Authoritarianism and Creativity:

Else Frenkel-Brunswik and The Authoritarian Personality

Alfonso Montuori
California Institute of Integral Studies
Montuori, A. (2019). Authoritarianism and creativity: Else Frenkel-Brunswik and The Authoritarian Personality.
In V. Glaveanu (Ed.), The Creativity Reader (pp. 517-530). New York: Oxford University Press.
Abstract

1950 saw the publication of a classic study in social science, The Authoritarian Personality.
The 990 page study by Theodor Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt
Sanford outlined the characteristics of what they called the authoritarian personality in great
detail. The study was conducted at the University of California Berkeley, which also housed
the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research where important research on the
creative person was conducted. In fact, even though there was some overlap between the
researchers of authoritarianism and creativity, the connection between the two was never
made entirely explicit, or studied in-depth even though the psychological profiles that
emerged were mirror images of each other. The study of authoritarianism has taken on new
urgency given the current resurgence of authoritarianism in Western Europe and the United
States, and the connection with creativity research offers intriguing avenues for further
research, and education for creativity as an antidote to authoritarianism.

Keywords: ambiguity, authoritarian, complexity, conformity, creativity.

Introduction
The Authoritarian Personality study is not usually included or addressed in the literature on
creativity. Nevertheless, there are interesting connections between the two that deserve
more attention, and there are potentially important implications in articulating this
relationship. This brief excerpt from one of Else Frenkel-Brunswik’s contributions to the
volume clearly highlights the connection when she compares high scorers with low scorers
on authoritarianism. She points to the

generally more creative and imaginative approach of the low scorer both in the
cognitive and in the emotional sphere, as compared with a more constricted,
conventional, and stereotypical approach in the high scorer (p.475)

Given this information, and other connections I will point to in this commentary, it is rather
surprising that little research has been done to follow up on the relationship between
creativity and authoritarianism and explore the implications (Montuori, 2005; Rubinstein,
2003).

Starting in the 1940s, social scientists, and psychologists in particular, wanted to understand,
and contribute to preventing, a recurrence of the horrors of fascism and the second World
War. Much important research emerged in the two decades following the war. Researchers
wanted to understand how a country like Germany, often considered to be the pinnacle of
European culture, could fall into the abyss of fascism and the Holocaust. Much of the research
focused on conformity and obedience. It attempted to explain how people could have rallied
behind Hitler and followed orders that included committing the most horrendous atrocities.

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The research was often theoretically and methodologically daring. It included among others
studies such as Asch’s and Crutchfield’s work on conformity (Asch, 1956; Crutchfield, 1955),
Milgram’s dramatic research on obedience (Milgram, 1963), Sherif’s work on in-groups and
out-groups (Sherif, 1958; Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, & Sherif, 1961), and later Zimbardo’s
notorious Stanford Prison experiment (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973; Zimbardo, 2007).
These studies are still found in almost every introductory work on social psychology.

Erich Fromm’s classic 1941 Escape from Freedom (Fromm, 1994) had already outlined the
authoritarian character, and The Authoritarian Personality kicked off the empirical study of
authoritarianism. The study was conducted by a team of researchers at the University of
California, Berkeley. They were Theodor Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and
Nevitt Sanford. Frenkel-Brunswik, Sanford and Levinson brought their background in
psychology and statistical research. Adorno was a wide-ranging philosopher from what later
came to be known as the Frankfurt School. Adorno’s last name made him the first author of
the study and the name most closely associated with the study, although his contribution was
actually the least of the four authors.

One clear connection between research on authoritarianism and creativity can be found in
Berkeley, at the Institute for Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR), (now The Institute
for Personality and Social Research, IPSR). IPAR was founded in 1949. The first Director was
Donald MacKinnon who made important contributions to creativity research, notably through
his study of architects (MacKinnon, 1962; Serraino, 2016). Nevitt Sanford, one of the co-
authors of The Authoritarian Personality was IPAR’s first Associate Director. In many ways,
the Berkeley research on authoritarianism was conducted using the same approach as the
Berkeley creativity studies, a combination of assessments and interviews, with the creativity
research adding live-in assessment of eminent creatives. Because of this connection, I will
draw mainly although not exclusively on the research findings on creativity from the IPAR
research, which have been articulated most prominently in IPAR researcher Frank Barron’s
publications, in the hope that revisiting The Authoritarian Personality and its connection with
creativity will also stimulate a revisiting of this important creativity research (Barron, 1968,
1969, 1995).

In this particular text, Else Frenkel-Brunswik discusses the interviews she conducted and
contrasts high and low scorers on prejudice and authoritarianism.

Reading
Else Frenkel Brunswik: Comprehensive scores and summaries of the interview
In: Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The
authoritarian personality. New York: Harper & Bros. pp.474-486
Reprinted by permission of Harper Collins

Among the tendencies which the typical high scorer attempts to keep in a repressed state (…)
are mainly fear, weakness, passivity, sex impulses, and aggressive feeling against
authoritative figures, especially the parents. Among the rigid defenses against these
tendencies there is, above all, the mechanism of projection, by which much of what cannot
be accepted as part of one's own ego is externalized. Thus it is not oneself but others that are
seen as hostile and threatening. Or else one's own weakness leads to an exaggerated

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condemnation of everything that is weak; one's own weakness is thus fought outside instead
of inside. At the same time there is a compensatory—and therefore often compulsive—drive
for power, strength, success, and self-determination. Repression and externalization of the
instinctual tendencies mentioned reduces their manageability and the possibility of their
control by the individual, since it is now the external world to which the feared qualities of
the unconscious are ascribed.

(…)

The composite picture of the low scorer (…) not only reveals greater readiness to accept and
to face one's impulses and weaknesses, but also to ruminate about them. While for the high
scorer possible loss of energy is connected with his tendency toward rigid repressions, the
low scorer is apt to waste energies by indulging in often unfruitful introspection and by placing
the blame for mishaps too much upon himself. In contrast to the high scorer's tendency
toward externalization, the typical low scorer is prone to internalize in an excessive manner,
and this in turn may lead to open anxiety, feelings of guilt, and other neurotic features.

The low scorer also tends to be oriented, more than is the high scorer, toward real
achievement, toward intellectual or aesthetic goals, and toward the realization of socially
productive values. His greater capacity for intensive interpersonal relationships goes hand in
hand with greater self-sufficiency. He struggles for the establishment of inner harmony and
self-actualization, whereas the high scorer is concentrated on an effort to adjust to the
outside world and to gain power and success within it.

One of the results of greater internalization is the generally more creative and imaginative
approach of the low scorer both in the cognitive and in the emotional sphere, as compared
with a more constricted, conventional, and stereotypical approach in the high scorer.

(…)

External criteria, especially social status, are the yardsticks by which the high scorer tends to
appraise people in general and the ground on which he either admires and accepts, or rejects
them. Such values form the basis of a hierarchical order in which the powerful are seen at the
top and the weak at the bottom. (…) The typical low scorer, on the other hand, seems to have
developed for himself an image of other people which includes congeniality even with
outgroups rather than conceiving of them mainly as a threat or danger. Feeling more secure,
he searches in his relations with other people primarily for a realization of positive and
individualized values rather than being oriented primarily toward getting support and help
from the powerful as is the typical high scorer.

(…)
Whereas the striving for status and power, in their purely external aspects, seems to be the
major concern of the extremely prejudiced, the unprejudiced individual—though as a rule by
no means disinterested in status—still has a greater variety of other resources and pleasures
at his disposal.

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Though far from being indifferent to recognition, low scorers place comparatively little
emphasis on their activities as means to an end; rather, these activities tend to become a
source of pleasure and satisfaction in their own right, or else the emphasis lies on their social
implications. Activity contributing to the realization of what may be called liberal values may
also become important to the low scorer. Finally, interest and liking for art, music, literature,
and philosophy are more often found in the low scorer. It may be considered that such
interests contribute substantially to the greater resourcefulness, and to the comparative
diversion from power and status, that is characteristic of the low scorer.

(…)

One of the most pervasive formal aspects of the personality organization of the extremely
prejudiced individual is his rigidity. (…) In order to keep unacceptable tendencies and
impulses out of consciousness, rigid defenses have to be maintained. Any loosening of the
absoluteness of these defenses involves the danger of a breaking through of the repressed
tendencies.

(…)

Fear of one's own immoral tendencies can be alleviated by exaggerating and condemning the
immorality of others, particularly outgroups.

(…)

In order to keep the balance under these conditions, a simple, firm, often stereotypical,
cognitive structure is required. There is no place for ambivalence or ambiguities. Every
attempt is made to eliminate them, but they remain as potentials which might interfere at
any time. In the course of these attempts a subtle but profound distortion of reality has to
take place, precipitated by the fact that stereotypical categorizations can never do justice to
all the aspects of reality.

(…)

It is perhaps mainly the readiness to include, accept, and even love differences and diversities,
as contrasted with the need to set off clear demarcation lines and to ascertain superiorities
and inferiorities, which remains as the most basic distinguishing criterion of the two opposite
patterns. Members of an outgroup representing deviations from the cultural norms of the in-
group are most threatening to one who must conceive of the cultural norms as absolute in
order to be able to feel secure.

Commentary

The Authoritarian Personality is considered a controversial classic of social science. 68 years

after its publication it is still a reference point for political psychology, and more broadly for
closed-mindedness, prejudice, anti-Semitism, and ethnocentrism. Ongoing interest in this
research and its premises, as well as the continuing controversy, led to a series of

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retrospective publications around the 40th and 50 year anniversary of the publication of The
Authoritarian Personality (Martin, 2001; Roiser & Willig, 2002; Smith, 1997; Stone, Lederer,
& Christie, 1993). Of the retrospective articles one asserted that the major substantive
findings held up well. A second argued that many of the original criticisms were misguided
and while appreciating the purpose and diagnosis of the original research, proposed the term
“attitude” would be more appropriate than “personality.” A third study argued there is so
much bias in the work that the author feels it should be considered the most deeply flawed
work in political psychology. Since those publications, interest in The Authoritarian
Personality only seems to have increased. The political climate in the early 21st century has
led to more related research, some of which will be touched upon in these pages.
Nevertheless, despite the controversy, the work has seen a considerable rehabilitation in
recent years. A consensus seems to be emerging that while some aspects of the study were
problematic and indeed flawed, which is perhaps not surprising for a pioneering study, The
Authoritarian Personality continues to exert its influence and perhaps more importantly, it
continues to be generative. In these pages, I will argue that one finding has been left almost
un-researched or certainly vastly under-researched: the relationship between
authoritarianism and creativity.

After initial acclaim and the subsequent critique following its publication in 1950, a number
of factors militated against The Authoritarian Personality, which eventually led to it being
largely dismissed and then ignored for several decades. The Authoritarian Personality is most
often remembered for the F-scale (F for prefascism), which included seven personality
dimensions: Anti-Intraception, Authoritarian Aggression, Authoritarian Submission,
Conventionalism, Power and Toughness, Religion and Ethics, and Superstition. The F scale was
indeed the subject of heated methodological criticism (Stone et al., 1993). It’s worth noting
that in recent years a meta-analysis by Meloen (Meloen, 1993) indicates that while in some
respects quite problematic, “the F scale has greater validity for measuring potential and
actual fascism than is often assumed” (p.68) and “the results of authoritarianism research
have been strongly underestimated” (p.69). While the F scale got most of the attention, the
990 pages of the full study contained much fascinating material. The research involved
extensive interviews—Frenkel-Brunswik summarizes them in the extract we have used
here—as well as use of the Thematic Apperception Test, the Rorschach test, and “projective
questions.” Other scales were created besides the F scale, including scales for Ethnocentrism,
Anti-Semitism, and Political-Economic Conservatism.

A further criticism was that the study did not account for left-wing authoritarianism. This was
a particularly sensitive issue because the work came out in 1950, in the middle of the
McCarthy era. At this point, it was Communism that was considered the real danger to the
United States, not right-wing ideology or fascism. A work that did not address what was
considered to be the real clear and present danger was consequently rather suspect (Jay,
1996; Wiggershaus, 1995). Rokeach’s work on The Open and Closed Mind was one major
attempt to address authoritarianism of the left (Rokeach, 1960). This was followed by
suggestions that authoritarianism was an outdated concept in post-industrial society, a view
which turned out to be sadly mistaken (Roiser & Willig, 2002).

Reading The Authoritarian Personality today one is also struck by the now rather quaint
seeming psychoanalytic language and interpretive framework. This makes the work seem

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particularly dated to readers in the 21st century, perhaps more used to neuroscience as the
dominant psychological language and interpretive framework. Nevertheless, the
psychoanalytic perspective arguably did propose intriguing psychodynamic insights into the
deeper psychological roots of authoritarianism.

A further setback for the study was the publication of Walter Mischel’s Personality and
Assessment (Mischel, 1968), which delivered a powerful critique of personality trait research
and even personality psychology itself. Mischel’s work contributed to trait approaches, and
even personality psychology as a whole, falling out of favor. A similar fate awaited creativity
research that focused on traits, although the research at IPAR was actually an attempt at
“holistic assessment,” with interviews for instance, conducted by, among others, Erik Erikson,
and live-in assessment through observation. It should be noted that the authors of The
Authoritarian Personality did not focus on personality at the exclusion of social factors. In his
reflections on the Authoritarian Personality, Sanford (Sanford, 1973) wrote that

(S)ince we assumed that action always depends upon the situation the person is in as
well as upon personality, we referred to this structure as a potential for fascism, a
susceptibility to anti-Semitic propaganda, a readiness to participate in antidemocratic
social movements (p.142).

This is a much more nuanced view than the authors are often given credit for. Reviewing the
research on authoritarianism and creativity, one may well ask if the quite nuanced
perspectives offered by constellations of traits such as tolerance and intolerance of
ambiguity, conformity and independence of judgment, simplicity and complexity of outlook,
for example, do not deserve to be revisited in greater depth, as they have been, for example,
in recent studies in Italy (Lauriola, Foschi, & Marchegiani, 2015; Lauriola, Foschi, Mosca, &
Weller, 2016).

Research on authoritarianism had a period of dormancy following the critiques of the original
study of The Authoritarian Personality. What interest there was in the study survived in the
relatively marginalized sub-discipline of political psychology. Renewed interest in
authoritarianism and in the original study emerged in the 80s, a period that saw a resurgence
of ethnocentrism and authoritarianism, particularly in Europe. Since then, authoritarianism
has once again become part of an attempt to understand the psychology of political events,
with works such as Bob Altemeyer’s work on updating the concept of authoritarianism to
Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) (Altemeyer, 1981, 1988), Stone, Leder, and Christie’s
important review of the original research, Strength and Weakness. The Authoritarian
Personality Today (Stone et al., 1993), Stenner’s The Authoritarian Dynamic (Stenner, 2005),
Hetherington and Weller’s Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics
(Hetherington & Weiler, 2009), and a substantial production of articles scattered across any
number of journals, such as Personality and Individual Differences, Assessment,
Abstracts on Criminology and Penology, Journal of Mind and Behavior, and Futures.

The important work of Kruglanski on closed-mindedness (Kruglanski, 2013; Kruglanski &

Boyatzi, 2012) and Jost and colleagues on ideology, conservatism and system justification
(Carney, Jost, Gosling, & Potter, 2008; Jost, Federico, & Napier, 2009; Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski,
& Sulloway, 2003) are just two of the examples of new research that traces its roots back to

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The Authoritarian Personality, even as they articulate differences. Interestingly, a review of
efforts to map political ideology to personality concludes that the “underlying contents
identified by diverse theorists and observers converge to a remarkable degree” (Carney, Jost,
Gosling, & Potter, 2008, p.809).

There continue to be many ongoing discussions about specific aspects of the research on
authoritarianism, ideology, ethno-centrism, and the topics raised by the original work. One of
the most important developments has been a shift towards viewing authoritarianism as a
disposition that manifests itself in situation-specific circumstances, where the situation, and
especially threat (or the perception of threat) plays a key role (Stenner, 2005). Hetherington
and Weiler (Hetherington & Weiler, 2009) write that threat can, furthermore, “actually
reduce the difference in preferences between the more and less authoritarian rather than
increase it”, moving further away from the notion of authoritarianism as “a static personality
characteristic” (p.110), to a disposition that may be present in just about everybody to a
greater or lesser degree, and can be activated by threat.

Creativity

There are still no extensive discussions of creativity in the new works on authoritarianism and
the related works on conservatism, although this summary of the differences between
liberals and conservatives once again refers to creativity:

In general, liberals are more open-minded, creative, curious, and novelty seeking,
whereas conservatives are more orderly, conventional, and better organized (Carney,
Jost, Gosling, & Potter, 2008, pp. 807-808).

Surveying the literature on authoritarianism, creativity researchers will also note the
conventionalism, rigidity, and intolerance of ambiguity of authoritarians, the focus on order,
the rejection of the inner life and imagination as key characteristics that seem the very
opposite of those of found in creative individuals (Runco, 2007).

Conventionalism, conformity, and a focus on order are key dimensions of authoritarianism.

The connection between Conformity, as found in the Asch studies, and Independence of
Judgment is clear. Barron’s research on Independence of Judgment drew directly on Asch’s
research on conformity (Barron, 1953). In fact, Barron contacted Asch to gain access to those
very 25% of Asch’s subjects who had resisted the pressure to conform, in order to understand
and articulate their Independence of Judgment. The conventionalism and conformism of
authoritarianism, the hostility and punitiveness towards what is different, unconventional,
and breaking with established social values is contrasted with the drive towards novelty,
complexity, and difference in creative individuals.

Csikszentmihalyi (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) summarized the characteristics of the creative

person with a series of “paradoxical” characteristics, showing that they are both playful and
disciplined, rebellious and conservative, humble and proud, and so on, illustrating what
Barron and Harrington referred to as the integration of opposite or conflicting traits in self-
concept found in creative individuals (Barron & Harrington, 1981). Disjunctive (either/or)
logic, on the other hand, leads to a clear split between such terms, and a less complex

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personality and outlook on the world. Disjunctive logic plays a major role in predicting
behaviors associated with right-wing radicalism (Lauriola et al., 2015). This was also one of
the findings of the original authoritarian personality study which discussed stereotypy, or the
“tendency to think in rigid, oversimplified categories, in unambiguous terms of black and
white, particularly in the realm of psychological or social matters” (Sanford, 1973).
Also worth noting is the disjunctive, indeed oppositional, approach towards gender roles in
the prejudiced, authoritarian personality. In another chapter of The Authoritarian Personality
authored by Else Frenkel-Brunswik, she states that

the conception of the masculine and feminine role, by men and women, the rigidity
versus flexibility of the conception of these roles, and the intolerance versus tolerance
toward tendencies of the opposite sex in oneself are of crucial importance for our
problem since these attitudes tend to become generalized and projected into the
social sphere (p.318)

Here we see two important points. One is the polarization of gender into fixed roles in
authoritarians, and “the intolerance versus tolerance toward tendencies of the opposite sex
in oneself,” which lead to caricatured images of hyper-masculine men and hyper-feminine
women. We contrast this with the creative person, where Barron (Barron, 1972) writes that:

Those personality correlates generally ascribed to one sex or the other are much less
pronounced in creative people. Creative women have fewer "feminine" traits and
more "masculine" interests than noncreative control groups. Sex-specific interests
and traits that are descriptive of men and women in general seem to break down
when we examine creative people (p. 33).

The relationship between psychological androgyny and creativity has found further support
in more recent research (Hittner & Daniels, 2002; Norlander, Erixon, & Archer, 2000).

The second point is Frenkel-Brunswik statement that “these attitudes tend to become
generalized and projected into the social sphere,” which specifically reflects the fact that a
clear characteristic of authoritarian social systems is the polarization and hierarchization of
gender roles, with women inevitably having subservient roles (Eisler, 1987). More broadly it
points to the parallels between personality characteristics and the characteristics of social
systems.

The related concept of ambiguity was introduced by Fromm in his work on the authoritarian
character (Fromm, 1994). In 1949 Frenkel-Brunswik published an article on intolerance of
ambiguity as an emotional and perceptual personality variable, defining intolerance of
ambiguity as a

tendency to resort to black-white solutions, to arrive at premature closure as to

valuative aspects, often at the neglect of reality, and to seek for unqualified and
unambiguous overall acceptance and rejection of other people (p. 115).

Budner (Budner, 1962) usefully differentiates between intolerance of ambiguity and

tolerance of ambiguity:

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 Intolerance of ambiguity may be defined as "the tendency to perceive (i.e., interpret)
ambiguous situations as sources of threat," tolerance of ambiguity as "the tendency
to perceive ambiguous situations as desirable.” An ambiguous situation may be
defined as one which cannot be adequately structured or categorized by the individual
because of the lack of sufficient cues (p.29).

Tolerance of Ambiguity has long been associated with creativity (Runco, 2007; Sternberg &
Lubart, 1991; Zenasni, Besançon, & Lubart, 2008) because creative persons find ambiguity
and disorder desirable as a source of potential novelty and providing them with the
opportunity to create their own interpretations (Barron, 1995). Piirto traces the concept back
to John Keats’s concept of negative capability, and found discussions that seem to describe
tolerance of ambiguity in numerous writings by creative individuals (Piirto, 2011).
Lauriola, Foschi, Mosca and Weller’s research provides a nuanced understanding of what they
refer to as “attitude toward ambiguity.” This is a multidimensional construct involving
affective (Discomfort with Ambiguity), cognitive (Moral Absolutism/Splitting), and epistemic
(Need for Complexity and Novelty) components (Lauriola et al., 2016). The affective
dimension reflects Budner’s differentiation, with authoritarians perceiving ambiguous
situations as a threat, and creatives as desirable. The cognitive dimension shows up in moral
absolutism, and black and white thinking. This dichotomizing is also a simplifying and indicates
a loss of nuance and complexity. One cannot, for example, conceive of a person as being both
“good” and “bad,” hence the frequent use of dramatic language, and the use of terms such
as “evil” (Bernstein, 2005). It reduces human beings to a particular (unfavorable) quality
(which may well be in the eye of the beholder). This disjunctive logic leads to a form of
unquestioning absolutism, a willingness to hold on to a specific and simplistic view of
“rightness” at whatever cost, to the point that it becomes destructive. Sanford (Sanford,
1973) discusses The Authoritarian Personality’s finding of pseudoconservatism,

in which profession of belief in the tenets of traditional conservatism is combined with

a readiness for change of a sort that would destroy the very institutions with which
the subject appears to identify himself (p.142)

The epistemic dimension is also once again the opposite of characteristics found in creative
individuals such a “need for cognition (e.g., engaging in and enjoying complex problems) and
openness to experience (e.g., aesthetic sensitivity, novelty seeking, epistemic curiosity, liberal
values” (Lauriola et al., 2016, p.15).

The need for cognitive closure is a related construct that has been defined as the desire for
“an answer on a given topic, any answer (…) compared to confusion and ambiguity”
(Kruglanski, 1990), where “persons with a high need for closure should desire definite order
and structure in their lives and abhor unconstrained chaos and disorder.” Contrast this with
Barron’s findings that
in the individuals whom in retrospect we identify as the bearers of the creative
impulse in our generation there appears a positive preference for what we are

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 accustomed to call disorder, but which to them is simply the possibility of a future
order whose principle of organization cannot now be told (1995, p.63)

Central to the authoritarian personality dynamic is “anti-introception” which involves a

rejection of subjectivity, imagination, and self-awareness. Sanford writes that for the
authoritarian

Self-awareness might threaten his whole scheme of adjustment. He would be afraid

of genuine feeling because his emotions might get out of control, afraid of thinking
about human phenomena because he might think ‘wrong’ thoughts (p. 144)

Compare this with the description of the creative person who “not only respects the irrational
in himself, but courts it as the most promising source of novelty in his own thought” (Barron,
1995, p.66). One way of describing a key difference is that authoritarians move away from
what is new and different and unknown in the world as well as in themselves, whereas
creative individuals actively seek out the new, the different, the unknown, in themselves and
in the world.

Implications

Comparing and contrasting authoritarian and creative persons we see the emergence of two
different personality dynamics, and more broadly, two worldviews. In the brief selection from
Frenkel-Brunswik we find a portrait of the high-scorer that includes, repression, rigidity, a
focus on strength versus weakness, social hierarchy, and projection. Frenkel-Brunswik’s
significant conclusion echoes research on the positive correlation between Openness to
Experience and creativity (Kaufman, 2013; McCrae, 1987), as well as the inverse relationship
between creativity and ethnocentrism (Barron, 1963). Frenkel-Brunwik (Adornо, Frenkel-
Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950) writes that

It is perhaps mainly the readiness to include, accept, and even love differences and
diversities, as contrasted with the need to set off clear demarcation lines and to
ascertain superiorities and inferiorities, which remains as the most basic distinguishing
criterion of the two opposite patterns (pp.485-486).

In an age of increasing complexity and pluralism, with fears of terrorism, economic anxieties,
nuclear conflicts, and environmental catastrophes, fear can activate the disposition towards
authoritarianism even in those who are low scorers on measure of authoritarianism. The
recently renewed interest authoritarianism comes in an age that has seen a rise in
authoritarian leadership, ethnocentrism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and racism. The role of
propaganda and mass media in fostering fear and anxiety plays a role in activating the
authoritarian disposition. There is a long history of the cultivation of an authoritarian
response by political and economic interests seeking conformity and obedience (Montuori,
2005). Developing a more complex, nuanced understanding of authoritarianism, right-wing
extremism, of certain forms of conservatism, and more generally prejudice and intolerance,
as well as how they can be activated by threat and the use of mass media to create the
impression of a threat, becomes vital task.

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While the focus on authoritarianism and related problems is important, I would argue that it
is not enough. It is also necessary to understand the characteristics of people who are not
authoritarian, who are less likely to be prejudiced and intolerant, those that Frenkel-Brunswik
describes as open to “accept, and even love differences and diversities.” Differences and
diversities are essential for creativity (Glaveanu & Beghetto, 2017).

Understanding authoritarianism is one thing, but finding ways to address it is also essential.
If the personal characteristics of creativity are generally the opposite of those of
authoritarianism, creativity may offer an alternative to authoritarianism at the intra-personal,
inter-personal, and more broadly social and political levels. In his provocatively titled 1968
volume, Creativity and Personal Freedom, Frank Barron clearly took a stand for the
importance of creativity beyond the arts and sciences, without addressing The Authoritarian
Personality study in detail (Barron, 1968). Unfortunately, Barron’s research was mostly read
in a reductive fashion. Attention was paid to specific research findings, not least because his
work was one of the major sources for the IPAR findings. His larger philosophical perspective
was mostly ignored, for a variety of reasons which included the fact that in order to articulate
his larger perspective he stepped beyond the discipline of psychology, drawing on philosophy
and the humanities to an extent that was not entirely appreciated by psychologists (Montuori,
2003).

Research that clearly elucidates the relationship between creativity and authoritarianism, and
the role creativity has to play in counteracting authoritarianism, will need to integrate the
relevant research scattered in a wide number of journals, even within the discipline of
psychology, and also branch out to address research in other disciplines, in order to address
the cultural, economic, and political contexts. It will also have to counteract criticisms that
the existing research, centered as it is in the discipline of psychology, does not address the
reality and specificity of social conflicts (Brown, 2010).

Along with the existing specialized, disciplinary and cross-disciplinary research, a case can be
made for Integrative Transdisciplinarity (Montuori & Donnelly, 2016). Integrative
Transdisciplinarity brings together pertinent research (Morin, 2001) that provides scholars
and practitioners with a global overview, interpretation of trends and developments across
disciplines, and integration with a view to specific applications. For instance, so-called
diversity trainings in the U.S.A. are generally failing because they mostly focus on the
problems of racism and prejudice, but fail to offer effective alternatives (Dobbin & Kalev,
2016; Montuori & Stephenson, 2010). If we have a good sense of the characteristics
associated with authoritarianism and prejudice, would it not make sense to educate for the
characteristics of creativity, for Openness, Tolerance of Ambiguity, Independence of
Judgment, Complexity of Outlook, and so forth? We already know that travel and
multicultural experiences can enhance creativity, for instance (Leung, Chen, & Chiu, 2011;
Leung, Maddux, Galinsky, & Chiu, 2008), and that Openness to Experience and Tolerance of
Ambiguity can be enhanced (Djikic, Oatley, & Moldoveanu, 2013; Leung & Chiu, 2008). If we
can enhance creativity, might we in the process also reduce authoritarianism and prejudice?
In order to do so, it will be necessary to clearly articulate what we mean by creativity, and
challenge some limiting assumptions about creativity (Glăveanu, 2010, 2012; Montuori, 2011,
2017).

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Creativity has in recent years been taken out of the rarefied realm of individual genius in the
arts and the sciences. It is now viewed increasingly as social, relational, and distributed
(Glăveanu, 2010, 2014; Montuori & Purser, 1995). In other words, the new creativity is also
about the way human beings interact, about creative collaboration and social innovation
(Montuori & Donnelly, 2017). Furthermore, creativity in this context would be understood
more as a general attitude towards life, what Maslow called “self-actualizing creativity” rather
than the “special talent” creativity of the scientist and the artist (Maslow, 1959). Creativity in
this sense is more a default way of being, as opposed to an occasional flash of insight
(Montuori, 2017). Glaveanu shows that while creativity has traditionally been opposed to
habit, this is a false dichotomy that obscures the creative nature of the everyday. His research
views habitual behaviors as part of a larger ongoing and ever-changing creative process
(Glăveanu, 2012). This self-actualizing creativity shows up in “everyday creativity,” in the way
we live and act in our lives from moment to moment, in “everyday” activities, rather solely
than in the context of artistic or scientific pursuits (Richards, 2007). Indications are that
current generations already view creativity as a more relational phenomenon, and also see it
as an “everyday, everyone, everywhere” phenomenon (Montuori, 2011). Could education for
relational creativity begin to make different forms of creative contributions, not confined to
creative products in the arts and sciences, or to innovations in technology, but to developing
more generative and less conflictual relationships? Could ways of increasing creativity not
also be used, perhaps indirectly, to contribute to a reduction in authoritarianism, if creativity
is viewed in this broader perspective? Could education in creativity, and creative education,
foster the development and appreciation of multiple perspectives, uncertainty, complexity,
and pluralism, to differences and diversities, all so central to life in the 21st century? My hope
is that this commentary will encourage a deeper exploration of these possibilities.

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