No More Learning

Mack's hostility against minority groups and other groups and individuals is almost always justified by him on moral grounds. And the morality to which he appeals is that of the external authorities to which he is subservient. His manifest aggression is, so to speak, in the name of authority. He arranges things so that his conscience and his deepest antisocial impulses operate in collaboration. But if we ask what is his conception of the outgroup and why it provokes him so we are led back to the same sources that gave rise to his conceptions and attitudes concerning ingroup authorities. Outgroups are hated, as we saw in Chapter II, for being selfishly and ruthlessly aggressive.
(That outgroups are also "weak" may be a logical contradiction, but it is not a psychological one; Mack's thinking about social and political matters is dominated by unconscious processes and, hence, cannot be expected to con- form with the rules of logic. 8) The power-seeking features of the outgroup, no less than the admirably strong aspects of the "good" ingroup, can be understood as derivatives of the infantile imagery of the father. Since Mack dared not oppose his father but could only submit to him, it became necessary to convince himself that the father was good. But this did not dissipate the original hostility against the father. Nor did Mack attempt to handle it by turning it against himself; one of the outstanding features of his case is the relative absence of self-criticism. What he did was displace the hostility onto outgroups; or better, the frustrating, punishing, persecutory features which had to be denied in the father were seen as originating in outgroups who could then be hated in safety, because they were not strong in actuality, and in good conscience, because the traits ascribed to them were those which the
8 Cf. Freud's discussion of "exemption from mutual contradiction" as one of the characteristics of unconscious processes.
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ingroup authorities would condemn. Thus it is that each "good" trait that the father is said to have is the opposite of a "bad" trait which belongs to the image of the Jew: while the father's "greatest contribution was denying him- self pleasures to take care of us kids" the Jews are not "interested in human- ity," while the father was renowned for his "honesty," one has to be careful of Jewish clothiers. At the same time, when it comes to the one trait in the father which Mack is almost inclined to criticize, that is, social withdrawal, one finds that it too looms large in the imagery of the Jew: they refuse "to mingle and become a part of our people," "they would rather be alone. " If the Jews have thus to bear the brunt of Mack's ambivalent feelings toward his father, there might be some comfort for them in the fact that his feelings toward them are also somewhat ambivalent. It may be recalled that Mack's explanation for what he supposes to be Jewish pressure on Congress and for the fact that Jews have been "fully repaid" for their part in the war effort is that "they are businessmen," and we know that he has nothing but admira- tion for businessmen, especially those who represent a "concentration of wealth in a certain class," i. e. , "the big capitalists. " Unfortunately, however, it is very doubtful that the Jews could ever benefit from the positive phase of Mack's ambivalence, for their supposed inability makes them more dan- gerous to him. The separation of the good father image from the bad is an essential of Mack's personality adjustment and he could no more see "good"
? in his image of the Jew than he can see "bad" in his father.
As far as our material goes the only outlets for the expression of aggression that Mack has is through his ethnocentrism, that is, through authoritarian
aggression against various kinds of outgroups. There is, however, one other. manifestation of underlying aggression which may afford some vent for his feelings, and that is cynicism. This prominent tendency in our subject has been described in Chapters II and VII. It seems clear enough now that its major source is the bottled-up resentment with which the present analysis has been so largely concerned. We must understand, however, that in cyni- cism the destructiveness is directed against the self as well as against the world. 9 It is not only that the subject's own aggressiveness is projected onto other people, who are then accused of being acquisitive and warlike, but con- tempt for other people seems to be closely related to contempt for himself. In Mack's case-and this probably holds generally for authoritarian personali- ties-the self-contempt derives from his sense of weakness and this, as we have seen, is the aftermath of his surrender to his father. This surrender can- not be wholly excused, and as long as he cannot permit himself to feel ag- ? gressive toward those who are actually strong, there will be a nagging re- minder that he, in reality, is weak. He tries to free himself from this thought
9 On the topic of cynicism Sanford, Conrad, and Franck (108) have published findings based on a questionnaire similar to those employed in the present study.
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY 807
by projecting the contemptibleness onto mankind, and thus there is some basis for saying that he hates others because he hates himself.
To complete the picture it is necessary to return now to the topic of Mack's dependence. The sense of deprivation that followed the loss of his mother, and the growing feelings that because of his weakness people might leave him out or take advantage of him, seem to have generated in him a general attitude of acquisitiveness and, more specifically, a feeling that somebody ought to give him something. The highest praise of mother, father, sister, or fiancee is that they gave or will give to him, and one of the major character- istics of "bad" people is that they are selfish or "not interested in humanity. " It is not difficult to infer that his concern with justice is primarily concern with getting something. A man who can speak sentimentally of justice in one breath and almost in the next speak of barring Hitler's victims from this country on the ground that they are "Europe's misfits" is hardly employing the term "justice" in its basic sense. But apparently his acquisitiveness en- counters his conventional moral standards and has to be reacted against. He is very careful to assure us that he has "repaid" what he got from others, and he is moralistically temperate in stating his objectives with respect to income. The importance of this conflict about acquisitiveness for Mack's social out- look lies in the fact that it supplies the basis for another accusation against outgroups. They are said to be "materialistic" and "money-minded. " This seems to be in part a projection, since outgroups are accused of doing exactly what he and his own group do but would like to deny, and in part a mere complaint about the fact that the world goes its own way without paying much attention to him and his wants.
A remarkable feature of Mack's dependence is that although it has been rendered ego-alien and as an unconscious force leads to the misjudgment and rejection of other people, so much of it still finds expression in behavior.
(This has been brought out in the above discussion of underlying depend- ence. ) This is testimony to his outstanding facility in rationalization, some- thing that is made possible, as it seems, by his unwillingess to look at himself.
This brings us to a place where we must consider Mack's stereotypy, a characteristic of his thinking that is highly pronounced and, clearly, of the greatest significance for his prejudice. In one sense, his stereotyped thinking about social phenomena seems to be related to his general attitude of anti- intraception and to be dependent, in part at least, upon the same underlying conditions. It might be said that one reason why Mack's explanations of social phenomena are so primitive and oversimplified (for example, differences among ethnic groups are categorical and due to differences in blood strain) is that he is unable to make any use of social or psychological theories of determination. This can hardly be due to a lack of intelligence or of informa- tion, for an examination of his interview leaves a strong impression that with regard to those factors he is above the average for college students. A stronger
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argument could be made for the view that his is an educational deficiency, that he simply has not been subjected to instruction about man and society. But this is such a widespread phenomenon in this country that it can hardly be used to explain why Mack stands out from the group. Besides, he could have made some use of the social and psychological viewpoints that are available, but he chose not to. And, for that matter, the fact that anti-intra- ceptive education is so widespread has itself to be explained, and we can well believe that factors of individual psychology have an important role to play. In Mack's case at least there is a strong suggestion that he cannot reckon with either the sociology or the psychology of other people because he cannot examine the conditions or determinants of his own behavior. Ideas or observa- tions that would be necessary to lend breadth or depth to his view of the world or of himself cannot enter the picture, because they would arouse too much anxiety. It is as if-to put it somewhat dramatically-he can see only what he has seen before and learn only what he already knows. In our con- sideration of Mack's anti-intraception we were given reason to believe that he has to avoid introspection or attention to human factors in order to main- tain his sense of being tough-minded. The fuller analysis of his personality shows that his problem is much more serious: he has to deal with a variety of strong unconscious impulses which are not integrated with the ego and which he feels-not without good cause-might get out of hand. In short, the task of maintaining his repressions imposes a heavy burden upon him. This state of affairs has been described, in previous chapters, as ego weakness, and Mack's case offers an excellent illustration of this concept. The problems with which he was faced as a child-problems centering around the loss of his mother and the necessity for making an adjustment to the "distant" father -were too much, they were more than the undeveloped ego could handle. Primitive defenses, chiefly repression and countercathexis, were necessary; and since that time, the ego has had to devote so much energy to maintaining these defenses that it could not develop normally. It remains narrow and con- stricted, in danger of being overwhelmed by emotional impulses from within or authoritative commands from without. Since the inner impulses are more to be feared than the outer authorities there is rigid adherence to the stand- ards of the latter, but since these authorities are not accepted in any funda- mental way this adherence could be given up altogether in circumstances that made it safe to do so. Since the traumatic experiences of childhood have not been integrated with the ego, the categories with which the child struc- tured the world have persisted, in more or less unmodified form, to dominate contemporary thinking. Since there is little that is truly inside the personality, there can be little tolerance of inner conflict and little self-criticism; instead there is an attitude of hostile watchfulness toward a world that is largely alien.
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C. THE CONTRASTING CASE OF LARRY
We may now tum to the case of Larry. A final appraisal of Mack and a judgment of the implications of his case can better be made after the two cases have been compared.
At the time of recording Larry's interview, the interviewer made the fol- lowing observations:
Larry is conventional, conservative, well-mannered, deferent, quiet, and a con- formist. Overtly he could be described as a passive, feminine type. He is a good example of the weak, unadjusted man who reads Dale Carnegie and becomes well- mannered, friendly, articulate, outgoing, but empty.
In appearance, he is slight, short, becoming bald-headed, rather feminine in gen- eral. He is openly dependent, highly articulate, and highly involved in the interview, making great effort, and appearing to enjoy it very much, remarking so especially at the end and being concerned with the general nature and purpose of the study. In spite of his highly conservative politics and his big-business personal goal, there is something very naive and unworldly about him.
The clinical section of Larry's interview follows.
(What were you like as a child? ) "I seldom got any spankings. I was very active and played a lot of games. I don't want to brag, but I was well liked, like by the neighborhood women, who said I was a nice boy, if you know what I mean. That was until I was about ro. But outside the home, like in school and the neighborhood, away from home, I was more mischievous. I got into little difficulties. My brother, who is two and a half years older than I, and I were always together. We were fighting, jealous of each other, then friendly, going to the show or something. He was huskier, more athletic; I was always small, still am. My brother was more studi- ous, conservative, wouldn't take chances, quiet. I admired him for this, for being a good big brother; for having a nice build, being nice looking, having good judg- ment; I admired him a lot, but I always maintained my own independence. "
(Early experiences? ) Age 3-an uncle passed away. "I remember his body in the house; it stayed there all day; then the hearse came and took it away. He used to hold me on his knee; I liked him a lot. I was the baby of the family. And his wife was especially nice. She used to pet me and play with me a lot. Then, another time- 1 guess about age 3 also-I remember wandering into the bull pen on the farm; and then the bull came for me, and the hired man just barely saved me, and I was really scared to death. I remember my mother's being there nearby and how scared she was too. Another memory I have, age 3 or 4, I remember how my brothers would catch rabbits on the farm. The rabbits would get into a lot of long pipes that we had in the back yard and my brothers would force the rabbits out with long poles and catch them as they came out the other end of the pipe. They would either knock them over the head as they came out, or sometimes they would catch them alive. What impressed me particularly was being able to touch a wild animal, and it couldn't run away, and I would rub its fur. Then, at the same period, on the farm, I have another memory, of sitting on a horse which belonged to my brothers and being held on it, half afraid and half jubilant over riding. "
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(Larry is extremely effortful here and apparently has thought about these things considerably. They come out fairly easily. )
(Experiences with father? ) "I remember at age 212 my father whipped my oldest brother very severely and my mother took all the children and went into town to separate from my father. I remember we went to the lawyer's office and had to stay there overnight because there was nowhere else. The next morning my father came in and found us, and he and my mother settled their differences. That's the only dif- ficulty that I've ever known between them. There's never been an argument since, they've gotten along swell. I've had a wonderful home. (Is father very severe? ) He wasn't strict in the sense of many rules, but when he told us to do something, we had to do it. We got few whippings, but when we did, they were plenty bad. (What about you? ) I didn't get as many as my brothers did. I'dmaneuver out of them. I didn't get any after the age of 12. I remember my brother got one even when he was 15. That was when I learned how to maneuver out of things-I just kept out of his way. When I was younger, I did whatever might avoid his punishment. My mother spanked us more often, but not so severely. W e feared our father through our mother, that is, we feared she'd tell him and he'd punish us. Her main threat was not 'I'll spank you,' but 'I'll tell your father. ' Her own spankings were so mild that we almost enjoyed them. "
(Fears? ) "I was afraid of the dark till age r6 or r8, my last years of high school, but I overcame it. I don't fear animals, except snakes, which I still fear and dislike. " (Nightmares? ) "I had them, but I don't recall any particular ones. " (Larry brought up nightmares himself, asking if that were a fear. ) "One fear I had was in a big farmhouse we lived in when I was a kid, and it creaked in the wind, and I'd lie awake for an hour or more, thinking someone was there and being afraid. I remem- ber lying awake sometimes most of the night; sometimes I'd go into my mother's
bed.
"I still have unpleasant dreams; I don't know if they're nightmares. One was that
my heart was stopping; or that I was sick and wouldn't get well. One was that my leg was getting amputated; I'd have to feel it just to see that it was still there. That was probablyon accountofthe war, though. Recently I dreamed I was awake, in bed, and someone was just about to grab me. I couldn't move or yell; I was just completely paralyzed there, but at the last minute I woke up. Or I'll dream that I can't see people or writing around me; it's like being blind. They can see, but I can't quite make things out. "
(Adolescence? ) "I went through it smoothly into manhood. I didn't notice any great change in my life. (Sex? ) No great problem. I thought about girls all the time, as boys will, and I looked at them. I started going out with them at about 15. I liked them a lot and associated with them at school and in the neighborhood. You know,
? you have the usual sexual desires, but you don't let them bother you. (Sex morals? ) I feel a girl should remain a virgin until2 r or 22 anyway. If she expects to marry soon after that, she should wait until after marriage, but if she is a career girl or doesn't want to get married, then an affair with an unmarried man is O. K. if they keep it quiet and secluded so the moral standards of others are not lowered. She should pick out one fellow to have a sex relation with, and not carry on with several. " (This is another example of Larry's highly articulate and theorized views on a subject. )
(You? ) "Not until after I came out of the hospital, when I was 2 3 or 24. Since then I've had several affairs, lasting a few weeks or a month. I won't marry until I have more security. She almost has to be a virgin, though not necessarily. I lost respect for the women I slept with. I know that's selfish, but I guess that's the way most fellows are. "
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY 8I I
(Ideal wife? ) "She shouldn't work, no career. She should stay at home, love me, raise a family, not expect too much in the way of fine clothes and a good time. She should have a good reputation, be attractive, not taller than I, nor too short, say 2 or 3 inches shorter; she should be intelligent and a college graduate; congenial, easy to get along with, sympathetic, a good mother, stick with me through thin and thick, even if I get sick. She shouldn't drink to excess, but drinking moderately is all right. She shouldn't get too friendly with other men-you know how some married women put their arms around other men, and things like that-but she should be friendly with men. She should have a good home background, come from a good family. Wealth is immaterial. "
(Ideal husband? ) "He should give her happiness, through security, home, car, enjoyment and entertainment; money to travel, and so on. He should be a good father to the children, shouldn't give the wife any worries; he shouldn't get drunk, and he should be faithful to his wife. "
(Good father? ) "He should be devoted to his children, give them the proper clothing, food, education; he shouldn't spoil them, give them cars in high school, and like that; but be good to them; he should take them on vacations; discipline them in a kind but firm way, teach them the proper morals when they are young, and give them the right environment. "
(What were you good at in school? ) "History and economics. I wasn't very good or very bad at anything. I had a C plus average. I didn't work hard in high school; I just slid along. I liked sports, and I played basketball for four years in high school, although I was too slight and light to get very far. Languages were especially dif- ficult, and math. Then I went to junior college for a year; then I got sick and was in a sanitarium for four years. I got out, worked, and I've been back in school for a semester now. I'm living at a cooperative house. "
Most of the outstanding features of Larry's personality seem to belong to one or the other of two syndromes: the one centering around dependence, passivity, and feminine identification, the other around subservience to an internalized but relatively narrow and restricting superego. Both of these patterns are more pronounced in this subject than in most unprejudiced men. Whereas some acceptance of dependence, passivity, and femininity appears regularly in men who score low on the scales, Larry's "softness" would seem to be fairly extreme by any standard.
His conservatism, conven- tionalism, and authoritarian aggression-trends which in his case can be at- tributed mainly to the superego-are sufficiently pronounced so that he exhibits a number of features which are found more commonly among high than among low scorers. He actually scores high on the PEC scale, and there is reason to believe that his liberal sentiments with respect to minority issues are of fairly recent origin. The contrasts between Larry and Mack are never- theless marked. The fact that the two men are similar in certain respects- passivity and conventionalism have loomed large in the discussion of Mack's case-should help us to see what circumstances made the crucial differences.
Numerous manifest traits of Larry's can be grouped on the basis that they express a general pattern of dependence, passivity, and feminine identifica- tion. He quite openly expresses his desire for understanding and support, and
? 812 THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
his readiness to accept the material help which he expects will be offered to him. He wants to be liked, and to this end he is prepared to inhibit aggression and to be generally pleasing in his relations with others. More than this, he wants pleasure and comfort and relaxation-and he wants to be assured of a bountiful and dependable source of supply. He has a basic "taking in" attitude toward the world. What prevents him from being grasping, it seems, is his conviction that there is plenty for everybody. This conviction even permits him to be generous. He wants everybody to have plenty and to be happy-himself included. What holds for material supplies holds also for people: he is ready to take them in too, that is, to be identified with them and to share their feelings, just as he is ready to give out his own feelings. This attitude leaves him sensitive to rejection, but? at the same time able to sympa- thize with those whom he conceives as downtrodden-an essential feature of his positive attitudes toward minority groups. Relatively free from the idea that softness might leave him open to attack, he is able to indulge in tendencies which in men like Mack are automatically associated with dan- gerous weakness: he can experience the human, emotional aspects of things; he can be subjective and introspective, enjoy fantasy life and "philosophiz- ing," admit having fears, anxieties, and doubts. Consistent with all this is the fact that he can have close relationships with women, whom he conceives to be not very different from himself.
These trends are on the surface in Larry; they are directly expressed in his overt behavior. The contrast with Mack lies in the fact that in him trends of this very same kind operate below the surface and he is very concerned to deny and counteract them. What is it that has made the difference? Most important, it would seem, were the differing circumstances connected with the childhood relationships with the mother. It was in this area that Mack was subjected to severely traumatic experiences, whereas Larry's early relation- ship with his mother was close and for the most part highly gratifying. Indeed the mother looms as the central figure in Larry's childhood. There is reason to believe that she took good care of him and that he became strongly attached to her. The attitude of love-seeking was carried over into his rela- tions with other women, whose love he sought to obtain and to hold by being a "good boy. " It seems that he is still bent on obtaining the kind of gratifica- tion he received as a child, and that to a considerable extent he succeeds in doing so-through having found modes of behavior that are more or less acceptable socially. (Mack, for his part, was forced to repress his dependent needs in childhood, and so was not able to find suitable modes for their expres- sion; hence, he remains comparatively frustrated, unhappy, and self-pitying. ) Larry is not, however, altogether secure with respect to the needs under dis- cussion. He did not receive enough gratification in childhood, nor does he receive enough now, so that he can take love and support for granted. He is still susceptible to frustration and sensitive to rejection: The circumstance of
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY 8I 3
there being much but still not enough gratification would account, in large part, for Larry's identification with his mother in childhood. Identification was a means for getting close to her and holding on to her, and of protecting himself from having to feel rejected and hostile. It seems, however, that the identification is a comfortable one, and that it must have been based more upon love than upon fear.
An additional reason why Larry is able to be comfortable and relaxed with his feminine identification lies in the fact that his mother was to a suf- ficient extent strong and protective. We are told that when the father was too hard on one of the boys, the mother took all the children and went to see her lawyer. She thus made it plain that she was not afraid to oppose the father and that she was a real source of protection. Larry could be on the side of this woman, be identified with her, without feeling that he was plac- ing himself in a hopelessly weak position. This is in crucial contrast to Mack and many other prejudiced men, who cannot possibly come close to or be identified with the mother, no matter how "sweet" or "devoted" she might be, because she is conceived as too weak or inconsequential. Apparently, it is easier for a boy to identify himself with a feminine role, which he associates with the weakness and suffering of the underdog, when the weakness is not seen as hopeless nor the suffering as intolerable.
But if Larry's passivity and amiability is mainly a derivative of his child- hood dependence on the mother, it has at the same time another function within the personality. It serves as a defense against his underlying aggressive impulses. Several of his responses in the interview and to the Projective Questions seem to show a particular concern with the inhibition of aggres- sion, e. g. , after describing the good time he would have if he had only six months to live, he adds "all this without hurting anyone"; and "a feeling that I have hurt someone" is one of the moods or feelings most disturbing to him. His concern with "true comradeship" and his solicitude for persecuted peo- ple suggest that, to some extent at least, he loves in order that he might not hate. The hypothesis of underlying aggression is supported by the T. A. T. , which gives evidence of "strong underlying hostile impulses. " These im- pulses are- directed both against women and against men. Hostility against women is aroused by rejection or the threat of it, and can be understood as an aspect of the mother-dependence discussed above. (This is different from Mack, whose aggression against women is aroused by the fear that they might drag him down to their level. ) Hostility against men is fused with antisocial rebellion, and the conflict between these tendencies on the one hand and the demands of conscience on the other is much more intense than is common among low-scoring men. Here, it appears, Larry is expressing attitudes built up on the basis of experiences with his father. There is nothing in the inter- view material to indicate that the father was unusually provoking, but he certainly enforced his will, administered some whippings, and was cast by
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
the mother in the role of feared disciplinarian. This would be reason enough why Larry should have hostile and rebellious feelings. More than this, the T. A. T. offers the strong suggestion that Larry reproaches his father for not loving him enough, and that part of the interview in which Larry tells what a father should be seems to be in keeping with this suggestion. But what is particularly important, Larry must also have loved his father and become to some extent identified with him. This would account for the fact that rebel- lious aggression goes against Larry's conscience and leaves him feeling_guilty and remorseful. It is to ward off such feelings that he must praise his father, remain subservient to his family's ideals, and exhibit other conservative tend- encies more characteristic of high-scoring men. This brings us to the most crucial differences between Larry and Mack. The two subjects differ in the quality and intensity of their aggression and in the way of dealing with it. Larry takes responsibility for his aggression; though it is not conscious now, it seems to have been conscious at one time so that he could actually imagine himself taking revenge in one way or another upon his father. With Mack, as we have seen, the aggression appears to be out of touch with the rest of the personality; it is something which is entirely disclaimed, but which might suddenly explode in a blindly impulsive way. We have at- tributed these aspects of Mack's aggression to his extreme fear of the father. With Larry this fear seems not to have been so great. He tells us that he was afraid of his father's punishment, it is true, while Mack does not admit such fears; but Larry acted as if he were afraid of being merely whipped while Mack acted as if he were afraid of being torn limb from limb. There seems to have been two reasons for this: first, Larry's father was in an objective sense less dangerous; he was more human and understandable; and second, Larry had his mother to support him; she did not come off so badly in her quarrels with the father, and though "she would tell father" if Larry did not behave, she would protect him if the father was unjust.
These differences in the real situations with which the two-subjects had to deal seem to have determined also their differing ways of handling their aggression. Whereas in Mack it is immediately repressed and displaced onto outgroups, in Larry it is turned against the self, giving rise to guilt feelings and self-depreciation. It is this state of affairs in Larry that makes it impos- sible for him to indulge in wholesale condemnation of other individuals or groups; there is a readiness to take blame himself, to suspect that the fault might lie within him. This is the work of a fairly normal conscience, a con- science built up through identification with the father as well as with the mother. Larry was willing to accept and to internalize their punishment or disapproval because he received enough love to make it seem that his sac- rifices were worthwhile. In the case of Mack, the father has remained "out there," a source of actual danger, rather than become an inner source of guilt or conflict; instead of striving to live up to principles in order to feel
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loved and free'of guilt, Mack acts like a man who has made a bad bargain; he feels that he has somehow been "gypped" and it is mainly fear that keeps him in line.
But Larry can hardly be regarded as a model of personality integration. There is too great a discrepancy between what he feels he must be and what he believes himself to be capable of. Since he is still dependent on his par- ents for love and support, he must constantly exert himself lest he "fall from grace" and lose their good will. And since his underlying aggressive tend- encies are not fully integrated with the ego, it is necessary for him to maintain careful defenses against them. These defenses include masochism, passivity, and oversolicitude for possible victims of aggression. Thus it is that his posi- tive attitudes toward minority groups are based in part upon neurotic trends. But this does not mean that these attitudes are unstable. It would be as dif- ficult to induce Larry to attack a minority group member (just because he belonged to such a group) as it would be to get Mack to see that there might be some evil in himself or in his group. It would take a series of severe disappointments to divert Larry from his present course; he would have to be shown that it is not true that virtue and good,work lead to the rewards of love and material support and then, instead of becoming overtly aggres- sive, he would probably suffer a depression.
1t must be noted, however, that Larry is capable of further growth. The fact that he is willing to look at himself and to inquire into his motivations indicates that he may achieve a higher degree of personality integration. And should he continue to gain understanding of himself, we should expect his understanding of the world to increase.
We should not expect Larry to become militantly outspoken in the inter- ests of his democratic beliefs, nor would he be likely to assume any leader- ship in a moment of acute crisis. He is too weak, that is to say, he finds it too difficult to be overtly aggressive, for that. His tendency, rather, would be to try in an inoffensive way to smooth troubled waters, to get everybody to "cooperate"-a contribution not to be altogether despised.
Larry is a rather ordinary young man. His case, though not typical of our low scorers, seems to show that among the determinants of relative freedom from prejudice are a willingness to accept one's own softness and to take responsibility for one's own "badness. " But, as the results from our clinical sample as a whole have shown, accepting one's softness does not re- quire that one be as soft as Larry or that one overadjust to it as he has done; and one can certainly take responsibility for one's own "badness" without remaining caught like Larry in the dilemma of parental dependence, with its underlying hostility and overlying guilt feelings.
Turning back now to Mack, it would appear that therapy in his case would have to consist, first of all, in showing him that the sources of his frustrations and unhappiness are mainly in him. (Only after attaining this insight could
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
he approach a trne appraisal of the conflicts and dislocations within society. ) He would have to learn to accept more of his own softness and to come to terms with his own aggression. Since, however, the sources of these' trends lie, as we have seen, very deep within the personality it is doubtful that any- thing short of individual therapy would effect any important change in him. Would individual therapy work? Since he is a relatively mild case and since he showed in his interview that he is able to make a positive transference to an older man, it probably would-but it is highly doubtful that he would ever seek it. But if it seems unlikely that his personality will change, there is good reason to believe that his behavior can be controlled. Indeed he can be too easily controlled, and therein lies one of the major troubles. There is little in his make-up to render him resistant to fascist propaganda or to fascist leadership. He too, in his own way, is weak and afraid to be overtly aggres- sive. He could never on his own initiative be an aggressive leader, but given strong direction from above he could pass it along to those who, in an organ- izational sense, were below him. He would be unlikely on his own initiative openly to attack a minority group member, not because of conscience but because of fear that he might get hurt or be disapproved of; but given the safety and influence of a crowd or the backing of someone he regarded as an authority, he could be violently aggressive. However regrettable from the democratic point of view this susceptibility to external control might be, the fact remains that it offers the best basis for preventing his antidemocratic tendencies from expressing themselves in action. The appeal should be not to his sympathy or his conscience, but to his fear and submissiveness. He must be convinced that arrayed against the overt expression of his prejudices are the law, overwhelming numbers of people, numerous conventional authori- ties and prestige figures. If those who stand for democracy want to win him to their side, they must do more than show him that they have high ideals and realistic plans for social improvement; they must convince him that they also have strength. Such a program, unfortunately, involves an essential para- dox: in inducing him to behave in accordance with democratic principles, one is likely to strengthen his authoritarianism and, hence, his antidemocratic potential. One could not, therefore, undertake so to influence the con- temporary behavior of individuals like Mack unless one exerted as much effort toward insuring that antidemocratic leadership did not gain the as- cendancy in the future.
? CHAPTER XXI
CRIMINALITY AND ANTIDEMOCRA TIC TRENDS: A STUDY OF PRISON INMATES JVilliam R. Morrow
A. INTRODUCTION 1. THE PROBLEM
If, as the foregoing chapters have indicated, failure in superego integra- tion, inability to establish emotional relationships with others, and over- compensatory reactions to weakness and passivity are among the important sources of potentially fascist trends within the personality, should we not expect that a group of prison inmates would score particularly high on our scales? This, at any rate, was the thought which led us to consider our sub- jects from the San Quentin Prison1 as a key group.
The most extreme failures in superego integration are found in the psy- chopathic personality (see Chapter XIX), a type of character structure which has been given an important role in criminality by many authorities, e. g. , Karpman (61), Lindner (74), and Glueck and Glueck (44). Traits which some writers assign to criminals in general, e. g. , egocentricity, absence of
sense of guilt, inadequate emotional control, are often regarded as aspects of the psychopathy syndrome. Inability to establish emotional relationships with other people is probably a mark of psychopathy, though it is a trait often assigned to the delinquent personality in general, e. g. , by Lowrey (76). That the inordinate longing for status and power, the readiness for aggres- sion against weaker or relatively defenseless people, and the demands for immediate recognition so common among criminals usually spring from underlying weakness, passivity, and homosexuality has often been noted, e. g. , by Aichorn (4) and by Alexander and Healy (6). These considerations are in accord with the well-known role of criminal types in fascist movements; they are the "plug-uglies" who are assigned the task of terrorizing minority group members, active labor unionists, liberals, and radicals.
1 This study was made possible by the extended cooperation and assistance of Dr. David G. Schmidt, Chief Psychiatrist, San Quentin, California, and his staff.
817
? 818 THE AtJTHORtTARIAN PERSONAUTY
At the same time, however, it was considered that there might be certain types of criminals who, exhibiting trends quite different from those noted above, would obtain relatively low scores on our scales. Thus in the "normal criminal" of Alexander and Staub (7) and in the "antisocial offender" of Sanford (103) rebellion against the status quo seems to be an important feature. This suggested that we might expect to find in some of the San Quentin subjects certain manifestations of a trend which in our major sample had appeared to favor low scores on the scales. Finally, in the "pre- social offender" described by Sanford, the need for. love and the sense of love deprivation are outstanding features, and it was considered possible that in some cases these trends might outweigh the displaced hostility that is basic to prejudice. There was no information concerning the frequency with which
these anti-authoritarian and love-oriented patterns appear in the general pop- ulation of penal inmates, though it seemed fairly certain that it was small compared with that of the authoritarian personality trends noted above.
2. SAMPLING AND ADMINISTRA TION
The sample of inmates on whom the questionnaire statistics are based was selected as follows. The prison psychiatric department provided, upon re- quest, a sample of the inmate population subject to the following conditions:
(a) A sampling of offense-groups should be obtained, roughly in proportion to their ratios in the total inmate population. 2 (b) Inmates beyond maximum age of 55 should be excluded. (c) Feebleminded inmates should be excluded. 3 (d) As far as possible, inmates with less than eight years of schooling should be excluded. 4 In addition to these restrictions, about twenty of the question- naires obtained were subsequently excluded because: (e) they were incom- plete (eight or more items left unanswered); or (f) they belonged to Negro or Jewish inmates; or (g) they belonged to inmates in the prison psychotic ward. These exclusions left a working sample of 110, on which the statistics were obtained.
The inmates filled out the questionnaire (Form 45) in groups of six or eight
2 The ratios of different offense-groups in the questionnaire sample are as follows: "check-writing" 40%; "robbery," "burglary," and "theft" z8%; "homicide" 1Io/o; "sex offenses" 21%. The corresponding ratios for the prison population (1945) are as follows: "check-writing" 14%; "robbery," "burglary," and "theft" 54%; homicide 7%; "sex of- fenses" u%. The chief difference between the questionnaire sample and the prison popu- lation is that the latter includes z6% fewer cases of "check-writing," and z6% more cases of "robbery," "burglary," and "theft. " The E- and F-scale means for these two offense- groups in the sample are not significantly different. (See Table 5 (XXI). ) All of the ratios given in this note, it should be remembered, refer only to the "present" offense; many inmates have committed previous offenses in different categories.
3 One subject included in the sample violated this condition; he obtained a Wechsler- Bellevue I. Q. of 48.
4 Actually, sixteen subjects included in the sample (including the feebleminded subject referred to in footnote 3) violated this condition.
? CRIMINALITY AND ANTIDEMOCRA TIC TRENDS
at a time, in th~ prison psychiatric department. Instructions given were the same as for other groups, with one addition: An attempt was made to get across the idea not only that anonymity would be maintained,5 but also that this task had no relation to prison routine or authority. Such verbal reassur- ance could not, of course, alter the general atmosphere of the prison, which stresses compulsion and conformity. And it cannot be denied that such an en- vironment is conducive to agreement with many of . the conventional, au- thoritarian values represented in the questionnaire items. That this factor had a relatively minor effect upon the responses, however, is indicated by the wide inter- and intra-individual differences in answering the questionnaire. These differences appear in the fairly wide dispersion of scores obtained for most items considered separately, in patterns of agreement and disagreement for all except a few ultra-high scorers, and above all in some patterns of pre- dominant disagreement (i. e. , low scorers). There is also validating interview material. It deserves emphasis, moreover, that submission to surrounding au- thoritarian pressures is itself an index of authoritarian trends in the per- sonality, of inability to maintain individualistic values in the face of coun- terpressure.
It is probable that items were sometimes misunderstood and answered in- correctly on account of external distraction, i. e. , noise and crowded condi- tions. For inmates of low educational status, the possibility of misunderstand- ing would naturally be increased. It was discovered in follow-up interviews that some inmates had in fact misunderstood some items, and had answered them in a manner opposite to their intentions. This type of distortion appears to have been a minor (i. e. , only occasional) factor, however.
Fifteen of the inmates were interviewed. Of these, eight scored high, four ? low, and three had scores placing them in what is, for most groups studied, the middle range. To avoid overcomplicating the picture, the interviews of these "middles" are not included in the discussion. Subjects were selected for interviews on the basis of E score (high or low), offense-group (to get some sampling of each major group), intellectual level (average or better, as estimated roughly from the data on the front page of the questionnaire and from the language used),6 and the suggestiveness of their responses to the Projective Questions. A further selection was imposed by the fact that a few of the inmates sought for interviews were in the sick ward at the time or could not conveniently be seen because of conflicting prison routine.
The interviewees did not come voluntarily to be interviewed, but were summoned by the psychiatric department. The c~miner tried as best he
5 This anonymity was violated to the extent necessary to follow up certain inmates in interviews. It will of course be preserved here. To connect the names given to inter- viewees here with the numbers used in Part IV, see Key on the bottom of Table r (XXI).
6 This was before the prison I. Q. test data had been made available to us,
? 8zo
THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
Pseudonym
P1eudoduwcratic
Ronald
Robert
Eugene
Wilbur
? Clarence
Ftucilt
Floyd
Adrian
Buck
Low Scoring
Jim
Dick
Art
30
32
23
42
63
23
30
32
42
26
3 1
Marital Familyb Status Class status
Divorced lL 3 tiJBes
separated LM
Single IL
Married IL
Widower LM
Single LM
Single
Divorced twice
Single IL
1st wife 1lM died; 2nd wife divorced?
Divorced; now engaged
11M
Years of Schooling
9
12
10
()
I. Q.