The theory that variables from the psychology of perception can be used to explain personality originated with the Nazi Jaensch but was propagated by the Adorno group. Research in the 1950s and 1960s failed to show the expected relationship between cognitive complexity and authoritarianism/conservatism. Cognitive complexity/rigidity was found to be highly multidimensional rather than unidimensional. Recent work in the field is reviewed with similar conclusions but two dissenting voices are noted: Rump and Sidanius. Close examination of the work by these authors does, however, show that their data provide poor support for that dissent. It is concluded that intolerance of ambiguity/rigidity is best conceived of as a situational response rather than as a trait and that it does not in any case predict conservatism, authoritarianism or racism.
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John J. Ray (1988) studied this question.