Authoritarian cognitive style is content-free, so situations alone steer it toward collaboration or resistance.

Evidence

The argument is, of course, not that perpetrators and resisters are morally equivalent, nor even that they are the same kinds of people. But many of them may have been influenced by shared intellectual predispositions. We propose that the much-denigrated and stereotypically authoritarian characteristics of simple cognitive style and a tendency to conformity and obedience are largely process-based and content-free. In relation to the Holocaust, as in other con­ texts, whether these characteristics led to collaboration or resistance was steered by situational factors that led to widely different intellectual and emotional content—values, attitudes, loyalties—even when the cognitive struc­ tures (i.e., cognitive styles) were similar. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 482

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the key theoretical move: obedience/conformity/rigid style are ‘process-based and content-free,’ with values and loyalties supplied situationally.
• DEEPTHINKING: Reframes authoritarianism as a value-neutral processing architecture rather than a moral disposition, which dissolves the usual perpetrator/rescuer dichotomy.
• XREF: connects to: Authoritarianism can be studied as a content-free property of belief systems — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2534; General authoritarianism is a cognitive style, not a belief set

Broader Connections

• Authoritarianism can be studied as a content-free property of belief systems #corroborates (0.95) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2534
• General authoritarianism is a cognitive style, not a belief set #corroborates (0.95)