Authoritarian prejudice operates through Freudian projection of repressed sex and aggression onto minorities

Evidence

Let me summarize the case for the prosecution of authoritarians: Certain characteristics that are undesirable are not accepted as characteristic of the subject and his parents. However, there is reason to believe that these characteristics exist in the subject and his parents, leading a kind of covert, submerged life. Finally, these characteristics are confidently attributed to others, in this case to minority groups. This is exactly the pattern of evidence that Freud called projection. Something present in oneself but unwelcome, is projected outward. When we add that the unwelcome “somethings” are chiefly sex and aggression, the important drives in Freudian theory, then projection does indeed seem to be the word for it. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 548

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concise operational definition of projection as evidenced by three diagnostic steps: disavowal, covert existence, external attribution.
• XREF: connects to: Psychology-socialism debates shaped Horkheimer’s turn to Freudian theory — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 317; Freudian analytic neutrality conceals an authoritarian respect for bourgeois taboos — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1102