Authoritarians project aggression onto whichever target group is available

Evidence

In contrast, for Adorno et al ., people are not ‘potentially and intentionally good people’ but rather potentially and intentionally ‘bad’, corrupted by their inner psychology and impulses, and by strict and conformist rearing practices in highly hierarchized societies. The authoritarian type of person is depicted as the prejudiced, dogmatic person that has to resolve a number of intra-psychic confl icts, and for whom the choice of a particular target group for the projection of aggressive and destructive impulses (tendencies) is secondary. — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 274

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the authoritarian personality type and its key feature: target-group choice is arbitrary, a projection outlet.
• XREF: Target-group-arbitrariness connects to earlier discussion of Roma as a replaceable scapegoat in Chapter 2. — connects to: Propaganda steers latent aggression toward selected social targets. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1812; High authoritarians readily support persecution of groups including their own. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 917

Related

• Authorities can redirect authoritarian aggression toward almost any target (similarity 0.85)
• Propaganda steers latent aggression toward selected social targets. (similarity 0.82)
• High authoritarians readily support persecution of groups including their own. (similarity 0.82)
• Authoritarians show normal self-esteem; their threat orientation is learned, not pathological (similarity 0.82)
• Prejudice provides authoritarians a sanctioned outlet for aggression (similarity 0.81)
• Authoritarian aggression typically targets the helpless and is legitimized by higher authority (similarity 0.81)
• Authoritarian aggression targets anyone threatening authority, not only norm violators (similarity 0.81)
• Authoritarian personality theory reframed stereotypes as pathological individual cognition. (similarity 0.81)
• Authoritarians are selectively not anti-introspective (similarity 0.81)
• Authoritarian prejudice stems from ideology-backed threat vigilance, not psychodynamic displacement. (similarity 0.80)
• Right-wing authoritarianism predicts racial prejudice as a conventional outlet for aggression (similarity 0.80)
• Authoritarian threat perception is socially learned rather than rooted in weak ego (similarity 0.79)
• An underlying authoritarian personality can attach to either political extreme depending on power. (similarity 0.79)
• Authoritarians aggress mainly when authority sanctions their attacks. (similarity 0.79)
• Allport saw anxiety at the core of authoritarianism while Adorno emphasized aggression (similarity 0.79)