Insecurity and ego weakness generate seven surface traits of authoritarianism.

Evidence

Allport suggested that these intrapersonal dynamics of insecurity, anxiety, and threat would produce seven surface traits characteristic of the authoritarian personality: (1) Emotional ambivalence, particularly toward one’s parents, with uncritical positivity on the surface contrasting with repressed underlying resentment; (2) Moralism and rigid conventionality, with punitiveness toward anything deviant or unconventional; (3) Dichotomization, a tendency to categorize the world into rigid, simplistic dichotomies of good–bad, right–wrong, us–them; (4) Needs for definiteness, structure, order, and an intolerance of ambiguity; (5) Externalization, a preference to explain behavior in terms of concrete external forces rather than subjective, inner, psychological processes; (6) Institutionalization, a tendency to seek order and security in organized and institutionalized groups with clear roles, norms, and rules, such as the “nation”; (7) Authoritarianism, a need for strong authority and leaders that would impose order, discipline, and cohesion in society and the nation. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2430 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The prejudiced personality, which like Adorno et al. (1950) he also referred to as the “authoritarian personality,” was someone for whom prejudice was psychologically functional and a direct response to deep-rooted underlying needs in the personality. At the core of this prejudiced personality were a set of traits Allport summed up as “ego weakness” – insecurity, fearfulness, anxiety and an inability to cope effectively with one’s own inner tensions, conflicts, and anxieties, or with uncertainty, threat, change, and ambiguity in the external world. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2429 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Authoritarian personality traits trace to insecurity, anxiety, and threat — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2430; Authoritarianism reflects a personality pattern of dutifulness, order, and low openness; Authoritarian prejudice springs from ego weakness and unresolved inner conflict — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2429 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Authoritarian personality traits trace to insecurity, anxiety, and threat #corroborates (0.93) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2430
• Authoritarian prejudice springs from ego weakness and unresolved inner conflict #expands (0.92) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2429
• Authoritarian traits may cohere as class norms rather than psychic dynamics #complicates (0.85)
• Authoritarian traits may cohere from low education and SES, not psychodynamics #complicates (0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 653
• Authoritarianism shifts with situational threat and status cues #complicates (0.82)
• Authoritarians differ from others only in degree of shared human weaknesses #complicates (0.80)