Berkeley authoritarianism study

The Berkeley authoritarianism study (also known as the Authoritarian Personality project) was a landmark mid-20th century psychological research program conducted by Theodor Adorno and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. It investigated the psychological roots of authoritarianism and anti-Semitism through personality structure, using scaled questionnaires, clinical interviews, and projective tests.

Claims that use this term

• The Berkeley authoritarianism study recruited almost exclusively from formal organizational members
• The Berkeley authoritarianism study’s success came from ignoring the objective dimension of anti-Semitism.
• The Berkeley group explained anti-Semitism through personality structure interacting with external factors
• The Berkeley anti-Semitism survey paired scaled questionnaires with clinical interviews and picture-based projective tests.
• The Berkeley project aimed to prove experimentally that anti-Semitism threatens democracy
• The Berkeley authoritarianism study repeated the Weimar worker study’s instinctual-structure question for American democrats