The Berkeley group explained anti-Semitism through personality structure interacting with external factors
Evidence
In the course of its research, the Berkeley group began to call itself the Public Opinion Study Group, and it focused on constructing a scale according to which anti-Semitic opinions and attitudes could be measured, and on exposing the connections between anti-Semitism and personality structure. The group’s starting-point was the view that anti-Semitism could be explained by an interplay between external and internal factors. They decided, purely as a matter of research strategy, to concentrate on the role played by personality structure. This had been less well researched than the external factors involved, and was in their view more difficult to analyse. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1522
Categorization
- XREF: The personality/external-factor interplay foreshadows the Authoritarian Personality study’s method, which connecting to Adorno’s later reputation. — connects to: Rigid conventionalism was theorized as the motivational basis of anti-Semitism — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1773; Anti-Jewish and anti-black bias project different personality traits onto each group — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 710; Early authoritarian personality research hoped to blame anti-Semitism on deviants — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1594 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Early authoritarian personality research hoped to blame anti-Semitism on deviants
#complicates(0.82) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1594 - Anti-Jewish and anti-black bias project different personality traits onto each group
#expands(0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 710 - The Berkeley project aimed to prove experimentally that anti-Semitism threatens democracy
#qualifies(0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1584 - Sartre’s portrait of the anti-Semite independently matched the empirical authoritarian personality findings
#corroborates(0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1787