Conventional
idealization
of
siblings
zob.
siblings
zob.
Adorno-T-Authoritarian-Personality-Harper-Bros-1950
.
.
"
M58, asked which parent he was closest to, answers: "I think my father. Although he beat the life out of me. " He continues to emphasize that his father always gave everyone, including himself, '~a square deal. "
A good example of how some men in this group were frightened into obedience and submission is the following:
M57, asked about spanking, reports, "Not after 17. . . . Father had to give us one look and we knew what he meant. "
An example of delayed punishment experienced as meaningless and cruel is given in the following quotation:
'
M2o: (Nature of discipline? ) "She would hold me back in. Never let me play if
I'd done something wrong. . . . If I did anything wrong during the day, they couldn't spank me in public, in the hotel; they would spank me at night when I had maybe forgotten what it was for and resented it. Too delayed. " Subject says he usually cried when he was spanked in order to get it over sooner, because when he started to cry, his grandmother would usually stop shortly. "It hurt my pride. . . . Just an- other restriction. . . . Or, sometimes, they would take away a movie. " Subject says he resented this particularly since movies were few and far between for him anyway. "Grandfather never spanked me. . . . " About 10 or 12, subject says, he started run- ning around more . . . "and they sort of lost their grip on me. I just stayed away from home. More school activities and work. . . . "
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
374
Another high-scoring man expresses his own ideas about the necessity for
harsh punishment as follows:
M41: "If they have to whip them, I believe in whipping them. I don't believe in sparing the rod and spoiling the child; though I don't believe in abusing them. ? . . Go down the street and hear a mother (threaten a spanking), the child says, 'Oh, mother, you know you don't mean that. ' If I'd have said that to my mother, I wouldn't be able to sit down. ''
Further examples of the "High" type of discipline, taken from the records of high-scoring men and containing, among other things, deference to the emphasis on "being told" in terms of "petty" rules or "laws" lacking suffi- cient explanations, are the following:
M43: (Who gave ~he discipline? ) "Uncle. (What kind? ) Whip us. (How often? ) Two or three times a month. (What for? ) Going off without asking, not doing things we were told. (Was he always fair? ) Well, after you'd think it over, you had it coming. (Ever question whether he was right about it? ) No. "
To the question whether he has been often punished, M45 answers: "Often, and the hard part about it was that my stepmother would tell him (father) that my brother or I had done things and he wouldn't give us a chance to explain. . . . (What was your reaction? ) Well, I ran off twice. . . . It didn't cause me to hate him. I held it mostly against her. (Did he exercise most of the discipline? ) He did. (Did she sometimes punish you? ) Yes, but not often. (For what? ) Oh, things that seemed so trivial, like getting home late from school to do my chores. "
M 47: (What was the usual nature of the discipline? ) ". . . . just bawl us out. (Q) She made it seem like it was hurting her more than it did us. . . . I think I'd rather have a licking than a good bawling out. (Q) She'd look hurt. (What were your feel- ings? ) . . . Make me feel hurt . . . ashamed of myself. (Example? ) One time I stayed out pretty late one night. When I got home, why she bawled me out, just little things like that. . . . Or going some place where she told me not to go . ? . like some kid's house she told me not to play with. "
Similarly, to the question, for what sort of things have you been punished, M51 answers, "Usually something petty, stealing fudge off a shelf or something like that. " Ms8: "Well, my father was a very strict man. He wasn't religious, but strict in raising the youngsters. His word was law, and whenever he was disobeyed, there was punishment. When I was rz, my father beat me practically every day for get- ting into the tool chest in the back yard, and not putting everything away . . . finally
he explained that those things cost money, and I must learn to put it back. " Another high-scoring man, M6, reports: "My father left the discipline to my mother, though he was the la~when you came right down to it. I don't mean to say that either of them dominated us, but they kept us on the right track. I always had more respect for my mother than most. It was just the idea that she wanted me to do things that kept me on the right path. She spanked me sometimes. Father laid the
strap on rarely; the last time was when I was 12 or 13 for talking back to my mother. ''
There is much reference to cruel punishment such as "whipping," "not sparing the rod," or "beating the life out of me" in the records of high-scoring subjects. Furthermore, the above quotations show that the discipline in the home is experienced as something arbitrary. Often it is implied that the
? P ARENTS AND CHILDHOOD SEEN THROUGH INTERVIEWS 375
punishment was unjust or "unreasonable" and that the subject had to submit to it without being given a "chance to explain" the situation. This is espe- cially evident in the use, without further comment, of delayed punishment, an example of which was given above: "They would spank me at night, when I had maybe forgotten what it was for and resented it. "
Furthermore, there is in these records a great deal of stress upon the fact that punishment was administered for something which seemed petty to the subject, for the violation of an external rule rather than of a basic principle.
Quite different are the reports of low-scoring men about the type of disci- pline they received:
Asked as to how discipline was enforced, Mz6 relates: "Father lectured a good deal about honesty and integrity, etc. "
A relaxed type of discipline with few restrictions is clearly indicated in the protocols of the following two low-scoring women:
F75: (Family training? ) "Mother was in charge although they handled us well, I think. We were good, almost too good-and we were punished only rarely. Then it was a little spanking or scolding. There were never problems about going out. W e could have had more freedom than we took. "
F7o: (What kind of things did she stress in your upbringing? ) "She seems to me thoroughly liberal; there were not many restrictions anywhere. She accepted prac- tically anything I did. "
As is true in the case of many of the other categories, the material in the interviews on the issue of discipline of the women is not very complete. Thirteen of the high-scoring women received a Neutral rating; of the re- maining 12, 9 report the threatening, and only 3 the non-egodestructive type of discipline. The following are quotations from the records of high-scoring women:
F66 relates: "I was kind of temperamental when I was little. I had temper tantrums if I didn't get my way. My mother cured them-she dunked me under the water faucet until I stopped screaming. "
F36 reports a type of punishment psychologically quite cruel: Subject's mother criticized all her friends and interfered with all her friendships. In , subject had a boy friend eight years older than herself with whom she dated. Her mother scolded about the time she came home-said it was one or two o'clock in the morn- ing, although it was never later than eleven P . M . Her mother said that everybody in town was talking about subject's relationship with this fellow and that she would not be allowed to teach next year (in a small town). This worried her so that she finally went to the vice principal of the school board, who had got her the job, and asked if he had heard anything about her. He said, no, that everybody liked her and liked Gus too. So that's how she knew her mother was making it all up. Her mother no doubt thought she would never check up on it.
The difference in the type of discipline found in the families of our high- scoring as compared with those of our low-scoring subjects, in conjunction
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
with the difference in the family structure and the personality of the parents (stern vs. relaxed) may be considered part of the foundation for an authori- tarian vs. democratic approach to interpersonal relationships. Evidence from the present study as well as from others (see Lasswell, 66; Fromm, 42; Erikson, 2 5) supports the psychoanalytic axiom that the first social rela- tionships to be observed within the family are, to a large extent, formative
of attitudes in later life.
D. CHILDHOOD EVENTS AND A TTITUDES TOW ARD SIBLINGS
I. DEFINITION OF RA TING CA TEGORIES AND QUANTITATIVE RESULTS
The rating categories under the heading of "Childhood Events and Atti- tudes toward Siblings" fall into three groups: First, concern of the family with social status (Category 12), second, factual data on death, impairment of health, or divorce of the parents as well as sibling distribution (Categories
I3 to 19), and third, psychological aspects of the relationship to the siblings (Categories wa to 2 I c). The respective portions of the Scoring Manual are
as follows:
INTERVIEW SCORING MANUAL: CHILDHOOD EVENTS AND A TTITUDES TOW ARD SIBLINGS
(ToTable 3(X))
PRESUMEDLY "HIGH" VARIANTS PRESUMEDLY "Low" VARIANTS 12. Family status-concerned 12. Family relaxed re status
13? Death of father:
a. In childhood (age I-6)
b. In prepuberty (age 7-12) c. In adolescence (age 13-19)
14. Death of mother:
a. In childhood (age 1-6)
b. In prepuberty (age 7-12) c. In adolescence (age q-19)
15. Invalidism of father:
a. In childhood (age 1-6)
b. In prepuberty (age 7-n) c. In adolescence (age 13-19)
16. Invalidism of mother:
a. In childhood (age 1-6)
b. In prepuberty (age 7-n) c. In adolescence (age 13-19)
17. Divorce of parents:
a. In childhood (age 1-6)
b. In prepuberty (age 7-12) c. In adolescence (age 13-19)
? P ARENTS
AND CHILDHOOD SEEN THROUGH INTERVIEWS 377
d. In wbose care was subject placed?
(Father? Mother? Other relative (specify)? ) Other (specify)?
18. Sibling distribution: a. Only child
b. Youngest child. c. Eldest child
d. Middle child
Ig. Older sibling influence predominantly: a. Masculine
b. Feminine 2oa.
Conventional idealization of
siblings
zob. Feelings of vicitimization by
siblings
zoa. Objective appraisal
2 I a. Principled open rejection 2 I b. Genuine positive affect
2 IC. Blocked affect
Quantitative results are given in Table 3(X). Since on the factual aspects of childhood covered by the second group of categories little differentiation was found between the prejudiced and the unprejudiced (see below), tabu- lation has been omitted for these categories. The three topics will now be discussed in reverse order. Since the last of these, attitudes toward siblings, follows most logically the preceding discussion on parents, it will be dis- cussed first.
2. A TTITUDES TOW ARD SIBLINGS
Differentiations similar to those applying to the parents were expected for psychological sibling relationships. Thus conventional idealization (Category zoa) as well as feelings of victimization (Category zob) were expected pri- marily in high-scoring subjects, whereas objective appraisal (Category zoa) as well as genuine affect (Category 21b), blocked affect (Category 21c), and principled open rejection (Category 21a) were expected to be present more often in the typical low scorer.
In the categories dealing with attitude toward siblings there is an unusual proportion of Neutral ratings, so that possible trends are to a large extent obscured. In the interviews this topic was often thought of as relatively less crucial, and the interviewers skipped it altogether when time ran short. In spite of this, the results, on the whole, show some interesting trends.
Since siblings are considered a part of the intimate ingroup, we find some glorification of them by our high-scoring subjects. The fact, however, that siblings are not authorities, or at least not authorities in the same sense as parents, probably accounts for the lesser absolute frequency of idealization manifested toward them. Thus only 4 high-scoring and 1 low-scoring male interviewees idealize their siblings.
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
An example of glorification of siblings from the record of a high-scoring man is Mp's description of his brother: "Well, he's a wonderful kid. . . . Has been wonder- ful to my parents. . . . Now 2 r. Always lived at home. . . . Gives most of his earnings to my parents. . . . "
Again, as in the attitude toward the parents, low-scoring subjects tend to give a realistic, insightful, and openly affectionate picture of their siblings, whereas high-scoring subjects tend to repeat the stereotypical cliches that have been observed in their descriptions of the parents. The parallelism is manifested not only in the use of such terms as "a wonderful kid," but also in the opportunistic flavor of the evaluation as exemplified by the phrase "gives most of his earnings to my parents. "
Neither "victimization" nor "open rejection (on grounds of general prin- ciples)" proved differentiating between the two groups of men. In women, however, there is some trend in the direction anticipated.
"Objective appraisal" of siblings, however, is much more clearly differen- tiating, with I2 low-scoring and I high-scoring men showing this attitude. Examples of objective appraisal from the records of low-scoring men follow:
M6o tells about his sister: "My father represented authority in my house. When he died my sister lost her only authority and became quite a problem. Now has a happy, average home. . . . She was raised without adequate supervision. "
The description of his sister by M55 is along similar lines: "She's quite an amazing character, gotten to be a haphazard person now, careless . ? ? my parents ruined her, she's really quite bright, but has no initiative. However, a delightful person to live with because of her lackadaisical, 1-don't-give-a-damn attitude . . . she's aware that she wasn't happy in her childhood. Parents were much more severe with her be- cause she was more rebellious. She is extremely lenient with her own children. "
"Genuine or blocked affect" responses, grouped together for certain pur- poses, were more differentiating in men than in women. Only I of the male high scorers but I I of the male low scorers displayed this variant, due mostly to the presence of "genuine affect" toward siblings in low-scoring men. Ex- amples of manifestations of real affection toward siblings from the protocols of low-scoring men are:
M59 says about his sister: "A lot of common trends. . . . Used to get a lot of pleasure in taking her out to shows, etc. because she was naive and used to get so much pleasure out of it. I used to help her with her schoolwork. She was more or less a tomboy when she was young and we had a lot of fun. " Subject adds that he, and to a lesser extent her other brothers, taught her how to fight with her fists and comments that this has stood her in good stead, for example, as a professional ice- skater. "None of her competitors try any funny stuff with her because they know she can take care of herself. "
M56 says about his young brother: "A good kid. A little inclined to be undis- criminating about his friends. " Subject played big brother to him and made the decisions usually. (Satisfactions with brother? ) "Oh, things shared together. (Q) Hunt, fish, both like people, as business partners got along swell. "
Mz6 (answering the question, What about your brothers and sisters? ): "The
? Interview rating categories (abbreviated from Manual)
~
Number of "High"(H) and "Low"(L) ratin~s receivea oy
Sums of instances Level of statistical
? positive? ? negative? significance reached
(percentage)
2
12.
20a.
Family status-concerned(H) vs. status-relaxed(L)
Conventional idealization (H) vs. objective appraisal(L) of siblings
5 1 ~ 15 4
20b. Victimization by siblings(H)
21a. Principled open rejection of
siblings(L) Women 0
2lb. Genuine affection(L) or Men 1 blocked affect(L) toward Women 7 siblings
4
Men
women ll 3
22
Men . i Women . ? .
1 3
16 2 13 3
TABLE 3 (X)
INI'ERVIEW RATINGS ON CHILDHOOD EVENI'S AND ATI'ITUDE TOWARD SIBLINGS
FOR 80 SUBJECTS SCORING EXTREMELY "HIGH" OR "LOW" ON THE ETHNIC PREJUDICE QUESTIONNAIRE SCALE
20 men and 25 women "high scorers?
20 men and 15 women
"low scorers?
H L -
1 12 0 . 1
. ! ! .
L
10 1
4 g
Men . i
women1 3 7 3
Men 3
~ 4 -
3 ~ 3 ]: . ] 0
11 11 1
2 2 7 --
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
brother fifteen years older; I was very close to him, we were good companions. (See him now? ) I go to see him once in a while. Oh yes, we go into the garden together and look at his things, discuss things, philosophize. He thinks about the same way I do. He's a very intelligent son of fellow; his IQ must be about in the genius range. (What are his interests? ) Well, he's a ; he plays in churches and different bands and he also has designed a new with a different key that is easier to play. When he was fourteen, he built a steam engine for the shop. " Sub- ject describes very eagerly and seems very proud of his brother's achievements. (What is his occupation now? ) "He putters around, shingles houses when he needs money and raises . He was interested in horticulture for a while. He likes shingling houses; he can sit up on the roof, think and philosophize. He's pretty poor, that is, he has some property, his house and another house that he rents, but he enjoys doing what he's doing. (What about your sisters? ) Well, I have a sister two years older. I was sort of a pal of hers. And then one sister thirteen years older. She took care of me as a child. She was sort of a second mother to me. I'm not very close to either sister although I always got along with them alright. (Did your parents have any favorites among the children? ) I don't think so. Well, probably I was the favorite of my mother because I was the baby. And my brother, the one six years older, he was so different from mother, she felt he was different, she didn't
understand him. Father didn't know how to handle him. "
The foregoing records give good illustrations of the way low-scoring men often display nurturant affection for their sisters, giving them support and love. The same may hold for the brothers, but mainly if there is a large age difference, with the subject being the older. Some of the records give evi- dence of the "fun" and pleasure they had with their sisters. Brothers near the age ot'the subject are often talked of in a way which indicates rivalry feelings. High-scoring men, on the other hand, tend to carry their feelings of rivalry into every relationship, and this often prevents them from having affectionate feelings toward any of their siblings.
A similar trend can be seen in women. Seven low scorers show "objective appraisal" of siblings, but none show "conventional idealization," whereas 6 of the high-scoring women interviewees do give evidence of the shallow glorification of siblings covered by the latter term. Since the number of Neu- tral ratings is even larger for the women interviewees than it is for men, the question of statistical significance was not approached.
An example of objective appraisal of siblings is demonstrated in the record of the following low-scoring woman:
F65 says: ~'One (sister) is fifteen. She thinks she resembles my mother's family. She is original and writes very cleverly, yet she is very naive and unconsciously funny. She is friendly and more social than I. She reforms everybody. My youngest sister is eight. She is very active, much more so than me. She is different than we. We are more quiet. We are 'drippy' in contrast to her. (Q) I used to have fights with my first sister. "
Again we find, as so often in the case of the unprejudiced subjects, an imaginative, intraceptive quality in the description of other people, in this
? P ARENTS AND CHILDHOOD SEEN THROUGH INTERVIEWS 38I
case of siblings. "Originality,". "clever writing," being "unconsciously funny" are the characteristics appreciated in the sister. A certain self-critical tendency on the part of the subject is expressed by her reference to herself as "drippy" in comparison with her younger sister.
On the other hand, the following record of a high-scoring woman shows glorifying admiration for a sibling side by side with feelings of victimiza- tion, a combination discussed in connection with attitudes toward parents:
F6g: (Parents? ) "Everything was fine until my brother came into the world- Albert was such a sweet child, the whole family adored him-even grandparents. He's blond, nice looking, sickly as a child, but not now. Short nose. "
Typical in this protocol also is the emphasis on physical features which is similar to that found in the high scorers' descriptions of their parents.
There is, furthermore, on the whole a greater, though not statistically sig- nificant tendency in high-scoring interviewees to manifest feelings of being victimized by siblings. The record of F6g, quoted before, was an example of this tendency. Another example from the interview of a high-scoring woman IS:
F32: "The situation with the youngest sister is very different. " Not only did sub- ject take care of this sister after the mother's death, but she gave her financial aid. Because of their father's policy of giving the children only the necessities and none of the extras, the young sister would have had to go without evening dresses and other things that a girl really has to have in high school, if these had not been sup- plied by subject. The interviewer asked if subject also heard regularly from this sister. With much bitterness, subject replied that she was lucky if she heard from her sister once in three months. She feels that this sister has the family characteristic of being self-sufficient and independent, and that she has never really shown any gratitude for all that subject has done for her.
This record shows clearly that the subject resents both mother and sister, without daring to criticize them.
In all, only 3 of our low-scoring and none of our high-scoring women in- terviewees show "open rejection" of siblings. One example may suffice as an illustration of this attitude:
F29: "Sister aged 19 years. She is in Hollywood getting into the movies. W e are not particularly good friends. First real hate was my sister. Intensely jealous of one another. " Subject hasn't been near her for years. After high school, sister had little money. Met a fellow who supported her. "She sort of ruled him. She went to dra- matic school. Is a very beautiful girl-not conventionally beautifully-beautiful in a masculine way. " Subject does not think her sister was the mistress of the man. Sister has had homosexual affairs.
Having genuine, or else blocked, affect did not differentiate significantly between the two groups; again there was a scarcity of ratable material.
It is interesting to note that low-scoring men show more "genuine affect" for siblings in their interviews than low-scoring women. This fact may be
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
due to a greater inclination toward envy in women as compared to men, a trend noted by Freud and others.
3. CHILDHOOD EVENTS
Under the heading of "Childhood Events" the Interview Scoring Manual
contained provisions for the registration of such facts as death of father or mother, divorce of parents, sibling distribution, etc. Since, as expected, the prejudiced and the unprejudiced showed, on the whole, little differentia- tion with respect to these categories, they were omitted in Table 3(X). A few remarks will be made here in a more informal way.
There is but little difference between the numbers of low and high scorers, women and men alike, who lost their fathers through death. The same holds true as far as the death of the mother in the case of women subjects is con- cerned, but the absolute number of those involved is very small in this case
(2 outofthe25highscorersandI outoftheI5lowscorers).
However, 7 out of the 2 0 high-scoring men interviewees lost their mothers through death in their childhood or pre-adolescence, while all of the mothers of the 20 low-scoring men are still living. This objective finding gives sup- port to the hypothesis, set forth above, that the relationship with the mother is important for the development of humanitarian values in the son. Early death of the mother may, it seems, contribute to the establishment of in-
tolerant attitudes in the son.
The proportions of divorces of parents are very similar for men and
women, high scorers and low scorers.
The position within the sibling distribution was likewise not found to be
differentiating between the prejudiced and unprejudiced subjects.
4. STATUS CONCERN
The only aspect relating to "childhood events" which is explicitly listed
in Table 3(X) (Category 12) is less palpably "objective" than those just mentioned. Yet it proved highly discriminatory. It deals with social status, the parents and family being classified either as "status-concerned" or as "status-relaxed" on the basis of the interview with the subject.
M58, asked which parent he was closest to, answers: "I think my father. Although he beat the life out of me. " He continues to emphasize that his father always gave everyone, including himself, '~a square deal. "
A good example of how some men in this group were frightened into obedience and submission is the following:
M57, asked about spanking, reports, "Not after 17. . . . Father had to give us one look and we knew what he meant. "
An example of delayed punishment experienced as meaningless and cruel is given in the following quotation:
'
M2o: (Nature of discipline? ) "She would hold me back in. Never let me play if
I'd done something wrong. . . . If I did anything wrong during the day, they couldn't spank me in public, in the hotel; they would spank me at night when I had maybe forgotten what it was for and resented it. Too delayed. " Subject says he usually cried when he was spanked in order to get it over sooner, because when he started to cry, his grandmother would usually stop shortly. "It hurt my pride. . . . Just an- other restriction. . . . Or, sometimes, they would take away a movie. " Subject says he resented this particularly since movies were few and far between for him anyway. "Grandfather never spanked me. . . . " About 10 or 12, subject says, he started run- ning around more . . . "and they sort of lost their grip on me. I just stayed away from home. More school activities and work. . . . "
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
374
Another high-scoring man expresses his own ideas about the necessity for
harsh punishment as follows:
M41: "If they have to whip them, I believe in whipping them. I don't believe in sparing the rod and spoiling the child; though I don't believe in abusing them. ? . . Go down the street and hear a mother (threaten a spanking), the child says, 'Oh, mother, you know you don't mean that. ' If I'd have said that to my mother, I wouldn't be able to sit down. ''
Further examples of the "High" type of discipline, taken from the records of high-scoring men and containing, among other things, deference to the emphasis on "being told" in terms of "petty" rules or "laws" lacking suffi- cient explanations, are the following:
M43: (Who gave ~he discipline? ) "Uncle. (What kind? ) Whip us. (How often? ) Two or three times a month. (What for? ) Going off without asking, not doing things we were told. (Was he always fair? ) Well, after you'd think it over, you had it coming. (Ever question whether he was right about it? ) No. "
To the question whether he has been often punished, M45 answers: "Often, and the hard part about it was that my stepmother would tell him (father) that my brother or I had done things and he wouldn't give us a chance to explain. . . . (What was your reaction? ) Well, I ran off twice. . . . It didn't cause me to hate him. I held it mostly against her. (Did he exercise most of the discipline? ) He did. (Did she sometimes punish you? ) Yes, but not often. (For what? ) Oh, things that seemed so trivial, like getting home late from school to do my chores. "
M 47: (What was the usual nature of the discipline? ) ". . . . just bawl us out. (Q) She made it seem like it was hurting her more than it did us. . . . I think I'd rather have a licking than a good bawling out. (Q) She'd look hurt. (What were your feel- ings? ) . . . Make me feel hurt . . . ashamed of myself. (Example? ) One time I stayed out pretty late one night. When I got home, why she bawled me out, just little things like that. . . . Or going some place where she told me not to go . ? . like some kid's house she told me not to play with. "
Similarly, to the question, for what sort of things have you been punished, M51 answers, "Usually something petty, stealing fudge off a shelf or something like that. " Ms8: "Well, my father was a very strict man. He wasn't religious, but strict in raising the youngsters. His word was law, and whenever he was disobeyed, there was punishment. When I was rz, my father beat me practically every day for get- ting into the tool chest in the back yard, and not putting everything away . . . finally
he explained that those things cost money, and I must learn to put it back. " Another high-scoring man, M6, reports: "My father left the discipline to my mother, though he was the la~when you came right down to it. I don't mean to say that either of them dominated us, but they kept us on the right track. I always had more respect for my mother than most. It was just the idea that she wanted me to do things that kept me on the right path. She spanked me sometimes. Father laid the
strap on rarely; the last time was when I was 12 or 13 for talking back to my mother. ''
There is much reference to cruel punishment such as "whipping," "not sparing the rod," or "beating the life out of me" in the records of high-scoring subjects. Furthermore, the above quotations show that the discipline in the home is experienced as something arbitrary. Often it is implied that the
? P ARENTS AND CHILDHOOD SEEN THROUGH INTERVIEWS 375
punishment was unjust or "unreasonable" and that the subject had to submit to it without being given a "chance to explain" the situation. This is espe- cially evident in the use, without further comment, of delayed punishment, an example of which was given above: "They would spank me at night, when I had maybe forgotten what it was for and resented it. "
Furthermore, there is in these records a great deal of stress upon the fact that punishment was administered for something which seemed petty to the subject, for the violation of an external rule rather than of a basic principle.
Quite different are the reports of low-scoring men about the type of disci- pline they received:
Asked as to how discipline was enforced, Mz6 relates: "Father lectured a good deal about honesty and integrity, etc. "
A relaxed type of discipline with few restrictions is clearly indicated in the protocols of the following two low-scoring women:
F75: (Family training? ) "Mother was in charge although they handled us well, I think. We were good, almost too good-and we were punished only rarely. Then it was a little spanking or scolding. There were never problems about going out. W e could have had more freedom than we took. "
F7o: (What kind of things did she stress in your upbringing? ) "She seems to me thoroughly liberal; there were not many restrictions anywhere. She accepted prac- tically anything I did. "
As is true in the case of many of the other categories, the material in the interviews on the issue of discipline of the women is not very complete. Thirteen of the high-scoring women received a Neutral rating; of the re- maining 12, 9 report the threatening, and only 3 the non-egodestructive type of discipline. The following are quotations from the records of high-scoring women:
F66 relates: "I was kind of temperamental when I was little. I had temper tantrums if I didn't get my way. My mother cured them-she dunked me under the water faucet until I stopped screaming. "
F36 reports a type of punishment psychologically quite cruel: Subject's mother criticized all her friends and interfered with all her friendships. In , subject had a boy friend eight years older than herself with whom she dated. Her mother scolded about the time she came home-said it was one or two o'clock in the morn- ing, although it was never later than eleven P . M . Her mother said that everybody in town was talking about subject's relationship with this fellow and that she would not be allowed to teach next year (in a small town). This worried her so that she finally went to the vice principal of the school board, who had got her the job, and asked if he had heard anything about her. He said, no, that everybody liked her and liked Gus too. So that's how she knew her mother was making it all up. Her mother no doubt thought she would never check up on it.
The difference in the type of discipline found in the families of our high- scoring as compared with those of our low-scoring subjects, in conjunction
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
with the difference in the family structure and the personality of the parents (stern vs. relaxed) may be considered part of the foundation for an authori- tarian vs. democratic approach to interpersonal relationships. Evidence from the present study as well as from others (see Lasswell, 66; Fromm, 42; Erikson, 2 5) supports the psychoanalytic axiom that the first social rela- tionships to be observed within the family are, to a large extent, formative
of attitudes in later life.
D. CHILDHOOD EVENTS AND A TTITUDES TOW ARD SIBLINGS
I. DEFINITION OF RA TING CA TEGORIES AND QUANTITATIVE RESULTS
The rating categories under the heading of "Childhood Events and Atti- tudes toward Siblings" fall into three groups: First, concern of the family with social status (Category 12), second, factual data on death, impairment of health, or divorce of the parents as well as sibling distribution (Categories
I3 to 19), and third, psychological aspects of the relationship to the siblings (Categories wa to 2 I c). The respective portions of the Scoring Manual are
as follows:
INTERVIEW SCORING MANUAL: CHILDHOOD EVENTS AND A TTITUDES TOW ARD SIBLINGS
(ToTable 3(X))
PRESUMEDLY "HIGH" VARIANTS PRESUMEDLY "Low" VARIANTS 12. Family status-concerned 12. Family relaxed re status
13? Death of father:
a. In childhood (age I-6)
b. In prepuberty (age 7-12) c. In adolescence (age 13-19)
14. Death of mother:
a. In childhood (age 1-6)
b. In prepuberty (age 7-12) c. In adolescence (age q-19)
15. Invalidism of father:
a. In childhood (age 1-6)
b. In prepuberty (age 7-n) c. In adolescence (age 13-19)
16. Invalidism of mother:
a. In childhood (age 1-6)
b. In prepuberty (age 7-n) c. In adolescence (age 13-19)
17. Divorce of parents:
a. In childhood (age 1-6)
b. In prepuberty (age 7-12) c. In adolescence (age 13-19)
? P ARENTS
AND CHILDHOOD SEEN THROUGH INTERVIEWS 377
d. In wbose care was subject placed?
(Father? Mother? Other relative (specify)? ) Other (specify)?
18. Sibling distribution: a. Only child
b. Youngest child. c. Eldest child
d. Middle child
Ig. Older sibling influence predominantly: a. Masculine
b. Feminine 2oa.
Conventional idealization of
siblings
zob. Feelings of vicitimization by
siblings
zoa. Objective appraisal
2 I a. Principled open rejection 2 I b. Genuine positive affect
2 IC. Blocked affect
Quantitative results are given in Table 3(X). Since on the factual aspects of childhood covered by the second group of categories little differentiation was found between the prejudiced and the unprejudiced (see below), tabu- lation has been omitted for these categories. The three topics will now be discussed in reverse order. Since the last of these, attitudes toward siblings, follows most logically the preceding discussion on parents, it will be dis- cussed first.
2. A TTITUDES TOW ARD SIBLINGS
Differentiations similar to those applying to the parents were expected for psychological sibling relationships. Thus conventional idealization (Category zoa) as well as feelings of victimization (Category zob) were expected pri- marily in high-scoring subjects, whereas objective appraisal (Category zoa) as well as genuine affect (Category 21b), blocked affect (Category 21c), and principled open rejection (Category 21a) were expected to be present more often in the typical low scorer.
In the categories dealing with attitude toward siblings there is an unusual proportion of Neutral ratings, so that possible trends are to a large extent obscured. In the interviews this topic was often thought of as relatively less crucial, and the interviewers skipped it altogether when time ran short. In spite of this, the results, on the whole, show some interesting trends.
Since siblings are considered a part of the intimate ingroup, we find some glorification of them by our high-scoring subjects. The fact, however, that siblings are not authorities, or at least not authorities in the same sense as parents, probably accounts for the lesser absolute frequency of idealization manifested toward them. Thus only 4 high-scoring and 1 low-scoring male interviewees idealize their siblings.
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
An example of glorification of siblings from the record of a high-scoring man is Mp's description of his brother: "Well, he's a wonderful kid. . . . Has been wonder- ful to my parents. . . . Now 2 r. Always lived at home. . . . Gives most of his earnings to my parents. . . . "
Again, as in the attitude toward the parents, low-scoring subjects tend to give a realistic, insightful, and openly affectionate picture of their siblings, whereas high-scoring subjects tend to repeat the stereotypical cliches that have been observed in their descriptions of the parents. The parallelism is manifested not only in the use of such terms as "a wonderful kid," but also in the opportunistic flavor of the evaluation as exemplified by the phrase "gives most of his earnings to my parents. "
Neither "victimization" nor "open rejection (on grounds of general prin- ciples)" proved differentiating between the two groups of men. In women, however, there is some trend in the direction anticipated.
"Objective appraisal" of siblings, however, is much more clearly differen- tiating, with I2 low-scoring and I high-scoring men showing this attitude. Examples of objective appraisal from the records of low-scoring men follow:
M6o tells about his sister: "My father represented authority in my house. When he died my sister lost her only authority and became quite a problem. Now has a happy, average home. . . . She was raised without adequate supervision. "
The description of his sister by M55 is along similar lines: "She's quite an amazing character, gotten to be a haphazard person now, careless . ? ? my parents ruined her, she's really quite bright, but has no initiative. However, a delightful person to live with because of her lackadaisical, 1-don't-give-a-damn attitude . . . she's aware that she wasn't happy in her childhood. Parents were much more severe with her be- cause she was more rebellious. She is extremely lenient with her own children. "
"Genuine or blocked affect" responses, grouped together for certain pur- poses, were more differentiating in men than in women. Only I of the male high scorers but I I of the male low scorers displayed this variant, due mostly to the presence of "genuine affect" toward siblings in low-scoring men. Ex- amples of manifestations of real affection toward siblings from the protocols of low-scoring men are:
M59 says about his sister: "A lot of common trends. . . . Used to get a lot of pleasure in taking her out to shows, etc. because she was naive and used to get so much pleasure out of it. I used to help her with her schoolwork. She was more or less a tomboy when she was young and we had a lot of fun. " Subject adds that he, and to a lesser extent her other brothers, taught her how to fight with her fists and comments that this has stood her in good stead, for example, as a professional ice- skater. "None of her competitors try any funny stuff with her because they know she can take care of herself. "
M56 says about his young brother: "A good kid. A little inclined to be undis- criminating about his friends. " Subject played big brother to him and made the decisions usually. (Satisfactions with brother? ) "Oh, things shared together. (Q) Hunt, fish, both like people, as business partners got along swell. "
Mz6 (answering the question, What about your brothers and sisters? ): "The
? Interview rating categories (abbreviated from Manual)
~
Number of "High"(H) and "Low"(L) ratin~s receivea oy
Sums of instances Level of statistical
? positive? ? negative? significance reached
(percentage)
2
12.
20a.
Family status-concerned(H) vs. status-relaxed(L)
Conventional idealization (H) vs. objective appraisal(L) of siblings
5 1 ~ 15 4
20b. Victimization by siblings(H)
21a. Principled open rejection of
siblings(L) Women 0
2lb. Genuine affection(L) or Men 1 blocked affect(L) toward Women 7 siblings
4
Men
women ll 3
22
Men . i Women . ? .
1 3
16 2 13 3
TABLE 3 (X)
INI'ERVIEW RATINGS ON CHILDHOOD EVENI'S AND ATI'ITUDE TOWARD SIBLINGS
FOR 80 SUBJECTS SCORING EXTREMELY "HIGH" OR "LOW" ON THE ETHNIC PREJUDICE QUESTIONNAIRE SCALE
20 men and 25 women "high scorers?
20 men and 15 women
"low scorers?
H L -
1 12 0 . 1
. ! ! .
L
10 1
4 g
Men . i
women1 3 7 3
Men 3
~ 4 -
3 ~ 3 ]: . ] 0
11 11 1
2 2 7 --
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
brother fifteen years older; I was very close to him, we were good companions. (See him now? ) I go to see him once in a while. Oh yes, we go into the garden together and look at his things, discuss things, philosophize. He thinks about the same way I do. He's a very intelligent son of fellow; his IQ must be about in the genius range. (What are his interests? ) Well, he's a ; he plays in churches and different bands and he also has designed a new with a different key that is easier to play. When he was fourteen, he built a steam engine for the shop. " Sub- ject describes very eagerly and seems very proud of his brother's achievements. (What is his occupation now? ) "He putters around, shingles houses when he needs money and raises . He was interested in horticulture for a while. He likes shingling houses; he can sit up on the roof, think and philosophize. He's pretty poor, that is, he has some property, his house and another house that he rents, but he enjoys doing what he's doing. (What about your sisters? ) Well, I have a sister two years older. I was sort of a pal of hers. And then one sister thirteen years older. She took care of me as a child. She was sort of a second mother to me. I'm not very close to either sister although I always got along with them alright. (Did your parents have any favorites among the children? ) I don't think so. Well, probably I was the favorite of my mother because I was the baby. And my brother, the one six years older, he was so different from mother, she felt he was different, she didn't
understand him. Father didn't know how to handle him. "
The foregoing records give good illustrations of the way low-scoring men often display nurturant affection for their sisters, giving them support and love. The same may hold for the brothers, but mainly if there is a large age difference, with the subject being the older. Some of the records give evi- dence of the "fun" and pleasure they had with their sisters. Brothers near the age ot'the subject are often talked of in a way which indicates rivalry feelings. High-scoring men, on the other hand, tend to carry their feelings of rivalry into every relationship, and this often prevents them from having affectionate feelings toward any of their siblings.
A similar trend can be seen in women. Seven low scorers show "objective appraisal" of siblings, but none show "conventional idealization," whereas 6 of the high-scoring women interviewees do give evidence of the shallow glorification of siblings covered by the latter term. Since the number of Neu- tral ratings is even larger for the women interviewees than it is for men, the question of statistical significance was not approached.
An example of objective appraisal of siblings is demonstrated in the record of the following low-scoring woman:
F65 says: ~'One (sister) is fifteen. She thinks she resembles my mother's family. She is original and writes very cleverly, yet she is very naive and unconsciously funny. She is friendly and more social than I. She reforms everybody. My youngest sister is eight. She is very active, much more so than me. She is different than we. We are more quiet. We are 'drippy' in contrast to her. (Q) I used to have fights with my first sister. "
Again we find, as so often in the case of the unprejudiced subjects, an imaginative, intraceptive quality in the description of other people, in this
? P ARENTS AND CHILDHOOD SEEN THROUGH INTERVIEWS 38I
case of siblings. "Originality,". "clever writing," being "unconsciously funny" are the characteristics appreciated in the sister. A certain self-critical tendency on the part of the subject is expressed by her reference to herself as "drippy" in comparison with her younger sister.
On the other hand, the following record of a high-scoring woman shows glorifying admiration for a sibling side by side with feelings of victimiza- tion, a combination discussed in connection with attitudes toward parents:
F6g: (Parents? ) "Everything was fine until my brother came into the world- Albert was such a sweet child, the whole family adored him-even grandparents. He's blond, nice looking, sickly as a child, but not now. Short nose. "
Typical in this protocol also is the emphasis on physical features which is similar to that found in the high scorers' descriptions of their parents.
There is, furthermore, on the whole a greater, though not statistically sig- nificant tendency in high-scoring interviewees to manifest feelings of being victimized by siblings. The record of F6g, quoted before, was an example of this tendency. Another example from the interview of a high-scoring woman IS:
F32: "The situation with the youngest sister is very different. " Not only did sub- ject take care of this sister after the mother's death, but she gave her financial aid. Because of their father's policy of giving the children only the necessities and none of the extras, the young sister would have had to go without evening dresses and other things that a girl really has to have in high school, if these had not been sup- plied by subject. The interviewer asked if subject also heard regularly from this sister. With much bitterness, subject replied that she was lucky if she heard from her sister once in three months. She feels that this sister has the family characteristic of being self-sufficient and independent, and that she has never really shown any gratitude for all that subject has done for her.
This record shows clearly that the subject resents both mother and sister, without daring to criticize them.
In all, only 3 of our low-scoring and none of our high-scoring women in- terviewees show "open rejection" of siblings. One example may suffice as an illustration of this attitude:
F29: "Sister aged 19 years. She is in Hollywood getting into the movies. W e are not particularly good friends. First real hate was my sister. Intensely jealous of one another. " Subject hasn't been near her for years. After high school, sister had little money. Met a fellow who supported her. "She sort of ruled him. She went to dra- matic school. Is a very beautiful girl-not conventionally beautifully-beautiful in a masculine way. " Subject does not think her sister was the mistress of the man. Sister has had homosexual affairs.
Having genuine, or else blocked, affect did not differentiate significantly between the two groups; again there was a scarcity of ratable material.
It is interesting to note that low-scoring men show more "genuine affect" for siblings in their interviews than low-scoring women. This fact may be
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
due to a greater inclination toward envy in women as compared to men, a trend noted by Freud and others.
3. CHILDHOOD EVENTS
Under the heading of "Childhood Events" the Interview Scoring Manual
contained provisions for the registration of such facts as death of father or mother, divorce of parents, sibling distribution, etc. Since, as expected, the prejudiced and the unprejudiced showed, on the whole, little differentia- tion with respect to these categories, they were omitted in Table 3(X). A few remarks will be made here in a more informal way.
There is but little difference between the numbers of low and high scorers, women and men alike, who lost their fathers through death. The same holds true as far as the death of the mother in the case of women subjects is con- cerned, but the absolute number of those involved is very small in this case
(2 outofthe25highscorersandI outoftheI5lowscorers).
However, 7 out of the 2 0 high-scoring men interviewees lost their mothers through death in their childhood or pre-adolescence, while all of the mothers of the 20 low-scoring men are still living. This objective finding gives sup- port to the hypothesis, set forth above, that the relationship with the mother is important for the development of humanitarian values in the son. Early death of the mother may, it seems, contribute to the establishment of in-
tolerant attitudes in the son.
The proportions of divorces of parents are very similar for men and
women, high scorers and low scorers.
The position within the sibling distribution was likewise not found to be
differentiating between the prejudiced and unprejudiced subjects.
4. STATUS CONCERN
The only aspect relating to "childhood events" which is explicitly listed
in Table 3(X) (Category 12) is less palpably "objective" than those just mentioned. Yet it proved highly discriminatory. It deals with social status, the parents and family being classified either as "status-concerned" or as "status-relaxed" on the basis of the interview with the subject.
