Authoritarian Personality

Cards (2)

  • Adorno et al 1950: identifies an ‘authoritarian personality’ that includes a willingness to obey orders with no question. WW2, many Germans had an authoritarian personality due to the punitive, disciplinarian socialisation common at the time. Little psychological differences between torturers and ‘normal’ people. 
  • Ardent 2006: study of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann showed him to be relatively normal and not particularly anti-semitic.