers refer . . . concern about being rejected, . . . their own shortcomings in interpersonal relationships, quite in contrast to the high scorers." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"syndrome intrapunitiveness‑masochism‑strong internalized superego is illustrated by several of the examples of low scorers, particularly the cases with neurotic depressions and inferiority feelings, but also by the self‑critical attitude with which the low‑scorers report their difficulties." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"ethnocentrism is correlated with personality dynamics."
pp. 970 (not in reading list given to class)
"low scorers . . . early inhibition of aggressions which are then turned upon the self; or the early relationships to parents lead to strong identifications and a well‑internalized ‑‑ though often disturbing ‑‑ conscience." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"high scorers, extensive repressions and countercathexes have hindered the ego's development. The ego remains rather primitive, undifferentiated, and completely isolated from a large portion of the deeper layers." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"When the unresolved unconscious conflicts become intensified and come closer to consciousness, the ego, totally unprepared, feels overwhelmed and shocked." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"This may lead merely to strong anxieties with or without somatic symptoms. In more extreme form, however, it may lead to depersonalization withdrawal from reality, denial, projections, and other psychotic manifestations." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Given a sufficient supporting environment, highly ethnocentric individuals achieve a sense of ‘comfort' and ‘adjustment'; but they frequently lack the productiveness, the capacity for love," (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . and, in times of stress, the grip on reality, which are more characteristic of the anti‑authoritarian individuals." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
pp. 971 - 976 Conclusions "Techniques for overcoming resistance, . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
1 "There is marked similarity between the syndrome which we have labeled the authoritarian personality and 'the portrait of the anti‑Semite' by Jean‑Paul Sartre." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Historical factors or economic forces operating in our society to promote or to diminish ethnic prejudice are clearly beyond the scope of our investigation." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"In pointing toward the importance of the parent‑child relationship in the establishment of prejudice or tolerance we have moved one step in the direction of an explanation." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"We have not, however, gone into the social and economic processes that in turn determine the development of characteristic family patterns." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"we are pretty much in the dark as to the remaining necessary conditions under which an actual outbreak would occur . . . .we should be enabled to anticipate who would behave in a certain way under given circumstances." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"statistical basis comparable to that of nation‑wide opinion polls." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Rational arguments cannot be expected to have deep or lasting effects upon a phenomenon that is irrational in its essential nature;" (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . appeals to sympathy may do as much harm as good when directed to people one of whose deepest fears is that they might be identified with weakness or suffering." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Indeed it may be hoped that knowledge of what the potential fascist is like . . . will make symptomatic treatment more effective." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Thus, for example, although appeals to his reason or to his sympathy are likely to be lost on him, appeals to his conventionality or to his submissiveness toward authority might be effective." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . .that he would be impressed by legal restraints against discrimination, and that his self‑restraint would increase as minority groups became stronger through being protected." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"conformity works against the values of cultural diversity," (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"a ‘cure' of one manifestation is likely to be followed by a breaking out in some other area. . . . so great is the over‑all fascist potential that any withdrawal on any front might make it even more difficult . . . to secure their rights." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"as the present study has shown, we are dealing with a structure within the person it seems that we should consider, first, psychological techniques for changing personality." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Confronted with the rigidity of the adult ethnocentrist, one turns naturally to the question of whether the prospects for healthy personality structure would not be greater if the proper influences were brought to bear earlier in the individuals life, . . ." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
". . . and since the earlier the influence the more profound it will be, attention becomes focused upon child training." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"For ethnocentric parents, acting by themselves, the prescribed measures would probably be impossible." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"We should expect them to exhibit in their relations with their children much the same moralistically punitive attitudes that they express toward minority groups ‑‑ and toward their own impulses." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Few parents can be expected to persist for long in educating their children for a society that does not exist, or even in orienting themselves toward goals which they share only with a minority." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The task is comparable to that of eliminating neurosis, or delinquency, or nationalism from the world." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"These are products of the total organization of society and are to be changed only as that society is changes." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"The problem is one which requires the efforts of all social scientists ... the councils or round tables ... psychologist should have a voice." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"For the fascist potential to change, or even to be held in check, there must be an increase in people's capacity to see themselves and to be themselves." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
"Techniques for overcoming resistance, developed mainly in the field of individual psychotherapy, can be improved and adapted for use with groups and even for use on a mass scale." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)
""If fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy." (Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality)