Sep 15, 2021 09:00:00

Research results show that 'authoritarians' are very similar on the far left and the far right

Researchers at Emory University in the United States have announced that authoritarianism, which affirms the state of society in which it submits to authority, has surprisingly similar behavior and psychological characteristics on the far left and the far right. Authoritarianism is a concept that is generally associated with the right, but researchers argue that the understanding of left-wing authoritarians is essential.

Clarifying the structure and nature of left-wing authoritarianism. --PsycNET
https://doi.apa.org/record/2021-74485-001

Left-wing authoritarians share key psychological traits with far right, Emory study finds | Emory University | Atlanta, GA
https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/09/esc_left_wing_authoritarians_psychology/campus.html

Thomas Costello, a psychology researcher at Emory University, conducted a study of authoritarianism in the political left. According to Costello, psychological research on authoritarianism has its roots in 'psychology of those who support fascism' at the time of the rise of fascism in the 1930s, and even in studies that measure the degree of current authoritarianism. It is said that the 'fascism scale' developed at the time of fascism research in the 1930s, which measures the degree of support for fascism, is used as it is.

Although the fascism scale contributed to the development of political psychology, the secondary problem that the current authoritarian studies that inherited the fascism scale are limited to the right wing because fascism is an idealism classified on the far right. I created it. Therefore, Costello once again created a conceptual framework to measure the degree of authoritarianism and applied it to subjects gathered online.

When we surveyed 1,000 subjects who matched demographics such as age, race, and gender in the United States collected by the online survey support tool Prolific, 12 subjects answered that they were involved in political violence. Both turned out to have scored high on the authoritarian scale created by Mr. Costello. The analysis found that subjects who received the highest rating on a 7-point scale were two to three times more likely to say they had been involved in political violence in the last five years.

A notable point about this study is that 'left-wing authoritarians and right-wing authoritarians are surprisingly similar in psychological characteristics and behavior.' Although there is a reverse preference that right-wing authoritarians actively support and left-wing authoritarians positively deny the established hierarchical society that can be said to be a characteristic of authoritarianism, any authoritarian He said that he had the common feature of submitting to those who seemed to be authoritarian, showing a dominant and aggressive attitude toward those who opposed authoritarianism, and carefully following the norms within the group. However, while left authoritarians are more likely to perceive the world as a dangerous place and have intense emotions and uncontrollability towards stress, right authoritarians embrace new experiences. It was different in that there was a strong tendency not to believe in science and a strong tendency to disbelieve in science.

Costello points out that both right-wing authoritarianism and left-wing authoritarianism have a mirror image, arguing that psychologically it is decided whether or not to become authoritarian before the choice of idealism. Regarding current authoritarian research, he commented, 'It is a mistake to think of authoritarianism as a right-wing concept.'