US historical threat spikes raised measurable societal authoritarianism

Evidence

As a follow-up to Sales’s (1973) study relating behavioral indicators of authoritarianism to levels of social threat, the present research analyzed archival data from the United States for high-threat (1978–1982) and low-threat (1983–1987) periods. Societal measures of most attitude and behavioral components of the authoritarian syndrome significantly decreased between the high-threat and the low-threat periods. These results support the threat-authoritarianism relationship but also suggest a more complicated theoretical model that links perceived social conditions, arousal of authoritarian sentiments, dispositional authoritarianism, and the nature of political appeals—particularly those that engage authoritarian aggression. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 732 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In a landmark study using archival data, Sales (1973) investigated the relationship between societal threat and the components of authoritarianism as articulated by Adorno et al. (1950). He compared social indicator measures of these components from two pairs of periods in United States history when there had been shifts from relatively low threat to much greater threat. Comparing the 1920s (a low-threat period) with the 1930s (a highthreat period) and 1959–1964 (low threat) with 1967–1970 (high threat), he found increases in most of the social indicator measures of authoritarianism. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 735 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Behavioral control technology reached civilian society under cover of cold-war and crime panics — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1016; Societal threat causally drives authoritarianism rather than merely co-occurring with it. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 832; Hyping a dangerous world drives populations toward authoritarian leaders (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• Societal-level authoritarianism rises and falls with social threat levels #corroborates (0.95) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 732
• Authoritarianism rises during threatening historical periods and falls in calm ones #corroborates (0.95)
• US authoritarianism indicators rose in the 1930s and late 1960s #exemplifies (0.92) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 735