Authoritarianism as a concept has been used to describe forms of the government and the state, social organization or structure of groups or cultures, social ideologies and belief systems, styles of leadership and command, and social attitudes, values, and traits characterizing individuals. In social psychology, it is the latter concept – authoritarianism as an individual difference dimension – that has been most intensively studied. This idea of authoritarianism first emerged among social scientists during the 1930s and 1940s to try and explain the rise of fascism and virulent anti-Semitism in Europe at the time. Early explanations drew on both psychoanalysis and Marxism. Wilhelm Reich (1942) proposed that capitalism and sexual repression produced sadomasochistic personalities blending aggression toward the weak and vulnerable with deferential submission to power and authority. Abraham Maslow (1943) and Erich Fromm (1941) also described broadly similar authoritarian personalities...
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Duckitt, J. (2016). Authoritarianism. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1046-1
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