• A strictly hierarchical and authoritarian worldview. Everything has to have a First, a Somebody in Charge. In any partnership, one partner has to have the deciding vote. Groups and societies work best with rigidly defined roles and stratifications. (There are people who believe this way who are not fundamentalists: at least, not religious fundamentalists.)
• Ethical development at the "reward and punishment" stage: morality must be defined and enforced by an external authority.
• A lot of guilt and fear about sex.
• Basic distrust of human beings; certainty that "uncontrolled," human beings will be bad and vicious, particularly in sexual ways.
• Low tolerance for ambiguity. Everything must be clear cut, black and white. Nothing can be "possibly true but unproven at this time, we're still studying it." Fundamentalists regard science as flawed precisely because science changes. (A striking characteristic of fundamentalists is that their response to any setback which may instill doubt is to step up evangelizing for converts.)
• Literalism, usually including a limited sense of humor.
• Distrust of their own judgment, or any other human being's judgment.
• Fear of the future. The driving motivation of fundamentalism appears to outsiders to be fear that oneself or the group one identifies with is losing power and prerequisites and is in danger from others who are gaining power. This is not how fundamentalists put it.
• A low self-esteem that finds satisfaction in being one of the Elect, superior to all others. It seems to be particularly rewarding to know that rich people have a real hard time getting into Heaven.

The life experience of fundamentalist that seems to encourage these traits include:

• Conditional love: parents, or other authority figures, withheld love to control behavior.
• Other factors -- sometimes mental, emotional, or even physical abuse -- that minimized self-esteem.
• For those who grew up fundamentalist, the church was the central activity of family life, all else was subsidiary to the church, and social interaction with "non-believers" was discouraged, except when evangelizing.
• Those who have converted to fundamentalism often grew up without any firm philosophical framework, or experienced some trauma that destroyed their former framework. They were at a time in their lives when they needed absolute Answers.

Fundamentalist groups reinforce these traits:

• They insist on a rigid hierarchy of authority. The more extreme the group, the more authority is concentrated in one central figure.
• The group, and the authority figure(s) within the group, withhold or bestow love to control behavior. Misbehaving members are cut off from communication.
• They magnify current social and individual evils and dwell on the "innate wickedness of man."
• Sexual "immorality" is often their central cause.
• They promote a Truth which is superior to all other truths because it is absolute and unchanging.
• They promote distrust of one's personal judgment, being subject instead to the given truths of the group, the judgment of the church as a body, or the proclamations of a central authority figure.
• They are apocalyptic, foretelling an immanent and horrifying future which only the faithful will survive. Any disaster in the news is magnified as "a sign of the apocalypse.