This article focuses on assignments designed to enhance critical thinking skills for authoritarian
personality types. This paper seeks to add to the literature by exploring instructional methods to
overcome authoritarian traits that could inhibit the development of critical thinking skills. The article
presents a strategy which can be employed to overcome authoritarian obstacles to critical thinking
development through instructional design and the fostering of student engagement. The strategy
elaborated herein resulted in increased application of critical thinking skills among authoritarian
students. The article concludes with a call-to-action for greater exploration of the influence of
nonrandom distribution of authoritarian personality characteristics on critical thinking across specific
classes, disciplines, and institutions