Postwar researchers studied American veterans as a test for fascism susceptibility

Evidence

The conclusions of Dynamics in Prejudice were based on interviews that lasted four to seven hours administered to one hundred fifty male veterans in Chicago. Veterans were chosen because their counterparts in Europe after the First World War had shown themselves to be highly susceptible to the attractions of fascism. Bettelheim and Janowitz hoped to see whether or not similar conditions of faulty reintegration into society prevailed in America after World War Two. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 709

Categorization

• XREF: Direct parallel to the Weimar-era veterans who became fascist recruits; this is the Institute’s comparative method applied to the American case. — connects to: Postwar authoritarianism research studied followers rather than would-be tyrants — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 894; Authoritarian personality research worried US society harbored willing Gestapo recruits; Post-war research framed authoritarianism as a threat to democratic civilization — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice: Society,…, 276 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: Was the veterans-vs-fascism analogy a sound methodological assumption, and did the findings bear it out?

Broader Connections

• Authoritarian personality research worried US society harbored willing Gestapo recruits #expands (0.88)
• Postwar authoritarianism research studied followers rather than would-be tyrants #expands (0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 894
• Post-war research framed authoritarianism as a threat to democratic civilization #expands (0.82) — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 276