MONOCULTURE | A Recent History

Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J.Levinson, The Authoritarian Personality, 1950
Published by Harper & Brothers
First edition
Collection M HKA, Antwerp 

In 1950, a group of scientists from the University of California, Berkeley – a philosopher/sociologist and three psychologists: Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford – published the third part of a five-part series, Studies in Prejudice, compiled by Max Horkheimer and sponsored by the American Jewish Committee. They sought an answer to the question of how the destructive ideologies responsible for the atrocities of the Second World War had managed to attract such a huge mass of followers. The result is a detailed and academic publication of nearly 1000 pages combining text and research results (graphs and tables). The study is based on both quantitative and qualitative studies, with structured questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The study became famous for its F-scale or Fascist Scale, that ranks people according to the intensity of certain characteristics that take root in their childhood experiences. These include conventionalism, authoritarian submission and aggression, superstition, stereotyped thinking, cynicism and sexual frustration. As a first attempt to analyse the authoritarian personality (hitherto mainly approached from a philosophical perspective) in a more scientific way, by collecting material and applying innovative research techniques, the importance of this book can hardly be overstated.

“The idea that groups are homogeneous units which more or less totally determine the nature of their numbers. This places the responsibility for intergroup tensions entirely on outgroups as independent entities. The only question asked is how outgroups can change in order to make themselves acceptable to the ingroup; there is no suggestion that the ingroup might need to modify its behaviour and attitudes.” –R. Nevitt Sanford, ‘The Contrasting Ideologies of Two College Men: A Preliminary View'