Moghaddam, F. M. (2013). Cognition and action supportive of dictatorship. In F. M. Moghaddam, The psychology of dictatorship (pp. 183-195). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/14138-010
I examine styles of cognition and action that serve to support dictatorship. In the account of her life in Stalinist Russia, Leder (2001) described the pervasive value system endorsing the dictatorship under Stalin. There is no doubt that some individuals in Stalinist Russia conformed and obeyed more than did others, that some would score higher on right-wing authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1988), social dominance orientation (Pratto et al., 1994) need for cognitive closure (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994), but such individual differences need to be understood in the larger context of a societal system endorsing dictatorship. In a North Korean context in which several hundred thousand political prisoners struggle to survive in camps that are as bad as the Gulags in Stalin’s dictatorship (Harden, 2012), and in an Iranian society in which systematic murder, torture, and rape of women and men have been used to subjugate the population, the role of individual differences is less powerful. Even individuals low on authoritarianism, social dominance, and need for cognitive closure in other contexts find themselves reshaped by the power of the larger context in which security, conformity, and obedience is given highest priority. Individuals low on authoritarianism in a democracy would probably be higher on authoritarianism in a dictatorship, where the collective culture is and strongly supports authoritarianism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)