In Search of the American Personality: Warnings from the Nuremberg Trial Rohrschach Inkblot Tests

By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Last week as I waited for nearly two hours to see the doctor, I picked up a magazine called Monitor on Psychology.  This publication is issued by American Psychological Association and I was intrigued by a the title of one of the stories inside — “In Search of the Nazi Personality.”

I took a lot of notes, figuring that the article wouldn’t be online. But, to my surprise, it was.

It’s a fascinating overview of how psychologists and psychiatrists have attempted to analyze the minds of the Nazis who took inkblot tests while in Nuremberg prison during their trials.

From Monitor on Psychology – Time capsule (the bolding is mine):

In search of the Nazi personality

The Nazi Rorschach responses have captured psychologists’ imaginations for decades.

By Nick Joyce
Print version: page 18

It’s true: Hermann Goering, among others, took inkblot tests in Nuremberg prison. What’s less certain is what the results of these tests mean.

In the aftermath of World War II, Allied forces captured and detained many of the remaining Nazi leaders, including Goering, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess and Albert Speer. The Allied leaders in charge of the Nuremberg trials sought psychological profiles of the Nazis and asked psychologist Gustave Gilbert, PhD, and psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, MD, both Americans, to collect the data using psychological tools such as the Thematic Apperception Test, Rorschach Inkblot Test and the German translation of the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Test. Even though the tests played little role in the trials, the scientists were searching for answers to a question that still lingers today: Were the Nazis evil men or merely ordinary people who did horrific deeds because they were ordered to do so?

Both examiners found all of these men legally sane, but had different views on how to interpret the data.

…Gilbert was attuned to the socio-cultural context of the Nazi leadership. He claimed that the Nazis were raised in a culture that had a primary value of deference to authority to which all other reason and intelligence took a backseat. He concluded that democratic leaders should be trained as critical thinkers to prevent that same kind of blind obedience.

In his 1947 book, “Twenty-two Cells in Nuremberg” (unknown publisher), Kelley wrote that although some of the Nazi prisoners showed some pathology of personality during the examinations, he did not believe they were mentally ill. Kelley cautioned that a Nazi-style government would be possible even in America because it was a “socio-cultural disease” and not a product of insane leaders…

At the time Gilbert and Kelley were publishing their analyses, Molly Harrower, PhD, a Rorschach authority, tried to gather a panel of 10 experts to add their insights, but none agreed to do so because at the time, there was little chance that the world wanted to see these men as anything but pathological.

Thirty years later, Harrower believed the political environment had changed enough to allow for an objective evaluation of the results. She used a double-blind procedure to have 10 Rorschach experts interpret the Nazis’ results and matched control responses from clergy and hospital patients. Harrower arranged four groups of reports, two with all Nazis, one with clergy and the last with patients. The responses of the experts noted no similarities in the Nazi protocols nor signs of mental disturbance, indicating that Nazi leaders were seemingly no different from average Americans.

Harrower’s findings are not definitive and there has been discussion about methodological problems and other factors. But, she published her final work, as part of a book called  “The Quest for the Nazi Personality” in 1995, more than 60 years after VE-Day.

The interest in the personality of Nazi leaders continues unabated.  One has to wonder what psychologists will be saying about the “Obama culture” — followers and leaders — that we’ve seen take over America over the last year…

 

UPDATE,  JULY 2014

How time change!  Compared to the GOP, Obama looks like a saint….

Iowa Gone Wild With Nazi Reference at Public Hearing (Listen to the Audio) as New Yorkers in CD-20 Test Obama’s Popularity

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

It’s not just about “Tea Parties” anymore…

Things are starting to get wild…in IOWA, of all places. But, actually, it’s pretty ironic. After all, this is where Obama began playing games with the Democratic primary system, by delivering people to the caucuses across the Iowa-Illinois state line.

So, here we see some people in Iowa starting to getting unruly at public hearings.  From the DesMoines Register:

BREAKING NEWS: Hundreds of Iowans thrown out of public hearing

By JASON CLAYWORTH • jclayworth@dmreg.com • March 31, 2009

More than 500 people who are upset with a plan to change Iowa’s tax laws were cleared from a hearing tonight at the Iowa House after they interrupted multiple times.

House Speaker Pat Murphy, D-Dubuque, cleared the crowd at about 8:30 p.m. The decision brought about loud protests as the crowd was escorted from the chambers by Iowa State Patrol officers.

“This is the most atrocious thing I’ve seen in the history of the 15 years I’ve been a lobbyist. Pat Murphy has acted like a jack-booted Nazi,” said Ed Failor Jr., president of Iowans for Tax Relief, a conservative taxpayers’ rights group from Muscatine with 50,000 members…

MORE

Note the word “Nazi” in print…with “jack boots,” no less. And here is the short audio clip of Failor’s comment.  And the state troopers…

And, oh dear, Iowa’s governor, Democrat Chet Culver, was simply aghast, too:

Gov. Chet Culver said today that he was disturbed by reports that unruly audience members threw objects from the House gallery during Tuesday night’s public hearing.

“I was very disturbed to hear that some things were thrown from the gallery. That’s completely unacceptable, completely out of bounds. I hope the next time we have a public hearing that people will be respectful and civil. That has to be a part of the process,” Culver said.

Were Murphy and Culver this upset when Obama freaks intimidate voters during the primary caucuses?  When they abused caucus rules?

I don’t condone riots, but if we’re facing chaos according to the Obama plan, it might as well start in Iowa. (And don’t forget, we’ve already seen fisticuffs outside a closing car dealership recently.)

Last night on Lou Dobbs I saw a sign up in Hoboken, New Jersey by a realtor which suggested people could lower their property taxes by LEAVING! Problem is, there’s no where to go in New Jersey that doesn’t have high property taxes.  We left New Jersey ten years ago this coming September to escape what was obvious–in the future, we couldn’t afford to live in Jersey on retirement incomes.  Well, the future is now, and we’re really happy to be out Jersey.

As for New York, Rush Limbaugh, who makes millions, can rant about the taxes in NYC, but what about the “little people” elsewhere in the state?  Apparently, Obama’s “coattails” are beginning to fray there, too.  The election for the seat that Kirsten Gillibrand vacated to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate is now too close to call. (Gillibrand won this district with 61%  of the vote just 5 months ago…and Obama beat McCain here, too.) Sure, it’s a rural, traditionally Republican district, but Pelosi and the  Obama people put a lot of effort into this race–and Obama endorsed candidate Scott Murphy publicly:

That makes the election an intriguing test of Democrats’ claim to hold the middle ground and also of Republicans’ ability to recover from their electoral drubbing in 2008.

Justin Phillips, a professor of political science at Columbia University, said that victory in New York would be a springboard for next year’s nationwide Congressional polls.

“This becomes a tool for fundraising and candidate recruitment. They say, look: ‘You can run in 2010 as a Republican and you can win.'”

Tedisco hopes that the Obama stimulus package — hamstrung by the storm over executive bonuses at the government-rescued AIG insurance company — will tarnish his opponent.

As of this writing, recounts, lawsuits, etc. are probably coming down the pike; the winner probably may not be known for a couple of weeks.

So, while Obama and his lovely wife Michelle (who got touchy-feeling with the Queen, ignoring simple  manners, let alone formal protocol) zip around London, things may be shifting here at home.

You know what’s sad?  The country has been ready for many Democratic ideas for awhile now, but Obama’s reckless spending plans and the slow revelation of what’s in all those bills being passed are beginning to add up.  His 3-Card Monte game may be getting stale. The Republican Party is offering the same old tax cut mantra but the country just may lurch toward this simplistic message again and sooner than we may think.  And decent Democrats could suffer and where would we wind up?  Perhaps, with the Democratic Party destroyed, as many of us warned last year.  Either way, it seems, it’s the little guy that’s going to get screwed.

Or suffering from a severe case of whiplash…