A permissive, secure childhood produces tolerant personalities, harsh discipline authoritarian ones
Evidence
While the core of the authoritarian personality was threat, insecurity, and ego weakness, the core of the tolerant personality was the exact opposite: a sense of inner security, freedom from threat, ego maturity, and therefore the inner confidence and strength to cope adequately with threat. In contrast to the typically harsh, punitive early life experience of the authoritarian, the tolerant person was the product of a permissive home characterized by security and unconditional acceptance from parents, leading to an empathic and accepting orientation toward others, a liberal ideological outlook, tolerance of ambiguity, psychological sophistication, and the capacity to think in shades of gray rather than simplistic, rigid categories. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2431
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Parallels attachment theory and the 1947 Berkeley authoritarian personality studies, and echoes the learned moral-panic framing in ‘Grafting & Growth.‘
Related
- Early parenting style shapes lifelong tolerance versus authoritarianism (similarity 0.89)
- Allport paired tolerant personality origins with secure permissive parenting (similarity 0.88)
- Rigid distant fathers and self-sacrificing mothers raise children prone to authoritarian personality (similarity 0.82)
- Authoritarian parenting produces children unable to manage aggression or form intimate bonds (similarity 0.81)
- Harsh child-rearing produces an authoritarian personality supporting discriminatory politics. (similarity 0.80)
- Religious training emphasizing rule obedience and fear of God creates authoritarian personalities (similarity 0.79)
- Authoritarianism arises from social learning about threat, not harsh parenting (similarity 0.78)