Authoritarians adopt their authorities’ enemies rather than reasoning independently.

Evidence

If American High RWAs had grown up instead to be Russian High RWAs, would they see Communism as a great evil? No. We know in fact that Russian High RWAs tend to see capitalism as a great evil (McFarland, Ageyev, and Abalakina, 1990). To put it simply, authoritarians believe what their authorities tell them. The script of who is good and who is bad starts off with blanks. The proper names are dutifully filled in as socialization proceeds, and not examined much afterward. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 1672

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the authoritarians-are-a-mirror theme of High RWAs in the US vs Russia; connects to intergroup conflict and enemy-construction dynamics. — connects to: Fascist-characters reject even authoritarian leaders they deem insufficiently powerful — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1796; High authoritarians readily support persecution of groups including their own. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 917
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that the ‘script of good and bad starts with blanks’ filled by whichever authorities raise you is a genuinely unsettling, paradigm-shifting observation about how ideology forms.