ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the concept of the authoritarian personality based on the experiences of victims of authoritarian contact and describes what victims of authoritarian wounding endure. Research on the authoritarian personality has typically focused on the authoritarian follower, that is, on the person who willingly embraces fascism when fascism appears. Linked to the concept of the authoritarian personality is what psychologists have described as the "dark triad" of personality traits – narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy – a triad meant to capture the essence of a person who is callous, manipulative, cynical, deceptive, and remorseless. The seminal research on and thinking about the authoritarian personality was conducted primarily by psychoanalytically inclined sociologists at UC Berkeley. The name most associated with that research is Theodor Adorno. These thinkers believed that they had identified nine characteristics of the authoritarian personality. They are: conventionalism; authoritarian submission; authoritarian aggression; anti-intraception; superstition and stereotypy; power and toughness; destructiveness and cynicism; projectivity; and sex.
