Religious training emphasizing rule obedience and fear of God creates authoritarian personalities

Evidence

So authoritarians tend to be religious. Studies also indicate that certain kinds of religious training probably help create authoritarian personalities. As mentioned in Chapter 3, students who reported their religion had stressed obeying heavenly and earthly rules, taught them to fear the wrath of God, tried to influence almost everything they did, and so on, tended to become highly authoritarian (EOF, pp. 203-205). Religion may merely have been one of the ways High RWA parents transferred their authoritarianism to their children. But some religions did these things much more than others, and they tended to have the most authoritarian members. (Partialling out socioeconomic status and education makes little difference.) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 1961

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Milgram’s obedience studies and the general finding that authority-tinged moral frameworks shape personality traits developed under parental transfer.