In all probability, the
presentation
of extreme anti-Semitic statements.
Adorno-T-Authoritarian-Personality-Harper-Bros-1950
These properties are, of course, inti- mately bound up with ego functioning as discussed above.
As might be expected from their use of primarily countercathectic defenses, the highs have comparatively narrow, circumscribed egos.
One manifestation of this narrowness is constriction of fantasy (particularly in Question 6, see also Chapter XIV); this is probably related to the highs' emphasis on "sticking to the facts," to their extraceptiveness, and to their rejection of "imagina- tion" and "emotion.
"
The highs also diifer from the lows in their greater concreteness of think- ing and in their less differentiated emotional experience. Thus, the responses of the highs characteristically refer to specific behavioral acts or situations, while the lows tend, to a greater degree, to describe more subtle experiences and more abstract, generalized situations. On Question 3 ("Great people"), for example, the lows, more than the highs, give the qualities that they admire in a person, with or without specific examples. The same is true for Question 5 ("Worst crimes"). Evidence of the greater complexity and abstractness of the lows has been given in the interview chapters (Part II) and in Chapter VIII (showing negative correlations between ethnocentrism and intelli- gence). These results are consistent with those showing the highs to be more stereotyped in their ideology (Chapters III, IV, XVI, XVII), more rigidly concrete in their solutions of arithmetical and spatial probkms (Rokeach
(98)) 0
? PROJECTIVE QUESTIONS
597
The lows tend, in a frustrating situation, to blame themselves (intrapuni- tiveness), the highs to idealize themselves and to see the evil as existing in the external world (extrapunitiveness).
Finally, the greater intraception of the lows and the great anti-intracep- tion of the highs is apparent in their responses to the Projective Questions as well as in the material elicited by the interviews, the T. A. T. , and the F scale.
3? Achievement Values vs. Conventional Values. This distinction has been essential for the scoring of the Projective Questions. It is important not only because of the difference in the content of the values, but also because the values themselves express significant aspects of the personality dynamics of the two groups. It should be noted first that the two sets of values are not entirely mutually exclusive; few individuals will have only one set or the other. It is, rather, a matter of degree and of primacy. In most individuals one set of values is likely to be primary and most potent, the other to be of secondary importance. An individual who is struggling to decide between these two value orientations is, we believe, essentially struggling to decide, consciously or unconsciously, between conflicting needs and between con- flicting conceptions of himself as a total person.
Achievement values found predominantly in the lows place primary em- phasis on self-expression. Abstract and open-ended, they always leave room for further development and they can never be defined in terms of simple behavior formulae or rigid rules. Their main emphasis is on long-range goals, and the attainment of a given goal leads always to the formulation of new, higher goals expressing the same basic values. Examples of achievement values, taken from the Projective Question material as well as from the inter- views and other material, include the following: Value for scientific, intel- lectual, and aesthetic achievement, and for understanding for its own sake, regardless of immediate practical application. Creativity is valued above efficiency, constructiveness above practicality; productive living, even if it involves inner conflict, is preferred over good adjustment at the expense of
self-expression; richness and intensity of inner experience are valued more than "mere contentment. " In personal relationships, as other techniques have shown, there is concern with giving as well as taking, and with the exchange of love rather than the exchange of things. What is particularly important here is that recognition of one's own individuality is the basis for recognition of the individuality of everyone, and for the democratic concept of the dignity of man. 8 These values are expressed ideologically in terms of op- position to all social structures (milita1y, religious, educational, politico-
8 This point has also been made by Fromm (43). His distinction between "humanistic" and "authoritarian" ethics corresponds very closely to the present one between "achieve- ment" and "conventional" values, and is based on a similar attempt to distinguish two broad psychological approaches to man and society.
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
economic) which are based on the principle of absolute authority, which value power more than love, which engage in group suppression and ex- ploitation, in short, which prevent man from developing his innate poten- tialities to a maximum degree. Once again we find anti-ethnocentrism as but one facet of a larger psychological framework.
What has been called "conventional values" might also have been called "conditional values," since their main function is to place limitations or con- ditions on the expression of needs rather than to stimulate need-experience. They might also have been called "authoritarian values," since they are based on the assumption of conformity to external authority rather than on inner moral responsibility. Whatever the name given, both of the above meanings, as well as others, belong to its definition. The prototypic examples of this value system are the Emily Post book of etiquette, the military "rules of behavior," and certain custom-ridden cultures, literate and nonliterate. 9 The main content of these values, at least for individuals with a strong middle- class identification, deals with conformity and loyalty to ingroup standards.
The difference between achievement values based on inner authority (in- ternalized conscience), and conventional values based on external authority (and thus replaceable when the authority changes), results also in a difference in reaction to value-violations. This is the difference between guilt and shame. It would be an exaggeration to state that the lows feel no shame, the highs no guilt. Nevertheless, there is considerable evidence from the Projective Questions, as well as from the ratings of interviews, that guilt is most charac- teristic of lows, shame of highs. The low categories for Questions 1, z, 4, and 6 are for the most part concerned with personal violations of achievement values, with practically no reference to "being caught" or to external author- ity. For the same items there are high categories referring to violations of conventional values most of which require, almost by definition, an external observing and punishing agent. Indeed, the explicit idea of inner conflict in any form is practically lacking from the high responses. Moreover, it is much more common for the lows to refer to their own personal violations of values, whereas the highs refer either to violations by others, or, more often, to
events which have, explicitly, neither moral nor motivational significance. 10 These results are in keeping with the findings reported in earlier chapters that the highs, particularly those who are more conventional and "middle- class," have a punitive but poorly internalized superego. The ego, submitting
9 See Kardiner (;g, 6o) and Benedict (15) for nonliterate societies, and Reich (g6); these are but a few of many examples.
10 W e should have to predict-and there is already considerable supporting evidence- that studies of specific cultures will show a connection between shame as a predominant emotion, threat of punishment or isolation as a means of discipline in raising children, em- phasis on ritual and custom, an authoritarian conception of God, relative lack of achieve- ment values, and ethnocentrism in group relations within the culture and with other cultures. The higher E scale means made by the more ritualized, fundamentalistic religions in our own culture (see Chapter VI) may be cited in support of this hypothesis.
? PROJECTIVE QUESTIONS
599
out of fear, must constantly forego conscious, constructive impulse gratifi- cation; instead, it finds morally acceptable ways of gaining indirect satisfac- tion (e. g. , aggression by means of ethnocentrism and moral indignation, dependency through submission to powerful authority), and it "cheats" the superego when fear of detection is minimized (e. g. , at conventions). Again we have a contradiction in levels: The highs, so moral on the surface, are essentially most concerned with underlying anxiety and with the gratification of impulses which, being ego-alien, have developed but little beyond their primitive, infantile form; whereas the lows, often so rebellious and so op- posed to traditional morality on the surface, have more fully internalized moral principles and in their emotional functioning are more troubled with moral conflict.
4? The Handling of Dependency as an Underlying Trend. General differ- ences in the ego functioning of lows. and highs have been discussed above. We may turn now to a particular disposition, namely dependency, and see what light the Projective Questions shed on its differential ego-assimilation in lows and highs. It should be noted that there are certain sex differences here, since the expression of dependency is culturally permitted, even valued, in women, whereas in men it is opposed and inhibited. For convenience the following discussion will focus on high versus low men, with the under- standing that for women some of these differences are somewhat reversed, while others hold equally well and still others are not found.
Dependency in lows is expressed mainly in the form of concern with love; many of their Projective Question responses deal with love-giving (nurtur- ance) and love-seeking (active, focal dependency). They seem highly con- cerned with emotional exchange in their personal relationships.
Dependency plays a much different role in the personality of high men. It remains for the most part an ego-alien trend which can seldom be expressed directly because it violates the image (ego ideal) of the normal, masculine man: rugged, practical, realistic, earthbound, independent, "normally sexual and acquisitive, ready to take an active part in the bitter competition de- manded by human nature, and eager to rise to the top of the ladder of suc- cess. " It is apparent that not all men who have this self-ideal are high with respect to E or personality. Nevertheless, the present results indicate that most high men have this ideal, and that most men with this ideal are high.
Part of the high man's defense against ego-alien passive dependency-it is not the love-seeking dependency of the lows-is the rigid value for work, and anxiety over dependency is expressed in the idea that overwork would ? drive one nuts (Projective Questions 1 and 4).
If dependency promotes a concern with love in the lows, it promotes a concern with power in the highs. One of the more direct forms in which high dependency is expressed is submission to power figures. Whereas the ego-assimilated dependency of the lows is expressed in their value for equali-
? 6oo THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
tarian relationships and social structures, the ego-alien dependency of the highs leads to the acceptance of absolute authority and to a value for authori- tarian forms of social interaction. As shown in Projective Question 3 ("Great people"), what the highs admire most in others is power, strength, authority, rugged masculinity. While the aggressive-assertive needs of authoritarian individuals are the most conspicuous ones, the dependent-submissive needs are equally if not more important. In the Projective Questions, particularly 7 ("Last six months") and 8 ("Awe-inspiring"), it was the highs' deference to authority which was expressed most strongly.
The ego-alien passive dependency of the highs is expressed in another form in Projective Questions I ("Moods") and 4 ("Drive nuts"). In Question I, the most unpleasant moods are those involving a feeling of helplessness and dependency in the face of a threatening or barren environment. The dependency comes to the surface but meets an unwelcome reception in the weak, superego-ridden ego: there are no persons toward whom it can be satisfyingly expressed; there is no differentiated affect to make it an enrich- ing experience; there is only a vague anxiety which is actually based not on the external situation but on a deep inner conflict between the superego and the upsurging primitive dependency. It is as if to express the impulse would be to lose one's masculinity or even to undergo bodily harm. Similar conflicts are expressed in Question 4? Again we find the inability to look inward and the vague rumblings of ego-alien trends, including body anxiety and aggres-
sion as well as dependency.
5? The Handling of Other Trends. There is evidence that aggression, sex,
curiosity, homosexuality, and other trends are handled by highs and lows in ways similar to those discussed above. One additional point should be made regarding aggression. It appears not to have undergone much real socializa- tion in highs but has, rather, remained relatively crude, destructive, punitive, unsoftened by ego-assimilation. If the term "hostility" be used for the ag- gression found in lows, then the term "destructiveness" seems most appropri- ate for what exists in highs, especially as revealed in Questions 2 ("Desires"), 5 ("Crimes"), and 8 ("Awe-inspiring").
The results and interpretations discussed above must not be applied in a stereotyped way. It should be understood that, while most highs show most of the high variables, and similarly for the lows, there are numerous excep- tions and numerous variations on the central theme. The personality proto- type above was that of the pseudodemocratic high, and other patterns, such as the "fascist leader" or the "psychopath" will be different in many respects. It is believed, nevertheless, that the Projective Question technique has yielded results comparable, and congruent, with those of other techniques, and that it may profitably be used for the study of other personality structures.
? PART IV
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
The present volume has so far offered findings from our research ranging from surface ideology to largely unconscious psychological traits of our subjects. The direction of research and the order of presentation were sug- gested by the nature of the ideological data themselves; they could not be derived solely from external factors, such as economic status, group mem- bership, or religion; but rather. the evidence pointed unmistakably to the role played by motivational forces in the personality. However, the study did not move mechanically from the ideological to the psychological; rather, we were constantly aware of the structural unity of the two. It thus seems permissible that we reverse the procedure now and ask: what is the mean- ing of the subjects' overt opinions and attitudes in the areas covered by the A-S, E, and PEC scales, when they are considered in the light of our psycho- logical findings, particularly those deriving from the F-scale and the clinical sections of the interviews? By answering this question we may come closer to an integration of the various aspects of a study which is centered in the problem of the relationship between ideology and personality.
As was natural, the material for this task was mainly taken from the non- clinical parts of the interviews. Not only did these data promise to yield additional evidence bearing on the major issues discussed thus far, but the wealth of detailed and elaborate statements which our subjects had formu- lated spontaneously and in their own way, offered numerous psychological leads. There is good reason to believe that the non-clinical sections of the interviews constitute through their inherent structure a link between ideology and personality. However, attention was not limited to this inter- relationship; at the same time an attempt was made to obtain a more colorful picture of the various ideologies themselves than was possible as long as we limited ourselves to the standard questionnaires.
Since the data from the questionnaire and from the Thematic Apper- ception Test and the clinical parts of the interviews had been subjected to thorough statistical treatment, quantification of the present material, though desirable, did not seem necessary. The aim, rather, was to develop for the problem areas under consideration, a phenomenology based on theoretical formulations and illustrated by quotations from the interviews. This pro- cedure, it was hoped, would yield not only more information about the specific structure of the ideologies and the manner in which personality is expressed in them but also a further differentiation of the guiding theoretical concepts themselves.
The advantages of this supplementary procedure are several. It permits 603
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
us to exploit the richness and concreteness of "live" interviews to a degree otherwise hardly attainable. What is lost for want of strict discipline in in- terpretation may be gained by flexibility and closeness to the phenomena. Rare or even unique statements may be elucidated by the discussion. Such statements, often of an extreme nature, may throw considerable light on potentialities which lie within supposedly "normal" areas, just as illness helps us to understand health. At the same time, attention to the consistency of the interpretation of these statements with the over-all picture provides a safeguard against arbitrariness.
A subjective or what might be called speculative element has a place in this method, just as it does in psychoanalysis, from which many of our categories have been drawn. If, in places, the analysis seems to jump to con- clusions, the interpretations should be regarded as hypotheses for further research, and the continuous interaction of the various methods of the study should be recalled: some of the measured variables discussed in earlier chapters
were based on speculations put forward in this part.
In view of the discussions in Chapters III and IV it was not deemed nec-
essary to differentiate between A-S and E in the treatment of the interview material. While the generally close correlation of anti-Semitism and ethno- centrism could be taken for granted on the basis of previous results, more specific accounts of the nature of their interrelation, as well as of certain deviations, were incorporated into the first chapter of the present part
(Chapter XVI).
The chapter which discusses various syndromes found in high and low
scorers (XIX) is also included in this part. Although from a strictly logical point of view it may not belong here, it seemed nevertheless appro- priate to include it, since it is based almost entirely on interview material and focused on the interconnection between ideology and personality. The syndromes evolved in this chapter should be followed up by quantitative investigation. 1
1 We have not deemed it necessary to establish cross references between interviewees' statements presented here-under interview numbers-and those given in Part II under code numbers (see Chapter X, p. 342). Therefore, some quotations may appear here which have already been given there, in a different connection. However, as twelve of the San Quentin inmates are dealt with as a special group in a later chapter (XXI), a Key linking the interview numbers used here with the fictitious names assigned to them there has been inserted on the bottom of Table r (XXI).
? CHAPTER XVI
PREJUDICE IN THE INTERVIEW MATERIAL
T. W. Adorno
A. INTRODUCTION
Our study grew out of specific investigations into anti-Semitism. As our work advanced, however, the emphasis gradually shifted. We came to re- gard it as our main task not to analyze anti-Semitism or any other anti- minority prejudice as a sociopsychological phenomenon per se, but rather to examine the relation of antiminority prejudice to broader ideological and characterological patterns. Thus anti-Semitism gradually all but dis- appeared as a topic of our questionnaire and in our interview schedule it was only one among many topics which had to be covered.
Another investigation, carried through parallel to our research and partly by the same staff members of the Institute of Social Research, i. e. , the study on anti-Semitism within labor (57B), concentrated on the question of anti- Semitism, but at the same time was concerned with sociopsychological issues akin to those presented in the present volume. While the bulk of the material to be discussed in this chapter is taken from the section on prejudice of the Berkeley interviews, an attempt was made to utilize, at least in a supplemen- tary form, some of the ideas of the Labor Study as hypotheses for further investigation. This was done as a part of the work carried out in Los Angeles. In collaboration with J. F. Brown and F. Pollock we drew up an additional section of the interview schedule devoted to specific questions about Jews. These questions were derived for the most part from the material gathered through the "screened interviews" of the Labor Study. The aim of this new section of the interview schedule was to see if it was possible to estab- lish certain differential patterns within the general structure of prejudice.
The list of questions follows. Not all of these questions were put to every subject, nor was the exact wording of the questions always the same, but most of the ground marked off by the questions was covered in each case.
6os
? 6o6
THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
List of Questions Pertaining to Jews
Do you think there is a Jewish problem? If yes, in what sense? Do you care about it?
Have you had any experience with Jews? What kind? Do you remember names of persons involved and other specific data?
If not, on what is your opinion based?
Did you have any contrary experiences (or hear about such experiences)
with Jewish individuals?
If you had-would it change your opinion? If not, why not?
Can you tell a Jew from other people? How?
What do you know about the Jewish religion?
Are there Christians that are as bad as Jews? Is their percentage as high or
higher than the percentage of bad Jews?
How do Jews behave at work? What about the alleged Jewish industrious-
ness?
Is it true that the Jews have an undue influence in movies, radio, literature,
and universities?
If yes-what is panicularly bad about it? What should be done about it?
Is it true that the Jews have an undue influence in business, politics, labor,
etc. ?
If yes-what kind of an influence? Should something be done to curb it? What did the Nazis do to the German Jews? What do you think about it?
Is there such a problem here? What would you do to solve it?
What do you blame them most for? Are they: aggressive, bad-mannered; controlling the banks; black marketeers; cheating; Christ killers; clan- nish; Communists; corrupting; dirty; draft dodgers; exploiters; hiding their identity; too intellectual; Internationalists; overcrowding many jobs; lazy; controlling movies; money-minded; noisy; overassimilative; overbearing; oversexed; looking for privileges; quarrelsome; running the country; too smart; spoiling nice neighborhoods; owning too many stores; undisciplined; unethical against Gentiles; upstarts; shunning hard
manual labor; forming a world conspiracy?
Do you favor social discrimination or special legislation?
Shall a Jew be treated as an individual or as a member of a group? How do your suggestions go along with constitutional rights? Do you object to personal contacts with individual Jews?
Do you consider Jews more as a nuisance or more as a menace? Could you imagine yourself marrying a Jew?
Do you like to discuss the Jewish issue?
What would you do if you were a Jew?
Can a Jew ever become a real American?
The additional interview material taught us more about prevailing overt patterns of anti-Semitism than about its inner dynamics. It is probably fair to say that the detailed questions proved most helpful in understanding the phenomena of psychological conflict in prejudice-the problems character- ized in Chapter V as "pseudo-democratism. " Another significant observa- tion has to do with the reactions of our interviewees to the list of "bad Jewish traits" presented to them. Most answers to this list read "all-inclusive,"
? PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MA TERIAL
that is to say, very little differentiation takes place. The prejudiced subjects tend to subscribe to any reproach against the Jews, provided they do not have to produce these objections themselves but rather find them pre- established, as if they were commonly accepted. This observation could be interpreted in different ways. Either it may be indicative of the "inner con- sistency" of anti-Semitic ideology, or it may testify to the mental rigidity of our high scorers, and this apart from the fact that the method of multiple choice may itself make for automatic reactions. Although our questionnaire studies gave evidence of marked consistency within anti-Semitic ideology, it would hardly be enough to account for the all-inclusiveness of the present responses. It seems that one must think in terms of automatization, though it is impossible to say conclusively whether this is due to the "high" mentality or to the shortcomings of our procedure.
In all probability, the presentation of extreme anti-Semitic statements. as if they were no longer disreputable but rather something which can be sensibly discussed, works as a kind of antidote for the superego and may stimulate imitation even in cases where the individual's "own" reactions would be less violent. This consideration may throw some light upon the phenomenon of the whole German people tolerating the most extreme anti-Semitic measures, although it is highly to be doubted that the individuals themselves were more anti-Semitic than our high-scoring subjects. A pragmatic inference to be drawn from this hypoth- esis would be that, in so far as possible, pseudorational discussions of anti- Semitism should be avoided. One might refute factual anti-Semitic state- ments or explain the dynamics responsible for anti-Semitism, but he should not enter the sphere of the "Jewish problem. " As things stand now, the acknowledgment of a "Jewish problem," after the European genocide, sug- gests, however subtly, that there might have been some justification for what the Nazis did.
The whole material on ideology has been taken from 63 Los Angeles in- terviews in addition to the pertinent sections of those gathered in Berkeley
(see Chapter IX).
It should be stressed that once again the subjective aspect is in the fore-
ground. The selection of our sample excluded an investigation into the role played by the "object"-that is to say, the Jews-in the formation of preju- dice. We do not deny that the object plays a role, but we devote our atten- tion to the forms of reaction directed towards the Jew, not to the basis of these reactions within the "object. " This is due to a hypothesis with which we started and which has been given strong support in Chapter III, namely, that anti-Semitic prejudice has little to do with the qualities of those against whom it is directed. Our interest is centered in the high-scoring subjects.
In organizing the present chapter, we start with the general assumption that the-largely unconscious-hostility resulting from frustration and re- pression and socially diverted from its true object, needs a substitute object
? 6o8 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
through which it may obtain a realistic aspect and thus dodge, as it were, more radical manifestations of a blocking of the subject's relationship to reality, e. g. , psychosis. This "object" of unconscious destructiveness, far from being a superficial "scapegoat," must have certain characteristics in order to fulfill its role. It must be tangible enough; and yet not too tangible, lest it be exploded by its own realism. It must have a sufficient historical back- ing and appear as an indisputable element of tradition. It must be defined in rigid and well-known stereotypes. Finally, the object must possess features, or at least be capable of being perceived and interpreted in terms of features, which harmonize with the destructive tendencies of the prejudiced subject. Some of these features, such as "clannishness" aid rationalization; others, such as the expression of weakness or masochism, provide psychologically ade- quate stimuli for destructiveness. There can be hardly any doubt that all these requirements are fulfilled by the phenomenon of the Jew. This is not to say that Jews must draw hatred upon themselves, or that there is an abso- lute historical necessity which makes them, rather than others, the ideal target of social aggressiveness. Suffice it to say that they can perform this function in the psychological households of many people. The problem of the "uniqueness" of the Jewish phenomenon and hence of anti-Semitism could be approached only by recourse to a theory which is beyond the scope
of this study. Such a theory would neither enumerate a diversity of "factors" nor single out a specific one as "the" cause but rather develop a unified frame- work within which all the "elements" are linked together consistently. This would amount to nothing less than a theory of modern society as a whole.
We shall first give some evidence of the "functional" character of anti- Semitism, that is to say, its relative independence of the object. Then we shall point out the problem of cui bono: anti-Semitism as a device for effort- less "orientation" in a cold, alienated, and largely ununderstandable world. As a parallel to our analysis of political and economic ideologies, it will be shown that this "orientation" is . achieved by stereotypy. The gap between this stereotypy on the one hand and real experience and the still-accepted standards of democracy on the other, leads to a conflict situation, something which is clearly set forth in a number of our interviews. We then take up what appears to be the resolution of this conflict: the underlying anti- Semitism of our cultural climate, keyed to the prejudiced person's own un-
conscious or preconscious wishes, proves in the more extreme cases to be stronger than either conscience or official democratic values. This leads up to the evidence of the destructive character of anti-Semitic reactions. As remnants of the conflict, there remain traces of sympathy for, or rather "appreciation" of, certain Jewish traits which, however, when viewed more closely, also show negative implications.
Some more specific observations about the structure of anti-Jewish prej- udice will be added. Their focal point is the differentiation of anti-Semitism
? PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MA TERIAL
according to the subject's owri social identifications. This survey of anti- Semitic features and dynamics will then be supplemented by a few remarks on the attitudes of low-scoring subjects. Finally, we shall offer some evidence of the broader social significance of anti-Semitism: its intrinsic denial of the principles of American democracy.
B. THE "FUNCTIONAL" CHARACTER OF ANTI-SEMITISM
The psychological dynamisms that "call for" the anti-Semitic outlet-most essentially, we believe, the ambivalence of authoritarian and rebellious trends -have been analyzed in detail in other sections of this book. Here we limit ourselves to some extreme but concrete evidence of the fact that anti- Semitism is not so much dependent upon the nature of the object as upon the subject's own psychological wants and needs.
There are a number of cases in which the "functional" character of prej- udice is obvious. Here we find subjects who are prejudiced per se, but with whom it is relatively accidental against what group their prejudice is directed. We content ourselves with two examples. 5051 is a generally high-scoring man, one of a few Boy Scout leaders. He has strong, though unconscious, fascist leanings. Although anti-Semitic, he tries to mitigate his bias by certain semirational qualifications. Here, the following statement occurs:
"Sometimes we hear that the average Jew is smarter in business than the average white man. I do not believe this. I would hate to believe it. What the Jews should learn is to educate their bad individuals to be more cooperative and agreeable. Actually there is more underhandedness amongst Armenians than there is amongst Jews, but the Armenians aren't nearly as conspicuous and noisy. Mind you, I have known some Jews whom I consider my equal in every way and I like very much. "
This is somewhat reminiscent of Poe's famous story about the double murder in the Rue Morgue where the savage cries of an orangutan are mistaken by bystanders as words of all kinds of different foreign languages, to wit, languages particularly strange to each of the listeners who happen to be foreigners themselves. The primary hostile reaction is directed against for- eigners per se, who are perceived as "uncanny. " This infantile fear of the strange is only subsequently "filled up" with the imagery of a specific group, stereotyped and handy for this purpose. The Jews are favorite stand-ins for the child's "bad man. " The transference of unconscious fear to the particular object, however, the latter being of a secondary nature only, always main- tains an aspect of accidentalness. Thus, as soon as other factors interfere, the aggression may be deflected, at least in part, from the Jews and to another group, preferably one of still greater social distance. Pseudodemocratic ideol- ogy and the professed desire to promote militantly what he conceives to be American ideals are marked in our Boy Scout leader, 5051, and he considers himself not conservative but "predominantly liberal"; hence he tempers his anti-Semitism and anti-Negroism by referring to a third group. He summons
? 610 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
the Armenians in order to prove that he is not "prejudiced," but at the same time his formulation is such that the usual anti-Semitic stereotypes can easily be maintained. Even his exoneration of the Jews with regard to their sup- posed "smartness" is actually a device for the glorification of the ingroup: he hates to think that "we are less smart than they. " While anti-Semitism is functional with regard to the object choice on a more superficial level, its deeper determinants still seem to be much more rigid.
An extreme case of what might be called "mobile" prejudice is Mz225a, of the Maritime School group. Though his questionnaire scores are only medium, the interview shows strong traces of a "manipulative" anti-Semite. The beginning of the minorities section of his interview is as follows:
(What do you think of the race-minority problem? ) "I definitely think there is a problem. I'd probably be prejudiced there. Like the Negro situation. They could act more human. . . . It would be less of a problem. "
His aggression is absorbed by the Negroes, in the "idiosyncratic" manner that can otherwise be observed among extreme anti-Semites, all of whose aggression appears to be directed against Jews.
"I wouldn't sail on a ship if I had to sail with a Negro. To me, they have an offen- sive smell. Course, the Chinese say we smell like sheep. "
It may be mentioned that a subject of the Labor Study, a Negro woman, complained about the smell of the Jews. The present subject concentrates on the Negroes, exonerating the Jews, though in an equivocal way:
(What about the Jewish problem? ) "I don't believe there is much of a problem there. They're too smart to have a problem. Well, they are good business men. (Toomuchinfluence? ) Ibelievetheyhavealot ofinfluence. (Inwhatareas? ) Well, motion picture industry. (Do they abuse it? ) Well, the thing you hear an awful lot about is help the Jews, help the Jews. But you never hear anything about helping other races or nationalities. (Do they abuse their influence in the movies? ) If they do, they do it in such a way that it is not offensive. "
Here again, anti-Semitic sterotypy is maintained descriptively whereas the shift of actual hatred to the Negroes-which cannot be accounted for by the course of the interview-affects the superimposed value judgments. The twist with regard to the term "problem" should be noted. By denying the existence of a "Jewish problem," he consciously takes sides with the unbiased. By interpreting the word, however, as meaning "having difficulties," and empha- sizing that the Jews are "too smart to have a problem," he expresses unwit- tingly his own rejection. In accordance with his "smartness" theory, his pro- Jewish statements have a rationalistic ring clearly indicative of the subject's ambivalence: all race hatred is "envy" but he leaves little doubt that in his mind there is some reason for this envy, e. g. , his acceptance of the myth that the Jews controlled German industry.
This interview points to a way in which our picture of ethnocentrism may
? PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL 6 tt
be differentiated. Although the correlation between anti-Semitism and anti- Negroism is undoubtedly high, a fact which stands out in our interviews as well as in our questionnaire studies (cf. Chapter IV), this is not to say that prejudice is a single compact mass. Readiness to accept statements hostile to minority groups may well be conceived as a more or less unitary trait, but when, in the interview situation, subjects are allowed to express themselves spontaneously it is not uncommon for one minority more than the others to appear, for the moment at least, as an object of special hatred. ? This phenom- enon may be elucidated by reference to persecution mania which, as has been pointed out frequently, has many structural features in common with anti- Semitism. While the paranoid is beset by an over-all hatred, he nevertheless tends to "pick" his enemy, to molest certain individuals who draw his atten- tion upon themselves: he falls, as it were, negatively in love. Something similar may hold good for the potentially fascist character. As soon as he has achieved a specific and concrete countercathexis, which is indispensable to his fabrication of a social pseudoreality, he may "canalize" his otherwise free-floating aggressiveness and then leave alone other potential objects of persecution. Naturally, these processes come to the fore in the dialectics of the interview rather than in the scales, which hardly allow the subject freely to "express" himself.
It may be added that subjects in our sample find numerous other substi- tutes for the Jew, such as the Mexicans and the Greeks. The latter, like the Armenians, are liberally endowed with traits otherwise associated with the imagery of the Jew.
One more aspect of the "functional" character of anti-Semitism should be mentioned. We encountered quite frequently members of other minority groups, with strong "conformist" tendencies, who were outspokenly anti- Semitic. Hardly any traces of solidarity among the different outgroups could be found. The pattern is rather one of "shifting the onus," of defamation of other groups in order to put one's own social status in a better light. An example is 5023, a "psychoneurotic with anxiety state," Mexican by birth:
Being an American of Mexican ancestry, he identifies with the white race and feels "we are superior people. " He particularly dislikes the Negroes and completely dislikes Jews. He feels that they are all alike and wants as little as possible to do with them. Full of contradiction as this subject is, it is not surprising to find that he would marry a Jewess if he really loved her. On the other hand he would control both Negroes and Jews and "keep them in their place. "
so68 is regarded by the interviewer as representing a "pattern probably quite frequent in second-generation Americans who describe themselves as Italian-Americans. " His prejudice is of the politico-fascist brand, distinctly colored by paranoid fantasies:
He is of pure Italian extraction and naturalized here at the time of the first World
? 6I2 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
War. He is very proud of this extraction and for a long time in the early days of Mussolini was active in Italian-American organizations. He still feels that the war against Italy was very unfortunate. Concerning the other minorities he is quite prej- udiced. The Mexicans he feels are enough like the Italians so that if they were edu- cated enough it would be all right. At the present time, however, he feels that they need much education. He believes that the California Japanese were more than correctly handled and that those about whom there is no question should be grad- ually allowed back. He described the Negro situation as a tough one. He believes there should be definite laws particularly with regard to racial intermarriage and that the color liile should also be drawn "regarding where people can live. " "Despite what they say, the Southern Negroes are really the happiest ones. " "The trouble with Jews is that they are all Communists and for this reason dangerous. " His own rela- tions with them have only been fair. In his business relations he says they are "chiselers" and "stick together. " Concerning a solution to this problem, he says, "The Jews should actually educate their own. The way the Jews stick together shows that they actually have more prejudice against the Gentiles than the Gentiles have against them. " He illustrates this with a long story which I was not able to get in detail about some acquaintance of his who married into a Jewish family and was not allowed to eat off the same dishes with them.
We may mention, furthermore, 5052, an anti-Semitic man of Spanish- Negro descent, with strong homosexual tendencies. He is a nightclub enter- tainer, and the interviewer summarizes his impression in the statement that this man wants to say, "I am not a Negro, I am an entertainer. " Here the element of social identification in an outcast is clearly responsible for his prejudice.
Finally, reference should be made to a curiosity, the interview of a Turk, otherwise not evaluated because of his somewhat subnormal intelligence. He indulged in violent anti-Semitic diatribes until it came out near the end of the interview that he was Jewish himself. The whole complex of anti- Semitism among minority groups, and among Jews themselves, offers serious problems and deserves a study of its own. Even the casual observations pro- vided by our sample suffice to corroborate the suspicion that those who suffer from social pressure may frequently tend to transfer this pressure onto others rather than to join hands with their fellow victims.
C. THE IMAGINARY FOE
Our examples of the "functional" character of anti-Semitism, and of the relative ease by which prejudice can be switched from one object to another, point in one direction: the hypothesis that prejudice, according to its intrinsic content, is but superficially, if at all, related to the specific nature of its object. W e shall now give more direct support for this hypothesis, the rela- tion of which to clinical categories such as stereotypy, incapacity to have "experience," projectivity, and power fantasies is not far to seek. This sup- port is supplied by statements which are either plainly self-contradictory or incompatible with facts and of a manifestly imaginary character. Since the
? PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MA TERIAL
usual "self-contradictions" of the anti-Semite can, however, frequently be explained on the basis that they involve different layers of reality and different psychological urges which are still reconcilable in the over-all "Weltanschauung" of the anti-Semite, we concern ourselves here mainly with evidence of imaginary constructs. The fantasies with which we shall deal are so well known from everyday life that their significance for the structure of anti-Semitism can be taken for granted. They are merely high- lighted by our research. One might say that these fantasies occur whenever stereotypes "run wild," that is to say, make themselves completely independ- ent from interaction with reality. When these "emancipated" stereotypes are forcibly brought back into relation with reality, blatant distortions appear. The content of the examples of stereotyped fantasy which we col- lected has to do predominantly with ideas of excessive power attributed to the chosen foe. The disproportion between the relative social weakness of the object and its supposed sinister omnipotence is by itself evidence that the projective mechanism is at work.
W e shall first give some examples of omnipotence fantasies projected upon a whole outgroup abstractly, as it were, and then show how the application of such ideas to factual experience comes close to paranoid delusion.
5054, a middle-aged woman with fairly high scores on all the scales, who is greatly concerned with herself and characterized by a "domineering" manner, claims that she has always tried "to see the other side" and even to "fight prejudice on every side. " She derives her feelings of tolerance from the contrast with her husband whom she characterized as extremely anti- Jewish (he hates all Jews and makes no exceptions) whereas she is willing to make exceptions. Her actual attitude is described as follows:
She would not subscribe to a "racist theory," but does not think that the Jews will change much, but rather that they will tend to become "more aggressive. " She also believes that "they will eventually run the country, whether we like it or not. "
The usual stereotype of undue Jewish influence in politics and economy is inflated to the assertion of threatening over-all domination. It is easy to guess that the countermeasures which such subjects have in mind are no less totali- tarian than their persecution ideas, even if they do not dare to say so in so many words.
Similar is case 506za, chosen as a mixed case (she is high-middle onE, but low on F and PEC), but actually, as proved by the interview, markedly ethno- centric. In her statement, the vividness of the fantasies about the almighty Jew seems to be equalled by the intensity of her vindictiveness.
"My relations with the Jews have been anything but pleasant. " When asked to be . more specific it was impossible for her to name individual incidents. She de- scnbed them, however, as "pushing everybody about, aggressive, clannish, money-
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
minded. . . . The Jews are practically taking over the country. They are getting into everything. It is not that they are smarter, but they work so hard to get control. They are all alike. " When asked if she did not feel that there were variations in the Jewish temperament as in any other, she said, "No, I don't think so. I think there is something that makes them all stick together and try to hold on to everything. I have Jewish friends and I have tried not to treat them antagonistically, but sooner or later they have also turned out to be aggressive and obnoxious. . . . I think the percentage of very bad Jews is very much greater than the percentage of bad Gentiles. . . . My husband feels exactly the same way on this whole problem. As a matter of fact, I don't go as far as he does. He didn't like many things about Hitler, but he did feel that Hitler did a good job on the Jews. He feels that we will come in this country to a place where we have to do something about it. "
Sometimes the projective aspect of the fantasies of Jewish domination comes into the open. Those whose half-conscious wishes culminate in the idea of the abolition of democracy and the rule of the strong, call those antidemocratic whose only hope lies in the maintenance of democratic rights. 5018 is a p-year-old ex-marine gunnery sergeant who scores high on all the scales. He is suspected by the interviewer of being "somewhat paranoid.
The highs also diifer from the lows in their greater concreteness of think- ing and in their less differentiated emotional experience. Thus, the responses of the highs characteristically refer to specific behavioral acts or situations, while the lows tend, to a greater degree, to describe more subtle experiences and more abstract, generalized situations. On Question 3 ("Great people"), for example, the lows, more than the highs, give the qualities that they admire in a person, with or without specific examples. The same is true for Question 5 ("Worst crimes"). Evidence of the greater complexity and abstractness of the lows has been given in the interview chapters (Part II) and in Chapter VIII (showing negative correlations between ethnocentrism and intelli- gence). These results are consistent with those showing the highs to be more stereotyped in their ideology (Chapters III, IV, XVI, XVII), more rigidly concrete in their solutions of arithmetical and spatial probkms (Rokeach
(98)) 0
? PROJECTIVE QUESTIONS
597
The lows tend, in a frustrating situation, to blame themselves (intrapuni- tiveness), the highs to idealize themselves and to see the evil as existing in the external world (extrapunitiveness).
Finally, the greater intraception of the lows and the great anti-intracep- tion of the highs is apparent in their responses to the Projective Questions as well as in the material elicited by the interviews, the T. A. T. , and the F scale.
3? Achievement Values vs. Conventional Values. This distinction has been essential for the scoring of the Projective Questions. It is important not only because of the difference in the content of the values, but also because the values themselves express significant aspects of the personality dynamics of the two groups. It should be noted first that the two sets of values are not entirely mutually exclusive; few individuals will have only one set or the other. It is, rather, a matter of degree and of primacy. In most individuals one set of values is likely to be primary and most potent, the other to be of secondary importance. An individual who is struggling to decide between these two value orientations is, we believe, essentially struggling to decide, consciously or unconsciously, between conflicting needs and between con- flicting conceptions of himself as a total person.
Achievement values found predominantly in the lows place primary em- phasis on self-expression. Abstract and open-ended, they always leave room for further development and they can never be defined in terms of simple behavior formulae or rigid rules. Their main emphasis is on long-range goals, and the attainment of a given goal leads always to the formulation of new, higher goals expressing the same basic values. Examples of achievement values, taken from the Projective Question material as well as from the inter- views and other material, include the following: Value for scientific, intel- lectual, and aesthetic achievement, and for understanding for its own sake, regardless of immediate practical application. Creativity is valued above efficiency, constructiveness above practicality; productive living, even if it involves inner conflict, is preferred over good adjustment at the expense of
self-expression; richness and intensity of inner experience are valued more than "mere contentment. " In personal relationships, as other techniques have shown, there is concern with giving as well as taking, and with the exchange of love rather than the exchange of things. What is particularly important here is that recognition of one's own individuality is the basis for recognition of the individuality of everyone, and for the democratic concept of the dignity of man. 8 These values are expressed ideologically in terms of op- position to all social structures (milita1y, religious, educational, politico-
8 This point has also been made by Fromm (43). His distinction between "humanistic" and "authoritarian" ethics corresponds very closely to the present one between "achieve- ment" and "conventional" values, and is based on a similar attempt to distinguish two broad psychological approaches to man and society.
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
economic) which are based on the principle of absolute authority, which value power more than love, which engage in group suppression and ex- ploitation, in short, which prevent man from developing his innate poten- tialities to a maximum degree. Once again we find anti-ethnocentrism as but one facet of a larger psychological framework.
What has been called "conventional values" might also have been called "conditional values," since their main function is to place limitations or con- ditions on the expression of needs rather than to stimulate need-experience. They might also have been called "authoritarian values," since they are based on the assumption of conformity to external authority rather than on inner moral responsibility. Whatever the name given, both of the above meanings, as well as others, belong to its definition. The prototypic examples of this value system are the Emily Post book of etiquette, the military "rules of behavior," and certain custom-ridden cultures, literate and nonliterate. 9 The main content of these values, at least for individuals with a strong middle- class identification, deals with conformity and loyalty to ingroup standards.
The difference between achievement values based on inner authority (in- ternalized conscience), and conventional values based on external authority (and thus replaceable when the authority changes), results also in a difference in reaction to value-violations. This is the difference between guilt and shame. It would be an exaggeration to state that the lows feel no shame, the highs no guilt. Nevertheless, there is considerable evidence from the Projective Questions, as well as from the ratings of interviews, that guilt is most charac- teristic of lows, shame of highs. The low categories for Questions 1, z, 4, and 6 are for the most part concerned with personal violations of achievement values, with practically no reference to "being caught" or to external author- ity. For the same items there are high categories referring to violations of conventional values most of which require, almost by definition, an external observing and punishing agent. Indeed, the explicit idea of inner conflict in any form is practically lacking from the high responses. Moreover, it is much more common for the lows to refer to their own personal violations of values, whereas the highs refer either to violations by others, or, more often, to
events which have, explicitly, neither moral nor motivational significance. 10 These results are in keeping with the findings reported in earlier chapters that the highs, particularly those who are more conventional and "middle- class," have a punitive but poorly internalized superego. The ego, submitting
9 See Kardiner (;g, 6o) and Benedict (15) for nonliterate societies, and Reich (g6); these are but a few of many examples.
10 W e should have to predict-and there is already considerable supporting evidence- that studies of specific cultures will show a connection between shame as a predominant emotion, threat of punishment or isolation as a means of discipline in raising children, em- phasis on ritual and custom, an authoritarian conception of God, relative lack of achieve- ment values, and ethnocentrism in group relations within the culture and with other cultures. The higher E scale means made by the more ritualized, fundamentalistic religions in our own culture (see Chapter VI) may be cited in support of this hypothesis.
? PROJECTIVE QUESTIONS
599
out of fear, must constantly forego conscious, constructive impulse gratifi- cation; instead, it finds morally acceptable ways of gaining indirect satisfac- tion (e. g. , aggression by means of ethnocentrism and moral indignation, dependency through submission to powerful authority), and it "cheats" the superego when fear of detection is minimized (e. g. , at conventions). Again we have a contradiction in levels: The highs, so moral on the surface, are essentially most concerned with underlying anxiety and with the gratification of impulses which, being ego-alien, have developed but little beyond their primitive, infantile form; whereas the lows, often so rebellious and so op- posed to traditional morality on the surface, have more fully internalized moral principles and in their emotional functioning are more troubled with moral conflict.
4? The Handling of Dependency as an Underlying Trend. General differ- ences in the ego functioning of lows. and highs have been discussed above. We may turn now to a particular disposition, namely dependency, and see what light the Projective Questions shed on its differential ego-assimilation in lows and highs. It should be noted that there are certain sex differences here, since the expression of dependency is culturally permitted, even valued, in women, whereas in men it is opposed and inhibited. For convenience the following discussion will focus on high versus low men, with the under- standing that for women some of these differences are somewhat reversed, while others hold equally well and still others are not found.
Dependency in lows is expressed mainly in the form of concern with love; many of their Projective Question responses deal with love-giving (nurtur- ance) and love-seeking (active, focal dependency). They seem highly con- cerned with emotional exchange in their personal relationships.
Dependency plays a much different role in the personality of high men. It remains for the most part an ego-alien trend which can seldom be expressed directly because it violates the image (ego ideal) of the normal, masculine man: rugged, practical, realistic, earthbound, independent, "normally sexual and acquisitive, ready to take an active part in the bitter competition de- manded by human nature, and eager to rise to the top of the ladder of suc- cess. " It is apparent that not all men who have this self-ideal are high with respect to E or personality. Nevertheless, the present results indicate that most high men have this ideal, and that most men with this ideal are high.
Part of the high man's defense against ego-alien passive dependency-it is not the love-seeking dependency of the lows-is the rigid value for work, and anxiety over dependency is expressed in the idea that overwork would ? drive one nuts (Projective Questions 1 and 4).
If dependency promotes a concern with love in the lows, it promotes a concern with power in the highs. One of the more direct forms in which high dependency is expressed is submission to power figures. Whereas the ego-assimilated dependency of the lows is expressed in their value for equali-
? 6oo THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
tarian relationships and social structures, the ego-alien dependency of the highs leads to the acceptance of absolute authority and to a value for authori- tarian forms of social interaction. As shown in Projective Question 3 ("Great people"), what the highs admire most in others is power, strength, authority, rugged masculinity. While the aggressive-assertive needs of authoritarian individuals are the most conspicuous ones, the dependent-submissive needs are equally if not more important. In the Projective Questions, particularly 7 ("Last six months") and 8 ("Awe-inspiring"), it was the highs' deference to authority which was expressed most strongly.
The ego-alien passive dependency of the highs is expressed in another form in Projective Questions I ("Moods") and 4 ("Drive nuts"). In Question I, the most unpleasant moods are those involving a feeling of helplessness and dependency in the face of a threatening or barren environment. The dependency comes to the surface but meets an unwelcome reception in the weak, superego-ridden ego: there are no persons toward whom it can be satisfyingly expressed; there is no differentiated affect to make it an enrich- ing experience; there is only a vague anxiety which is actually based not on the external situation but on a deep inner conflict between the superego and the upsurging primitive dependency. It is as if to express the impulse would be to lose one's masculinity or even to undergo bodily harm. Similar conflicts are expressed in Question 4? Again we find the inability to look inward and the vague rumblings of ego-alien trends, including body anxiety and aggres-
sion as well as dependency.
5? The Handling of Other Trends. There is evidence that aggression, sex,
curiosity, homosexuality, and other trends are handled by highs and lows in ways similar to those discussed above. One additional point should be made regarding aggression. It appears not to have undergone much real socializa- tion in highs but has, rather, remained relatively crude, destructive, punitive, unsoftened by ego-assimilation. If the term "hostility" be used for the ag- gression found in lows, then the term "destructiveness" seems most appropri- ate for what exists in highs, especially as revealed in Questions 2 ("Desires"), 5 ("Crimes"), and 8 ("Awe-inspiring").
The results and interpretations discussed above must not be applied in a stereotyped way. It should be understood that, while most highs show most of the high variables, and similarly for the lows, there are numerous excep- tions and numerous variations on the central theme. The personality proto- type above was that of the pseudodemocratic high, and other patterns, such as the "fascist leader" or the "psychopath" will be different in many respects. It is believed, nevertheless, that the Projective Question technique has yielded results comparable, and congruent, with those of other techniques, and that it may profitably be used for the study of other personality structures.
? PART IV
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
The present volume has so far offered findings from our research ranging from surface ideology to largely unconscious psychological traits of our subjects. The direction of research and the order of presentation were sug- gested by the nature of the ideological data themselves; they could not be derived solely from external factors, such as economic status, group mem- bership, or religion; but rather. the evidence pointed unmistakably to the role played by motivational forces in the personality. However, the study did not move mechanically from the ideological to the psychological; rather, we were constantly aware of the structural unity of the two. It thus seems permissible that we reverse the procedure now and ask: what is the mean- ing of the subjects' overt opinions and attitudes in the areas covered by the A-S, E, and PEC scales, when they are considered in the light of our psycho- logical findings, particularly those deriving from the F-scale and the clinical sections of the interviews? By answering this question we may come closer to an integration of the various aspects of a study which is centered in the problem of the relationship between ideology and personality.
As was natural, the material for this task was mainly taken from the non- clinical parts of the interviews. Not only did these data promise to yield additional evidence bearing on the major issues discussed thus far, but the wealth of detailed and elaborate statements which our subjects had formu- lated spontaneously and in their own way, offered numerous psychological leads. There is good reason to believe that the non-clinical sections of the interviews constitute through their inherent structure a link between ideology and personality. However, attention was not limited to this inter- relationship; at the same time an attempt was made to obtain a more colorful picture of the various ideologies themselves than was possible as long as we limited ourselves to the standard questionnaires.
Since the data from the questionnaire and from the Thematic Apper- ception Test and the clinical parts of the interviews had been subjected to thorough statistical treatment, quantification of the present material, though desirable, did not seem necessary. The aim, rather, was to develop for the problem areas under consideration, a phenomenology based on theoretical formulations and illustrated by quotations from the interviews. This pro- cedure, it was hoped, would yield not only more information about the specific structure of the ideologies and the manner in which personality is expressed in them but also a further differentiation of the guiding theoretical concepts themselves.
The advantages of this supplementary procedure are several. It permits 603
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
us to exploit the richness and concreteness of "live" interviews to a degree otherwise hardly attainable. What is lost for want of strict discipline in in- terpretation may be gained by flexibility and closeness to the phenomena. Rare or even unique statements may be elucidated by the discussion. Such statements, often of an extreme nature, may throw considerable light on potentialities which lie within supposedly "normal" areas, just as illness helps us to understand health. At the same time, attention to the consistency of the interpretation of these statements with the over-all picture provides a safeguard against arbitrariness.
A subjective or what might be called speculative element has a place in this method, just as it does in psychoanalysis, from which many of our categories have been drawn. If, in places, the analysis seems to jump to con- clusions, the interpretations should be regarded as hypotheses for further research, and the continuous interaction of the various methods of the study should be recalled: some of the measured variables discussed in earlier chapters
were based on speculations put forward in this part.
In view of the discussions in Chapters III and IV it was not deemed nec-
essary to differentiate between A-S and E in the treatment of the interview material. While the generally close correlation of anti-Semitism and ethno- centrism could be taken for granted on the basis of previous results, more specific accounts of the nature of their interrelation, as well as of certain deviations, were incorporated into the first chapter of the present part
(Chapter XVI).
The chapter which discusses various syndromes found in high and low
scorers (XIX) is also included in this part. Although from a strictly logical point of view it may not belong here, it seemed nevertheless appro- priate to include it, since it is based almost entirely on interview material and focused on the interconnection between ideology and personality. The syndromes evolved in this chapter should be followed up by quantitative investigation. 1
1 We have not deemed it necessary to establish cross references between interviewees' statements presented here-under interview numbers-and those given in Part II under code numbers (see Chapter X, p. 342). Therefore, some quotations may appear here which have already been given there, in a different connection. However, as twelve of the San Quentin inmates are dealt with as a special group in a later chapter (XXI), a Key linking the interview numbers used here with the fictitious names assigned to them there has been inserted on the bottom of Table r (XXI).
? CHAPTER XVI
PREJUDICE IN THE INTERVIEW MATERIAL
T. W. Adorno
A. INTRODUCTION
Our study grew out of specific investigations into anti-Semitism. As our work advanced, however, the emphasis gradually shifted. We came to re- gard it as our main task not to analyze anti-Semitism or any other anti- minority prejudice as a sociopsychological phenomenon per se, but rather to examine the relation of antiminority prejudice to broader ideological and characterological patterns. Thus anti-Semitism gradually all but dis- appeared as a topic of our questionnaire and in our interview schedule it was only one among many topics which had to be covered.
Another investigation, carried through parallel to our research and partly by the same staff members of the Institute of Social Research, i. e. , the study on anti-Semitism within labor (57B), concentrated on the question of anti- Semitism, but at the same time was concerned with sociopsychological issues akin to those presented in the present volume. While the bulk of the material to be discussed in this chapter is taken from the section on prejudice of the Berkeley interviews, an attempt was made to utilize, at least in a supplemen- tary form, some of the ideas of the Labor Study as hypotheses for further investigation. This was done as a part of the work carried out in Los Angeles. In collaboration with J. F. Brown and F. Pollock we drew up an additional section of the interview schedule devoted to specific questions about Jews. These questions were derived for the most part from the material gathered through the "screened interviews" of the Labor Study. The aim of this new section of the interview schedule was to see if it was possible to estab- lish certain differential patterns within the general structure of prejudice.
The list of questions follows. Not all of these questions were put to every subject, nor was the exact wording of the questions always the same, but most of the ground marked off by the questions was covered in each case.
6os
? 6o6
THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
List of Questions Pertaining to Jews
Do you think there is a Jewish problem? If yes, in what sense? Do you care about it?
Have you had any experience with Jews? What kind? Do you remember names of persons involved and other specific data?
If not, on what is your opinion based?
Did you have any contrary experiences (or hear about such experiences)
with Jewish individuals?
If you had-would it change your opinion? If not, why not?
Can you tell a Jew from other people? How?
What do you know about the Jewish religion?
Are there Christians that are as bad as Jews? Is their percentage as high or
higher than the percentage of bad Jews?
How do Jews behave at work? What about the alleged Jewish industrious-
ness?
Is it true that the Jews have an undue influence in movies, radio, literature,
and universities?
If yes-what is panicularly bad about it? What should be done about it?
Is it true that the Jews have an undue influence in business, politics, labor,
etc. ?
If yes-what kind of an influence? Should something be done to curb it? What did the Nazis do to the German Jews? What do you think about it?
Is there such a problem here? What would you do to solve it?
What do you blame them most for? Are they: aggressive, bad-mannered; controlling the banks; black marketeers; cheating; Christ killers; clan- nish; Communists; corrupting; dirty; draft dodgers; exploiters; hiding their identity; too intellectual; Internationalists; overcrowding many jobs; lazy; controlling movies; money-minded; noisy; overassimilative; overbearing; oversexed; looking for privileges; quarrelsome; running the country; too smart; spoiling nice neighborhoods; owning too many stores; undisciplined; unethical against Gentiles; upstarts; shunning hard
manual labor; forming a world conspiracy?
Do you favor social discrimination or special legislation?
Shall a Jew be treated as an individual or as a member of a group? How do your suggestions go along with constitutional rights? Do you object to personal contacts with individual Jews?
Do you consider Jews more as a nuisance or more as a menace? Could you imagine yourself marrying a Jew?
Do you like to discuss the Jewish issue?
What would you do if you were a Jew?
Can a Jew ever become a real American?
The additional interview material taught us more about prevailing overt patterns of anti-Semitism than about its inner dynamics. It is probably fair to say that the detailed questions proved most helpful in understanding the phenomena of psychological conflict in prejudice-the problems character- ized in Chapter V as "pseudo-democratism. " Another significant observa- tion has to do with the reactions of our interviewees to the list of "bad Jewish traits" presented to them. Most answers to this list read "all-inclusive,"
? PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MA TERIAL
that is to say, very little differentiation takes place. The prejudiced subjects tend to subscribe to any reproach against the Jews, provided they do not have to produce these objections themselves but rather find them pre- established, as if they were commonly accepted. This observation could be interpreted in different ways. Either it may be indicative of the "inner con- sistency" of anti-Semitic ideology, or it may testify to the mental rigidity of our high scorers, and this apart from the fact that the method of multiple choice may itself make for automatic reactions. Although our questionnaire studies gave evidence of marked consistency within anti-Semitic ideology, it would hardly be enough to account for the all-inclusiveness of the present responses. It seems that one must think in terms of automatization, though it is impossible to say conclusively whether this is due to the "high" mentality or to the shortcomings of our procedure.
In all probability, the presentation of extreme anti-Semitic statements. as if they were no longer disreputable but rather something which can be sensibly discussed, works as a kind of antidote for the superego and may stimulate imitation even in cases where the individual's "own" reactions would be less violent. This consideration may throw some light upon the phenomenon of the whole German people tolerating the most extreme anti-Semitic measures, although it is highly to be doubted that the individuals themselves were more anti-Semitic than our high-scoring subjects. A pragmatic inference to be drawn from this hypoth- esis would be that, in so far as possible, pseudorational discussions of anti- Semitism should be avoided. One might refute factual anti-Semitic state- ments or explain the dynamics responsible for anti-Semitism, but he should not enter the sphere of the "Jewish problem. " As things stand now, the acknowledgment of a "Jewish problem," after the European genocide, sug- gests, however subtly, that there might have been some justification for what the Nazis did.
The whole material on ideology has been taken from 63 Los Angeles in- terviews in addition to the pertinent sections of those gathered in Berkeley
(see Chapter IX).
It should be stressed that once again the subjective aspect is in the fore-
ground. The selection of our sample excluded an investigation into the role played by the "object"-that is to say, the Jews-in the formation of preju- dice. We do not deny that the object plays a role, but we devote our atten- tion to the forms of reaction directed towards the Jew, not to the basis of these reactions within the "object. " This is due to a hypothesis with which we started and which has been given strong support in Chapter III, namely, that anti-Semitic prejudice has little to do with the qualities of those against whom it is directed. Our interest is centered in the high-scoring subjects.
In organizing the present chapter, we start with the general assumption that the-largely unconscious-hostility resulting from frustration and re- pression and socially diverted from its true object, needs a substitute object
? 6o8 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
through which it may obtain a realistic aspect and thus dodge, as it were, more radical manifestations of a blocking of the subject's relationship to reality, e. g. , psychosis. This "object" of unconscious destructiveness, far from being a superficial "scapegoat," must have certain characteristics in order to fulfill its role. It must be tangible enough; and yet not too tangible, lest it be exploded by its own realism. It must have a sufficient historical back- ing and appear as an indisputable element of tradition. It must be defined in rigid and well-known stereotypes. Finally, the object must possess features, or at least be capable of being perceived and interpreted in terms of features, which harmonize with the destructive tendencies of the prejudiced subject. Some of these features, such as "clannishness" aid rationalization; others, such as the expression of weakness or masochism, provide psychologically ade- quate stimuli for destructiveness. There can be hardly any doubt that all these requirements are fulfilled by the phenomenon of the Jew. This is not to say that Jews must draw hatred upon themselves, or that there is an abso- lute historical necessity which makes them, rather than others, the ideal target of social aggressiveness. Suffice it to say that they can perform this function in the psychological households of many people. The problem of the "uniqueness" of the Jewish phenomenon and hence of anti-Semitism could be approached only by recourse to a theory which is beyond the scope
of this study. Such a theory would neither enumerate a diversity of "factors" nor single out a specific one as "the" cause but rather develop a unified frame- work within which all the "elements" are linked together consistently. This would amount to nothing less than a theory of modern society as a whole.
We shall first give some evidence of the "functional" character of anti- Semitism, that is to say, its relative independence of the object. Then we shall point out the problem of cui bono: anti-Semitism as a device for effort- less "orientation" in a cold, alienated, and largely ununderstandable world. As a parallel to our analysis of political and economic ideologies, it will be shown that this "orientation" is . achieved by stereotypy. The gap between this stereotypy on the one hand and real experience and the still-accepted standards of democracy on the other, leads to a conflict situation, something which is clearly set forth in a number of our interviews. We then take up what appears to be the resolution of this conflict: the underlying anti- Semitism of our cultural climate, keyed to the prejudiced person's own un-
conscious or preconscious wishes, proves in the more extreme cases to be stronger than either conscience or official democratic values. This leads up to the evidence of the destructive character of anti-Semitic reactions. As remnants of the conflict, there remain traces of sympathy for, or rather "appreciation" of, certain Jewish traits which, however, when viewed more closely, also show negative implications.
Some more specific observations about the structure of anti-Jewish prej- udice will be added. Their focal point is the differentiation of anti-Semitism
? PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MA TERIAL
according to the subject's owri social identifications. This survey of anti- Semitic features and dynamics will then be supplemented by a few remarks on the attitudes of low-scoring subjects. Finally, we shall offer some evidence of the broader social significance of anti-Semitism: its intrinsic denial of the principles of American democracy.
B. THE "FUNCTIONAL" CHARACTER OF ANTI-SEMITISM
The psychological dynamisms that "call for" the anti-Semitic outlet-most essentially, we believe, the ambivalence of authoritarian and rebellious trends -have been analyzed in detail in other sections of this book. Here we limit ourselves to some extreme but concrete evidence of the fact that anti- Semitism is not so much dependent upon the nature of the object as upon the subject's own psychological wants and needs.
There are a number of cases in which the "functional" character of prej- udice is obvious. Here we find subjects who are prejudiced per se, but with whom it is relatively accidental against what group their prejudice is directed. We content ourselves with two examples. 5051 is a generally high-scoring man, one of a few Boy Scout leaders. He has strong, though unconscious, fascist leanings. Although anti-Semitic, he tries to mitigate his bias by certain semirational qualifications. Here, the following statement occurs:
"Sometimes we hear that the average Jew is smarter in business than the average white man. I do not believe this. I would hate to believe it. What the Jews should learn is to educate their bad individuals to be more cooperative and agreeable. Actually there is more underhandedness amongst Armenians than there is amongst Jews, but the Armenians aren't nearly as conspicuous and noisy. Mind you, I have known some Jews whom I consider my equal in every way and I like very much. "
This is somewhat reminiscent of Poe's famous story about the double murder in the Rue Morgue where the savage cries of an orangutan are mistaken by bystanders as words of all kinds of different foreign languages, to wit, languages particularly strange to each of the listeners who happen to be foreigners themselves. The primary hostile reaction is directed against for- eigners per se, who are perceived as "uncanny. " This infantile fear of the strange is only subsequently "filled up" with the imagery of a specific group, stereotyped and handy for this purpose. The Jews are favorite stand-ins for the child's "bad man. " The transference of unconscious fear to the particular object, however, the latter being of a secondary nature only, always main- tains an aspect of accidentalness. Thus, as soon as other factors interfere, the aggression may be deflected, at least in part, from the Jews and to another group, preferably one of still greater social distance. Pseudodemocratic ideol- ogy and the professed desire to promote militantly what he conceives to be American ideals are marked in our Boy Scout leader, 5051, and he considers himself not conservative but "predominantly liberal"; hence he tempers his anti-Semitism and anti-Negroism by referring to a third group. He summons
? 610 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
the Armenians in order to prove that he is not "prejudiced," but at the same time his formulation is such that the usual anti-Semitic stereotypes can easily be maintained. Even his exoneration of the Jews with regard to their sup- posed "smartness" is actually a device for the glorification of the ingroup: he hates to think that "we are less smart than they. " While anti-Semitism is functional with regard to the object choice on a more superficial level, its deeper determinants still seem to be much more rigid.
An extreme case of what might be called "mobile" prejudice is Mz225a, of the Maritime School group. Though his questionnaire scores are only medium, the interview shows strong traces of a "manipulative" anti-Semite. The beginning of the minorities section of his interview is as follows:
(What do you think of the race-minority problem? ) "I definitely think there is a problem. I'd probably be prejudiced there. Like the Negro situation. They could act more human. . . . It would be less of a problem. "
His aggression is absorbed by the Negroes, in the "idiosyncratic" manner that can otherwise be observed among extreme anti-Semites, all of whose aggression appears to be directed against Jews.
"I wouldn't sail on a ship if I had to sail with a Negro. To me, they have an offen- sive smell. Course, the Chinese say we smell like sheep. "
It may be mentioned that a subject of the Labor Study, a Negro woman, complained about the smell of the Jews. The present subject concentrates on the Negroes, exonerating the Jews, though in an equivocal way:
(What about the Jewish problem? ) "I don't believe there is much of a problem there. They're too smart to have a problem. Well, they are good business men. (Toomuchinfluence? ) Ibelievetheyhavealot ofinfluence. (Inwhatareas? ) Well, motion picture industry. (Do they abuse it? ) Well, the thing you hear an awful lot about is help the Jews, help the Jews. But you never hear anything about helping other races or nationalities. (Do they abuse their influence in the movies? ) If they do, they do it in such a way that it is not offensive. "
Here again, anti-Semitic sterotypy is maintained descriptively whereas the shift of actual hatred to the Negroes-which cannot be accounted for by the course of the interview-affects the superimposed value judgments. The twist with regard to the term "problem" should be noted. By denying the existence of a "Jewish problem," he consciously takes sides with the unbiased. By interpreting the word, however, as meaning "having difficulties," and empha- sizing that the Jews are "too smart to have a problem," he expresses unwit- tingly his own rejection. In accordance with his "smartness" theory, his pro- Jewish statements have a rationalistic ring clearly indicative of the subject's ambivalence: all race hatred is "envy" but he leaves little doubt that in his mind there is some reason for this envy, e. g. , his acceptance of the myth that the Jews controlled German industry.
This interview points to a way in which our picture of ethnocentrism may
? PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL 6 tt
be differentiated. Although the correlation between anti-Semitism and anti- Negroism is undoubtedly high, a fact which stands out in our interviews as well as in our questionnaire studies (cf. Chapter IV), this is not to say that prejudice is a single compact mass. Readiness to accept statements hostile to minority groups may well be conceived as a more or less unitary trait, but when, in the interview situation, subjects are allowed to express themselves spontaneously it is not uncommon for one minority more than the others to appear, for the moment at least, as an object of special hatred. ? This phenom- enon may be elucidated by reference to persecution mania which, as has been pointed out frequently, has many structural features in common with anti- Semitism. While the paranoid is beset by an over-all hatred, he nevertheless tends to "pick" his enemy, to molest certain individuals who draw his atten- tion upon themselves: he falls, as it were, negatively in love. Something similar may hold good for the potentially fascist character. As soon as he has achieved a specific and concrete countercathexis, which is indispensable to his fabrication of a social pseudoreality, he may "canalize" his otherwise free-floating aggressiveness and then leave alone other potential objects of persecution. Naturally, these processes come to the fore in the dialectics of the interview rather than in the scales, which hardly allow the subject freely to "express" himself.
It may be added that subjects in our sample find numerous other substi- tutes for the Jew, such as the Mexicans and the Greeks. The latter, like the Armenians, are liberally endowed with traits otherwise associated with the imagery of the Jew.
One more aspect of the "functional" character of anti-Semitism should be mentioned. We encountered quite frequently members of other minority groups, with strong "conformist" tendencies, who were outspokenly anti- Semitic. Hardly any traces of solidarity among the different outgroups could be found. The pattern is rather one of "shifting the onus," of defamation of other groups in order to put one's own social status in a better light. An example is 5023, a "psychoneurotic with anxiety state," Mexican by birth:
Being an American of Mexican ancestry, he identifies with the white race and feels "we are superior people. " He particularly dislikes the Negroes and completely dislikes Jews. He feels that they are all alike and wants as little as possible to do with them. Full of contradiction as this subject is, it is not surprising to find that he would marry a Jewess if he really loved her. On the other hand he would control both Negroes and Jews and "keep them in their place. "
so68 is regarded by the interviewer as representing a "pattern probably quite frequent in second-generation Americans who describe themselves as Italian-Americans. " His prejudice is of the politico-fascist brand, distinctly colored by paranoid fantasies:
He is of pure Italian extraction and naturalized here at the time of the first World
? 6I2 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
War. He is very proud of this extraction and for a long time in the early days of Mussolini was active in Italian-American organizations. He still feels that the war against Italy was very unfortunate. Concerning the other minorities he is quite prej- udiced. The Mexicans he feels are enough like the Italians so that if they were edu- cated enough it would be all right. At the present time, however, he feels that they need much education. He believes that the California Japanese were more than correctly handled and that those about whom there is no question should be grad- ually allowed back. He described the Negro situation as a tough one. He believes there should be definite laws particularly with regard to racial intermarriage and that the color liile should also be drawn "regarding where people can live. " "Despite what they say, the Southern Negroes are really the happiest ones. " "The trouble with Jews is that they are all Communists and for this reason dangerous. " His own rela- tions with them have only been fair. In his business relations he says they are "chiselers" and "stick together. " Concerning a solution to this problem, he says, "The Jews should actually educate their own. The way the Jews stick together shows that they actually have more prejudice against the Gentiles than the Gentiles have against them. " He illustrates this with a long story which I was not able to get in detail about some acquaintance of his who married into a Jewish family and was not allowed to eat off the same dishes with them.
We may mention, furthermore, 5052, an anti-Semitic man of Spanish- Negro descent, with strong homosexual tendencies. He is a nightclub enter- tainer, and the interviewer summarizes his impression in the statement that this man wants to say, "I am not a Negro, I am an entertainer. " Here the element of social identification in an outcast is clearly responsible for his prejudice.
Finally, reference should be made to a curiosity, the interview of a Turk, otherwise not evaluated because of his somewhat subnormal intelligence. He indulged in violent anti-Semitic diatribes until it came out near the end of the interview that he was Jewish himself. The whole complex of anti- Semitism among minority groups, and among Jews themselves, offers serious problems and deserves a study of its own. Even the casual observations pro- vided by our sample suffice to corroborate the suspicion that those who suffer from social pressure may frequently tend to transfer this pressure onto others rather than to join hands with their fellow victims.
C. THE IMAGINARY FOE
Our examples of the "functional" character of anti-Semitism, and of the relative ease by which prejudice can be switched from one object to another, point in one direction: the hypothesis that prejudice, according to its intrinsic content, is but superficially, if at all, related to the specific nature of its object. W e shall now give more direct support for this hypothesis, the rela- tion of which to clinical categories such as stereotypy, incapacity to have "experience," projectivity, and power fantasies is not far to seek. This sup- port is supplied by statements which are either plainly self-contradictory or incompatible with facts and of a manifestly imaginary character. Since the
? PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MA TERIAL
usual "self-contradictions" of the anti-Semite can, however, frequently be explained on the basis that they involve different layers of reality and different psychological urges which are still reconcilable in the over-all "Weltanschauung" of the anti-Semite, we concern ourselves here mainly with evidence of imaginary constructs. The fantasies with which we shall deal are so well known from everyday life that their significance for the structure of anti-Semitism can be taken for granted. They are merely high- lighted by our research. One might say that these fantasies occur whenever stereotypes "run wild," that is to say, make themselves completely independ- ent from interaction with reality. When these "emancipated" stereotypes are forcibly brought back into relation with reality, blatant distortions appear. The content of the examples of stereotyped fantasy which we col- lected has to do predominantly with ideas of excessive power attributed to the chosen foe. The disproportion between the relative social weakness of the object and its supposed sinister omnipotence is by itself evidence that the projective mechanism is at work.
W e shall first give some examples of omnipotence fantasies projected upon a whole outgroup abstractly, as it were, and then show how the application of such ideas to factual experience comes close to paranoid delusion.
5054, a middle-aged woman with fairly high scores on all the scales, who is greatly concerned with herself and characterized by a "domineering" manner, claims that she has always tried "to see the other side" and even to "fight prejudice on every side. " She derives her feelings of tolerance from the contrast with her husband whom she characterized as extremely anti- Jewish (he hates all Jews and makes no exceptions) whereas she is willing to make exceptions. Her actual attitude is described as follows:
She would not subscribe to a "racist theory," but does not think that the Jews will change much, but rather that they will tend to become "more aggressive. " She also believes that "they will eventually run the country, whether we like it or not. "
The usual stereotype of undue Jewish influence in politics and economy is inflated to the assertion of threatening over-all domination. It is easy to guess that the countermeasures which such subjects have in mind are no less totali- tarian than their persecution ideas, even if they do not dare to say so in so many words.
Similar is case 506za, chosen as a mixed case (she is high-middle onE, but low on F and PEC), but actually, as proved by the interview, markedly ethno- centric. In her statement, the vividness of the fantasies about the almighty Jew seems to be equalled by the intensity of her vindictiveness.
"My relations with the Jews have been anything but pleasant. " When asked to be . more specific it was impossible for her to name individual incidents. She de- scnbed them, however, as "pushing everybody about, aggressive, clannish, money-
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
minded. . . . The Jews are practically taking over the country. They are getting into everything. It is not that they are smarter, but they work so hard to get control. They are all alike. " When asked if she did not feel that there were variations in the Jewish temperament as in any other, she said, "No, I don't think so. I think there is something that makes them all stick together and try to hold on to everything. I have Jewish friends and I have tried not to treat them antagonistically, but sooner or later they have also turned out to be aggressive and obnoxious. . . . I think the percentage of very bad Jews is very much greater than the percentage of bad Gentiles. . . . My husband feels exactly the same way on this whole problem. As a matter of fact, I don't go as far as he does. He didn't like many things about Hitler, but he did feel that Hitler did a good job on the Jews. He feels that we will come in this country to a place where we have to do something about it. "
Sometimes the projective aspect of the fantasies of Jewish domination comes into the open. Those whose half-conscious wishes culminate in the idea of the abolition of democracy and the rule of the strong, call those antidemocratic whose only hope lies in the maintenance of democratic rights. 5018 is a p-year-old ex-marine gunnery sergeant who scores high on all the scales. He is suspected by the interviewer of being "somewhat paranoid.
