Why Some People Follow Authoritarian Leaders--And The Key to Stopping It
Why Some People Follow Authoritarian Leaders—And The Key to Stopping It
To protect democracy and counteract the allure of authoritarianism, reduce people's sense of fear and insecurity, psychology research says
By Danny Osborne
Psychology
Opinion
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-some-people-follow-authoritarian-leaders-and-the-key-to-stopping-it/
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The reelection of Donald Trump, perhaps more than any other event in modern history, has thrust authoritarianism into the spotlight. From media pundits to conversations held in coffee shops, people are talking about authoritarian leaders. And for good reasons. President Trump and his warning of being a dictator “on day one,” coupled with his attempts to consolidate power, eliminate government oversight and silence his opposition, poses a grave threat to our democratic institutions.
Without downplaying the dangers of authoritarian leaders, studies from my research group and other labs from across the globe identify an equally serious threat to democracy: “authoritarian followers” who instinctively comply with a dictator. We need to understand this personality type so that we can find ways to encourage authoritarian followers to support democracy instead.
For over 80 years, political psychologists like me have studied the authoritarian personality—a collection of attitudes and behaviors that increase a person’s susceptibility to authoritarian leaders. We have found that authoritarian followers share three tendencies: they obey authority figures from their in-group (called authoritarian submission); they punish rule breakers (authoritarian aggression); and they rigidly endorse long-held traditions (conventionalism).
Work from my lab and others reveals that authoritarian followers express a range of anti-democratic attitudes including anti-gay prejudice, anti-immigrant attitudes, generalized prejudice, nationalism and even the belief in conspiracies. Although peer-reviewed work on 2024 Trump voters awaits, authoritarian followers were more likely to vote for Trump than for either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden in the previous two elections. Thus authoritarian followers are a powerful force within the MAGA movement.
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