Page - 8 - in Rebels without a cause? - ‘Criminals’ and fascism in The Authoritarian Personality

8 Journal of Classical Sociology 00(0) by the prison’s psychiatric department was openly addressed as a fundamental problem: the mode of distribution led to increased F scores, they wrote, since the F-scale questions would sound like psychiatric questions (Levinson and Morrow, 1946: 1). Yet as in the final publication, Levinson was cautiously optimistic regarding the minor effect of the way the data was collected, noting: ‘The general results, I believe, are quite valid’ (Levinson and Morrow, 1946: 1). One difficulty was the low level of education among many prisoners, including illiterates. But how could illiterate people have actually filled out what as quite a complicated questionnaire? ‘Some of the subjects had to have another person read the questionnaire for them and record their responses’ (Levinson and Morrow, 1946: 6). The questionnaires were therefore most likely completed in the pres- ence of the supervisory staff. All in all, the authors admitted, discipline among the pris- oners in filling out the forms was, therefore, the lowest for all groups, also due to prisoners’ ‘asocial trends’ (Levinson and Morrow, 1946: 6) and their lack of interest in social research. Potential influences of the interview situation on response behaviour were not limited to the quantitative sample. Social interaction was also interpreted as a one-way street in the 12 in-depth interviews, which is surprising given the study’s strong psychoanalytical focus. The effect of social desirability, that is, the interviewee’s desire to please the inter- viewer (who was believed to be associated with the mighty psychiatric department6), was interpreted solely as ‘authoritarian submission’ to the interviewer. Expressing the desire to conform to conventional opinions, the interviewee would finally also submit to fas- cism, Morrow concluded. He even provoked the ‘right’ answer, as the case of the ‘fascist’ Buck proves: Buck, besides supporting Nazi persecution of Jews, exhibits an interesting mode of ideological opportunism in his behavior toward the interviewer. The first three inquiries about his views on ‘the Jewish problem’ and ‘the most characteristic Jewish traits’ elicited only pseudodemocratic denials of hostility. For example: ‘They got a right to make a living as much as anybody else . . . They got a way to make money is all I know. More power to ‘em is all I can say . . . I don’t know much about ‘em.’ But with the fourth question he apparently sensed that he would not be punished for expressing hostility and might (judging from the interviewer’s noncommittal attitude) even gain approval for having the ‘right’ view of things: (Can you tell a Jew usually?) ‘You’re damn right I can tell ‘em as soon as I talk to ‘em.’ From this point on, Buck drops his façade and exhibits intense aggressiveness toward Jews (Adorno et al., 1950: 834) Mentioned here as an example of the art of interviewing, ‘unmasking’ the real fascist behind his pseudo-democratic façade, in the memorandum Morrow openly speaks of having manipulated this interaction. One particularly deferent high with a very externalized superego at first expressed somewhat friendly attitudes toward Jews: but he was quite easily induced to express rather violent and fascistic attitudes toward them when my permissiveness and only slightly provocative questions led him to feel that he would not be rejected for doing so (Levinson and Morrow, 1946: 7)