A relação entre tendências autoritárias, identificação com grupos e irracionalidade em estudantes universitários

Abstract

This study, “The Relationship Between authoritarian Trends, Group Identification, and Irrationality among University Students”, investigates whether there are authoritarian tendencies among university students, if these tendencies are related to group identification, and what their rationality is. The justification lies in the growing contemporary political and social polarization, which makes it relevant to understand the factors that promote identification with authoritarianism. The theoretical framework is based on authors such as Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Sigmund Freud, who discuss the psychic and social foundations of authoritarianism. This is a quantitative-qualitative study, utilizing a questionnaire and the Fscale (Fascism) developed by Adorno, with some modifications, applied to 340 university students from the Pedagogy and Medicine courses at the Federal University of Goiás. The research reveals four types of authoritarian tendencies among university students: High, Medium-High, Medium-Low, and Low. Those with high and medium-high authoritarian tendencies demonstrate a greater predisposition to authoritarianism. In the medium-high and medium-low authoritarian tendencies, a conservative rationality can be identified, which tends to reinforce irrational behaviors. The groups where this identification occurs include “Catholics” and “Evangelicals”, the “Liberal Party”, “the Social Christian Party”, the social network “Brasil Acima de Tudo, Deus Acima de Todos”, and “Brasil Paralelo”. However, when analyzing the majority of students with medium-low and low authoritarian tendencies, a non-conservative rationality is evident, indicating a lower predisposition to authoritarianism and a greater concern for equality and diversity through groups such as the “Workers' “Party, “Feminist”, “Anti-Racist”, and Student movements, and social networks like “Mídia Ninja” and “Rita Von Hunt – Estudos e Debates”. The results highlight the importance of understanding how the dynamics of identification and rationality influence the predisposition to authoritarianism.