Robert (Bob) Anthony Altemeyer (1940-2024).

Abstract

Robert (Bob) Anthony Altemeyer (June 6, 1940-February 7, 2024) was an influential social psychologist who also shaped personality and political psychology. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Bob was educated at Yale (undergraduate) and Carnegie-Mellon (graduate). Following a 2-year stint at Doane College in Nebraska, he established his career at the University of Manitoba (Winnipeg, Canada) from 1968 to 2008. In 1986, Bob was awarded the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science Prize for Behavioral Science Research, largely for his development of the right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) construct. Whereas the authoritarian personality construct developed by Adorno and colleagues in the 1950s was rooted in psychodynamics, Bob drew on social learning principles and conceptualized authoritarianism as both an attitudinal orientation and trait. Not all of Bob's ideas held true, such as the social learning underpinnings that he proposed for RWA. But true to his inquisitive nature, he wrote that he would be excited to learn of RWA's strong heritable components if uncovered (as they later were). An anticonformist to the core, Bob published almost exclusively in books despite the field prioritizing journal articles, typically as sole author and working with few collaborators, and writing about complex ideas with rather informal and unconventional language. His legacy is proof that fighting the odds and remaining authentic, rather than chasing conventions and norms, can leave an indelible mark on science. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).