On right wing authoritarianism

A comment (#55) from a discussion yesterday at firedoglake about John Dean's book, Conservatives Without Conscience:

Bob Altemeyer says:
September 3rd, 2006 at 2:41 pm *

Following up on Mr. Dean’s suggestion that I pitch my 2 cents into the discussion started by Victoria on No. 4, why do authoritarians need to create/adhere to gross falsehoods?

My research shows how well the question was posed, because there are the people who create the falsehoods and then the people who believe them and cling to them.

Authoritarian leaders will say, when answering a survey anonymously, that they are essentially amoral. They say for example that lying is justified if it gets you what you want, and one of the best skills a person should develop is the ability to look someone straight in the eye and lie convincingly. So I don’t know if the people who perpetrated the falsehoods you mentioned really believed them or not. But I have it from the horse’s mouth that authoritarian leaders will not hesitate to lie if it advances their cause. (We should realize, as Mr. Rosenberg points out, that they are hardly alone in this. But they may still be in first place in the Liar’s League.)

Authoritarian followers are quite a different story. First, they do pretty poorly on various “Can You Think Straight?” tests, compared to most people. They have trouble drawing logical conclusions from premises and from evidence. They are particularly given to wanting simple answers. They are not inclined to critical thinking unless their leaders have told them ahead of time whom to be critical of. And they trust their leaders so much (it comes with the territory when you’re an authoritarian follower) that they will believe the quite unbelievable when one of their authorities says it. They don’t check things that come down from on high, they just believe them. And studies show they are incredibly capable of holding all sorts of conflicting and contradictory ideas and explanations in their heads at the same time. Another thing that helps one understand the followers is that they are more afraid than most people, and disturbing events really disturb them. So they go to their authorities for reassurance, not facts or true explanations. I think this explains something about the current administration, namely how crummy its explanations have become. (”Islamofascism”?) I suspect that the “response teams” in the administration have learned that they don’t have to give sensible explanations of what went wrong, because they know their followers will believe virtually anything. And when people come along and point out the mistakes and misrepresentations and miserable untruths in the latest speech or press release, the last people on this planet who are going to read those criticisms or hear about them on the news they watch will the the high RWAs.

Profs give long answers, don’t they.

By the way, nobody who knows me calls me “Professor Altemeyer.” I’d be glad to be addressed here as “Dr. Bob,” which is my nickname on campus. It makes me feel much younger. I know, that makes me the 137th “Dr. Bob” you know.

Dr. Bob's research was a major component of the book.