Vilfredo Pareto's Sociology : a Framework for Political Psychology

Vilfredo Pareto’s Sociology
92
Finally, therefore, some degree of psychological coherence is becoming apparent 
in Pareto’s insistence that the (conservative) class II residues tend to correlate with 
the class IV residues of sociality. It seems that he anticipated the idea that both 
individuals and whole societies risk succumbing to a kind of ‘crisis orientation’ 
with distinctively conservative-authoritarian characteristics. We might think of this 
crisis orientation as having perhaps evolved by helping our evolutionary ancestors 
adjust psychologically to survive all manner of threatening circumstances through 
a combination of neophobic suspicion of the unfamiliar, strong in-group affiliation, 
and preparedness to share resources and make sacrifices. The point of contrast to this 
crisis orientation would then be times of peace, economic prosperity and material 
abundance when altruistic concerns can be freely and widely distributed without 
compromising genotypical survival, and where neophobic suspicions go unfed and 
reduce because the ‘unfamiliar’ becomes much less threatening. It is worth stressing 
that this concept of a conservative or authoritarian crisis orientation dovetails very 
neatly indeed with Pareto’s repeated insistence that the class II residues come to the 
fore under conditions of material austerity, often in societies geared towards military 
readiness, while the class I residues intensify as societies grow more prosperous and 
interdependent with neighbouring societies.
To return once more to what Pareto said of his class IV residues, it appears that 
the idea of a conservative or authoritarian crisis orientation also provides a plausible 
framework theory for understanding that ‘willingness to conform’, and, and the same 
time, those ‘demands for conformity from others’, which Pareto also lists among 
them (§§ 1117–1129). Clearly, these aspects of our sociality might, just like ‘altruism’ 
and ‘neophobia’ have advantaged group survival during our evolutionary history. 
However, it is interesting to consider that psychoanalytic theory also provides an 
explanatory framework for these conformist sentiments. What’s more, this framework 
seems to lend further weight to Pareto’s belief that these are more pronounced 
within conservative personality. Perhaps most obviously, it is useful to reiterate that 
psychoanalytic theories of compulsive personality explain that the child’s forced 
compliance to parental authority during the anal phase and/or later identification 
with the same sex parent during the phallic phase can provide a template for the 
adult’s willing compliance to other – e.g. political and religious – forms of authority. 
Hence the child’s identification with the aggressor might often reoccur throughout 
adulthood in the form of yearnings for strong leadership. Indeed, this might well 
explain Wolak and Marcus’ (2006) finding that authoritarians in particular are likely 
to display ‘enthusiastic’ emotional responses to favoured political candidates. Or, 
where such individuals find themselves in extremely threatening situations, we might 
speculate that they will be more likely to identify with those who threaten them. We 
see this phenomenon in its most extreme manifestations within the condition which 
Nils Bejerot termed ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, where hostages in kidnap or siege 
situations cope with their trauma by identifying with their potential killers. This is 
often exemplified with reference to the 1974 kidnapping of the heiress Patty Hearst 
by the Symbionese Liberation Army, which was followed just two months later by 
her filmed participation in a bank robbery where she brandished a machine gun 
alongside her former captors.

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Pareto’s Psychology
93
Psychoanalytic theory also explains that compulsives cling to all manner of 
established social regulations, partly due to exaggerated, neurotic fears that if they 
should be freed from the restrictions which authority and regulation impose, then 
they may lose control over or be forced to acknowledge repressed emotions and 
desires. Indeed, this might explain why many individuals who struggle with the 
demands of their superegos seek membership of conservative instutions which 
simultaneously reinforce the superego and provide sanctioned outlets where these 
repressed contents can be discharged without guilt. One further argument from 
psychoanalytic theory becomes important here. Freud argued in his ‘Civilisation 
and its Discontents’ that culture ‘levies energy from sexuality’ in the sense that aim-
inhibited libido is channeled towards strengthening those bonds of friendship which 
ultimately hold together civilised communities. The close relationship suggested 
by Pareto between the conservative, class II residues and the class IV residues of 
sociality might therefore be explained in part by arguing that because compulsives 
repress libidinal energy heavily, they become more likely to create sublimated 
outlets, both through enthusiastic praise directed towards particular politicians, and 
through in-group bonds formed within political institutions.
Having said that, Baumeister and Leary (1995, 497–529) have pulled together 
empirical research which suggests that the desire to form interpersonal attachments, 
or as they term it, the ‘need to belong’, is a ‘powerful, fundamental and extremely 
pervasive motivation’ which has hitherto been underappreciated by psychologists 
and sociologists alike. After setting out detailed evidence to suggest that this need 
to belong governs cognition, emotion and even physical well-being to a surprising 
degree, they conclude that it seems too fundamental to count, as Freud believed, 
as a mere by-product of other psychological processes. Of course, this view does 
not exclude the possibility that differing levels of libidinal sublimation might 
explain some individual variance in the strength of Baumeister and Leary’s ‘need 
to belong’.
Finally, it is worth adding that Pareto also regarded human sociality as manifesting 
itself within ‘sentiments of hierarchy’ which fix one’s sense of place or ‘rank’ within 
the social structure. He seemed to suggest that there are ‘sentiments of superiors’ and 
‘sentiments of inferiors’ which, along with the need for group approval in general, 
spring from the same imperative for us to integrate within social hierarchies. We 
are asked to accept that ‘sentiments of superiors’ vary between ‘protection and 
benevolence’ and ‘dominance and pride’ (Pareto 1935, §1155), whilst ‘sentiments 
of inferiors’ include ‘subordination, affection, respect and fear’ (Pareto 1935, §§ 
1156–1159). This may on the surface seem a rather awkward ordering of a very 
heterogeneous list of other-regarding sentiments. However, we might try to bring 
them together within an explanatory framework by saying that all correspond to a 
heightened consciousness of one’s position within social hierarchies. 
One way to theorise this consciousness is with reference to Alfred Adler’s famous 
belief that inferiority and superiority complexes often combine within individuals 
striving to compensate for childhood feelings of helplessness which have persisted into 
adulthood. Adler believed that the more intensely we have experienced helplessness 
as children, the more likely we are as adults to experience fluctuate between timidity 
and aggression in our relations with others as we try to develop ourselves towards 

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