Chapter One – What is The Authoritarian Playbook?
Quick Summary – This chapter provides the basis for understanding the concepts presented in this book. First, covered will be a history and description of Authoritarian behavior. Next, will be the journey of how we develop the dark triad concepts in psychology. Illustrated examples of these behaviors and how anyone can recognize them in the age of videos and live news. Lastly, will be a list of ploys, gambits and actions authoritarian leaders use to control the population in their country
Definition: of Authoritarian per the the dictionary:
Authoritarian – adjective – demanding that people obey completely and refusing to allow them freedom to act as they wish.
First a bit of History:
The Authoritarian Playbook has many guides for bad up and coming leaders. Some well researched history books hinted at the methods of authoritarian leaders. Each leader has their own style of being a tyrant. Writing history concerns noting observations of those who were there and wrote about the rulers actions. That said history has several books with more being written now. However, there does not exists a book you can say is a definitive guide to do this.
One of the first books to cover the Authoritarian style of leadership of ruling was by Di Nicolo Machiavelli.
In the past, many rulers and tyrants blundered thru their reigns of leadership. Kings and tyrants also age and they loose focus on being able to rule and lead. That is called aging. Furthermore, training leaders to take the reigns of state obviously there are no standard classes on good leadership even now. We don’t have consistent leadership programs in schools nor in businesses. Di Nicolo Machiavelli attempted to list the behaviors leaders needed in his book.
Therefore, we have leaders, rulers and tyrants who are over thrown either by coup, revolution, civil war, poison and by conquest. In business they either retire or the board of directors votes them out.
History is not just events, names and dates
The serious history student studies these events. Most schools only teach dates and names and not events. Teachers, give out cue cards for you to names the ruling kings and queens of England France and other countries. Often, they miss the hidden truth behind their reigns. Students are tested in the big events in the past, like the British civil war, French revolution and big wars. Consequently, the past history gets covered up by present stress and poor history education books. Generally, historians lose the context of these events. Therefore, the general population also forgets these during times of stress.
Concerning the list of tyrants and bad leaders in history. We have a very large list. For our purposes in this book, we will only focus on those in the last 100 years of history. We will also only point out the worst ones who took or stole powers of the state and had repressive reigns of terror.
The development of authoritarian bad behavior
The key to understanding authoritarian bad behavior concerns psychology. It does not concern any other factors. Sadly, in psychology for most of the last century focused on fixing people a la B. F. Skinner type training.
The B. F. Skinner trend continued till psychologist began looking at real behaviors in the 1990’s. This begins the journey to understanding dark triad behavior. While B. F. Skinner maybe the moist cited psychologist, Albert Bandura is the second most cited psychologist. Albert led the way to actually understand human behaviors with his experiments and practical views on learning and human cognition studies.
Then Came the Dark Triad Research 2002
Here is the Journal article – Journal of Research in Personality 36 (2002) 556–563. The authors Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams from the Department of Psychology, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z4, Canada, wrote this journal article. “The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy”.
This was part of how psychologist made the dive into Studies in Machiavellianism from a 1970 article. From 1992 to 1998 research left the B. F. Skinner world and used Albert Bandura’s methods to define the dark triad.
Since then, others have followed up with this research. Here is a quick overview of the traits/behaviors you will see in a dark triad person who becomes a leader. Three personalities are especially
prominent: Machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, and subclinical psychopathy.
Later in this book, we will provide score sheets on how to recognize in modern times via videos these traits.
Observable actions that make up the Authoritarian Playbook
A would be authoritarian leader starts out with these behaviors you can track in their history. You can follow these steps as they grow in power of using dark triad behavior.
Number 1 – Getting others to pay attention to them. This is critical, they enjoy the attention and work to create what we call the “strongman image“. This will be before the get into politics. They use Public Relations with books and news articles to do this ground work to gain fame. Some may have teachers and mentors to show them the ropes to power. They will use pictures and articles in media that show how strong they are and show how smart they are. The key take away is self promotion and diving into narcissistic behaviors.
Number 2 – Uses flattery to get their way. As they work up the power ladder, they will use flattery and shmoozing of those in power. Shmoozing is the art of chatting in a friendly and persuasive manner especially so as to gain favor, business, or connections. They will donate to other politicians or those in power, thus they have a door in to make connections. Key indicator of Machiavellianism is to be able to pull this behavior off.
Number 3 – Exploit others towards their own end. Once they have opened the doors to political power, they will begin to exploit others to make them friends or minion to do their bidding. Key indicator of Machiavellianism behavior.
Number 4 – Continue to Seek prestige or status. They use any kind of media to gain fame and continue self promotion. It will always be about them! Key indicator of Machiavellianism and narcissism.
Number 5 – Venality – not concerned with morality to get money, power or the morality of their actions. This is a key indicator of Machiavellianism, lack of empathy and psychopathy.
Once in power you can observe these actions:
Number 1 – Dislike those more skilled than them. They will attack those above them and also those who see their game and call them out. Key indicator of Machiavellianism. Therefore, they fear those more skilled and talented than themselves.
Number 2 – Use of ritual humiliation. They use this to show power and degrade others as part of their strong man image. They use degrading nick names, public humiliation to the media and private anger at their minions. Also in this tool of sarcasm. Key indicator of Machiavellianism and psychopathy.
Number 3 – Works to get rid of opponents. They will use any method to do this. Starting with humiliation, back stabbing, up to imprisonment and murder. Key indicator of Machiavellianism and psychopathy.
Number 4 – Use deceit, untruths, best at gaslighting and rewriting history. Expect lies misinformation, disinformation, media bubbles to deceive the general population. This is used to maintain their strong man image. Key indicator of Machiavellianism and narcissism.
Actions while in power
Later when they are in power you will see these actions:
Number 1 – Continued attacks on opponents. The use of minions to do the dirty work now. Key indicator of control and Machiavellianism. Control of media by various methods as stated above.
Number 2 – Co-factors of using sex and punishment (S&M, torture and prison) – Note some do this during their rise to power. This shows their lack of empathy, narcissism and venality of their actions.
Number 3 – Special category hates LGBTQ people and minorities. This is a strange behavior. They target groups that don’t have much power. This is part Machiavellianism and psychopathy. It also reinforces their Strong man image and gives power to their minions to hurt, murder and imprison and torture these groups.
Ploys and Gambits while in power
Number 1 – Discredit and control the media. They work to control and mislead the population. They use rallies, shows of force and attacks on all forms of media.
Number 2 – Stunts to show their power. Arrest of minorities, Imprisoning opponents, and taking credit for actions they are not responsible for.
Number 3 – Gambits the Use of clever actions. These actions are used to create situations to achieve an advantages over others, gain money and cause chaos.
Summary
Lastly, Authoritarian rule is marked by chaos and destruction. This is a key you see as they begin to fall!
References:
Journal of Research in Personality 36 (2002) 556–563. The authors Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams from the Department of Psychology, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z4, Canada
Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (2020; paperback with a new epilogue, 2021), Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Christie, R., & Geis, F. L. (1970). Studies in Machiavellianism. New York: Academic Press.
Fehr, B., Samsom, D., & Paulhus, D. L. (1992). The construct of Machiavellianism: Twenty
years later. In C. D. Spielberger & J. N. Butcher (Eds.), Advances in personality assessment
(Vol. 9, pp. 77–116). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Forth, A. E., Brown, S. L., Hart, S. D., & Hare, R. D. (1996). The assessment of psychopathy in
male and female noncriminals: Reliability and validity. Personality and Individual
Differences, 20, 531–543.
Gretton, H. M. (1998). Psychopathy and recidivism in adolescence: A ten-year retrospective
follow-up. Unpublished dissertation, University of British Columbia.
Gustafson, S. B., & Ritzer, D. R. (1995). The dark side of normal: A psychopathy-linked
pattern called aberrant self-promotion. European Journal of Personality, 9, 147–183.
Hare, R. D. (1985). Comparison of procedures for the assessment of psychopathy. Journal of
Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 53, 7–16.
Hare, R. D. (1991). The Hare psychopathy checklist-revised(PCL-R) . Toronto, Ontario: Multi-
Health Systems.
Hart, S., & Hare, R. D. (1998). Association between psychopathy and narcissism: Theoretical
views and empirical evidence. In E. F. Ronningstam (Ed.), Disorders of narcissism:
Diagnostic, clinical, andempiric al implications (pp. 415–436). Washington, DC: American
Psychiatric Press.
Helgeson, V. S., & Fritz, H. L. (1999). Unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion: Distinctions from agency and communion. Journal of Research in Personality, 33, 131–158.
Hogan, R., Raskin, R., & Fazzini, D. (1990). The dark side of charisma. In K. E. Clark et al.
(Eds.), Measures of leadership (pp. 343–354). West Orange, NJ: Leadership Library of
America.
John, O. P., & Robins, R. (1994). Accuracy and bias in self-perception: Individual differences in
self-enhancement and the role of narcissism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
66, 206–219.
John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and
theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality:
Theory andresearch (2nd ed.., pp. 102–138). New York: Guilford.
Kowalski, R. M. (Ed.). (2001). Behaving badly: Aversive behaviors in interpersonal relationships.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Lilienfeld, S. O., & Andrews, B. P. (1996). Development and preliminary validation of a selfreport
measure of psychopathic personality traits in noncriminal populations. Journal of
Personality Assessment, 66, 488–524.
Lynam, D. R., Moffitt, T., & Stouthamer-Loeber, M. (1993). Explaining the relation between
IQ and delinquency: Class, race, test motivation, school-failure, or self-control? Journal of
Abnormal Psychology, 102, 187–196.
McHoskey, J. (1995). Narcissism and Machiavellianism. Psychological Reports, 77, 755–759.
McHoskey, J. W., Worzel, W., & Szyarto, C. (1998). Machiavellianism and psychopathy.
Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology, 74, 192–210.
Morf, C. C., & Rhodewalt, F. (2001). Expanding the dynamic self-regulatory processing model
of narcissism: Research directions for the future. Psychological Inquiry, 12, 243–251.
Paulhus, D. L. (1998). Interpersonal and intrapsychic adaptiveness of trait self-enhancement: A
mixed blessing? Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology, 74, 1197–1208.
Paulhus, D. L., Harms, P. D., Bruce, M. N., & Lysy, D. (in press). The Over-Claiming
Questionnaire: Measuring self-enhancement independent of ability. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology.
Paulhus, D. L., Hemphill, J., & Hare, R. (in press). Manual for the Self-report psychopathy scale
(SRP-III). Toronto: Multi-Health Systems.
Paulhus, D. L., & John, O. P. (1998). Egoistic and moralistic bias in self-perceptions: The
interplay of self-deceptive styles with basic traits and motives. Journal of Personality, 66,
1024–1060.
Paulhus, D. L., Fridhandler, B., & Hayes, S. (1997). Psychological defense: Contemporary
theory and research. In R. Hogan, J. A. Johnson, & S. R. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of
personality psychology (pp. 543–579). San Diego: Academic Press.
Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002). The dark side of normal personality: Self-report and
behavioral correlates. Unpublished manuscript, University of British Columbia.
Raskin, R., & Hall, C. S. (1979). A Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Psychological Reports,
45, 590.
Raskin, R. N., Novacek, J., & Hogan, R. T. (1991). Narcissism, self-esteem, and defensive self enhancement.
Journal of Personality, 59, 19–38. Robins, R. W., & Beer, J. S. (2001). Positive illusions about the self: Short-term benefits and long-term costs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 340–352.
Robins, R. W., & Paulhus, D. L. (2001). The character of self-enhancers: Implications for
organizations. In B. W. Roberts & R. Hogan (Eds.), Personality psychology in the workplace
(pp. 193–222). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Taylor, S. E., & Armor, D. A. (1996). Positive illusions and coping with adversity. Journal of
Personality, 64, 873–898.
Wonderlic, E. F. (1977). Wonderlic Personnel Test manual. Northfield, IL: Personnel Testing.
Williams, K., & Paulhus, D. L. (2002). The hierarchical factor structure of the Self-Report
Psychopathy scale. Presented at the meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association,
Vancouver, Canada. Brief report / Journal of Research in Personality 36 (2002) 556–563 563