Supporters of fascist principles protest against being labeled fascist.

Evidence

The United States psychologist Allen L. Edwards spoke of unlabelled fascist attitudes' in an article of the same title published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in 1941. The article was one of a growing number of studies dealing with phenomena such as the fact that people who supported fascist principles and stereotypes protested against being described as fascists. Observations, for example, of the way in which students would withdraw their assent to statements as soon as those statements were labelled fascist’ drew the attention of researchers to the problem of the concealed assessment of attitudes. Those affected often did not want to admit to the true nature of their attitudes, and were often genuinely horrified by it, or indeed not even clear about it. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1484

Categorization

• XREF: Direct methodological precursor to the Institute’s later Authoritarian Personality research and its concealed-attitude instruments. — connects to: Attitudes called potentially fascist may actually be democratic resistance.; Extreme authoritarians among prisoners were labeled overt fascists for openly endorsing force — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 516; Establishment critics branded anti-nuclear protesters as proto-Nazi collaborators — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2345

Broader Connections

• Attitudes called potentially fascist may actually be democratic resistance. #corroborates (0.85)
• Extreme authoritarians among prisoners were labeled overt fascists for openly endorsing force #exemplifies (0.82) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 516