Bob Altemeyer

Robert Anthony Altemeyer (1940 to 2024) was a Canadian psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Manitoba. He developed the right-wing authoritarianism scale and the related left-wing authoritarianism scale, refining the authoritarian personality theory of the Berkeley researchers Theodor Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson and Nevitt Sanford. In his definition a right-wing authoritarian is submissive to authorities seen as legitimate, aggressive in their name, and conventional in thought and behavior. His studies looked at who authoritarian followers and leaders are, how they got that way and why they tend to be submissive and aggressive. His books include Right-Wing Authoritarianism (1981), The Authoritarian Specter (1996), the free online The Authoritarians and, with John Dean, Authoritarian Nightmare (2020). He won the AAAS Prize for Behavioral Science Research in 1986.