294 Part III: Emigration Years
these findings under his belt about the mechanisms at work in extreme
right-wing propaganda, with its hatred of minorities, he could move
forward, from 1944, to enter into concrete cooperation with the Public
Opinion Study Group. The members of this group were all professional
psychologists who were primarily interested in socio-psychological
explanations of the origins of the structures of prejudice. Nevertheless,
he evidently succeeded in persuading the group that the origins and
dynamics of authoritarian personalities should be sought in objective
social factors. ‘To be sure’, he observed on a conciliatory note, ‘in
contrast to a certain economic orthodoxy, we were not dismissive of
psychology, but acknowledged its proper place in our outline as an
explanatory aspect.... We followed what I believe to be the plausible
idea that in the present society the objective institutions and develop-
mental tendencies have attained such an overwhelming power over
individuals that people... are becoming, and evidently in increasing
measure, functionaries of the predominant tendencies operating over
their heads. Less and less depends on their own particular conscious
and unconscious being, their inner life.’^101
The study he was referring to was the book that appeared in 1950
with the definitive title of The Authoritarian Personality.^102 It was pub-
lished in the framework of the series of Studies in Prejudice, of which
five volumes appeared. Methodologically it was a pioneering work. It
was the first example of the successful integration of quantitative and
qualitative methods of collecting and evaluating data, and of the com-
bination of a representative sample and attention to the individual
case, while at the same time taking elements of sociological and psycho-
analytical theory into account.
Taking their lead from Adorno, the group based their work on an
initial, psychoanalytical hypothesis that operated with a distinction
between latent and manifest dimensions of personality. The threat to
democratic societies arises not just from the attitude and behaviour of
a relatively small minority of declared fascists, but from the syndrome
of an unexpressed, potential fascism that comes from the hidden layer
of the personality. According to a second hypothesis, this potential was
traced back to deeper-seated character-structures that predispose
people towards authoritarianism. ‘We were interested’, Adorno explained
later, ‘in the fascist potential. In order to be able to work against that
potential, we also incorporated into the investigation, as far as was
possible, the genetic dimension, that is, the emerging of the authoritarian
personality.’^103 Particular weight was placed on the education and the
family background of the 2100 subjects of the study in order to discover
the influence of the socialization process and social milieu on the growth
of anti-democratic attitudes. In this context, Adorno explored changes
in religious ideas on tolerance. With the neutralization of the Christian
religions, the religious heritage functioned as a social cement that con-
tributed to the preservation of the status quo and thus ensured social