Right Wing Authoritarianism

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Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) is a psychological personality variable or "ideological attitude".

It is defined as the convergence of three attitudinal clusters in an individual:

1. Authoritarian submission — a high degree of submission to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives. "It is good to have a strong authoritarian leader."

2. Authoritarian aggression — a general aggressiveness, directed against various persons, that is perceived to be sanctioned by established authorities. "It is acceptable to be cruel to those who do not follow the rules."

3. Conventionalism — a high degree of adherence to the social conventions that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities. "Traditional ways are best."

High scorers on the RWA scale tend to have a rigid, often fundamentally religious, view of morality tending toward homophobic, racist and patriarchal beliefs. High RWA scorers tend to support authority figures, such as the government, taking action to censor certain social groups — often those they view as physically or morally threatening.

Contents

1 History of the RWA Theory
2 Significant Correlations
3 Early Development of RWA
4 Connection with Social Dominance Orientation
5 Further reading
6 See also

History of the RWA Theory

The RWA construct was developed by Robert Altemeyer, drawing on Adorno's post-WWII research on the concept of an authoritarian personality — based on Freudian theory — which contained conservative, pro-fascist, prejudiced and ethnocentric beliefs. Taking an empirical approach based on statistical analysis and disregarding the theoretical construct, Altemeyer found that just three facets of this authoritarian personality were statistically significant and cross-correlated: conventionalism, authoritarian aggression and authoritarian submission. Conventionalism is the tendency to accept and obey social conventions and the rules of authority figures. Authoritarian aggression is characterised by an aggressive attitude towards individuals or groups disliked by authorities, and authoritarian submission is submission to authorities and authority figures.

Altemeyer developed the RWA scale to measure this cluster of beliefs, asking subjects to rate their agreement (or disagreement) with statements such as "Our country will be great if we honor the ways of our forefathers, do what the authorities tell us to do, and get rid of the ‘rotten apples’ who are ruining everything." This example contains all three facets of RWA:

"honor the ways of our forefathers" — conventionalism/traditional values
"do what the authorities tell us to do" — authoritarian submission
"get rid of the ‘rotten apples’ who are ruining everything" — authoritarian aggression

Significant Correlations

Altemeyer discovered a wide range of correlations over the years, which can be organized into four general categories.

1: Faulty reasoning — RWAs are more likely to:

Make many incorrect inferences from evidence.
Hold contradictory ideas leading them to ‘speak out of both sides of their mouths.’
Uncritically accept that many problems are ‘our most serious problem.’
Uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs.
Uncritically trust people who tell them what they want to hear.
Use many double standards in their thinking and judgements.

2: Hostility Toward Outgroups — RWAs are more likely to:

Weaken constitutional guarantees of liberty such as the Bill of Rights.
Punish severely ‘common’ criminals in a role-playing situation.
Admit they obtain personal pleasure from punishing such people.
Be prejudiced against racial, ethnic, nationalistic, and linguistic minorities.
Be hostile toward homosexuals.
Volunteer to help the government persecute almost anyone.
Be mean-spirited toward those who have made mistakes and suffered.

3: Profound Character Flaws — RWAs are more likely to:

Be dogmatic.
Be zealots.
Be hypocrites.
Be bullies when they have power over others.
Help cause and inflame intergroup conflict.
Seek dominance over others by being competitive and destructive in situations requiring cooperation.

4: Blindness To One’s Own Failings — RWAs are more likely to:

Believe they have no personal failings.
Avoid learning about their personal failings.
Be highly self-righteous.
Use religion to erase guilt over their acts and to maintain their self-righteousness.

RWA is also correlated with political conservatism — not so much at the level of ordinary voters, but with increasing strength as one moves from voters to activists to office holders, and then from lower to higher-level officeholders.

Altemeyer's own statement about this may be worth noting (from p. 239 of "Enemies of Freedom"):

"right-wing authoritarians show little preference in general for any political party".

So the type of conservatism studied by Altemeyer is a rather peculiar subset — one with virtually no everyday political relevance. Like the Adorno F scale which was its ultimate inspiration, the RWA scale would seem to tap a particularly old-fashioned type of conservatism.

Early Development of RWA

Duckitt has suggested a model of attitude development for RWA in which punitive socialisation causes social conformity. This leads to a view of the world as a dangerous, dog-eat-dog place. This fits with RWA beliefs, which influence ingroup and outgroup attitudes.

Connection with Social Dominance Orientation

RWA has been found to correlate moderately with Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). Together they are strong predictors of a variety of prejudiced beliefs such as sexism, racism and anti-homosexual attitudes. The two measures can be thought of as two sides of the same coin: RWA provides submissive followers, and SDO provides power-seeking leaders.

Right Wing Authoritarianism

History of the RWA Theory

Significant Correlations

Early Development of RWA

Connection with Social Dominance Orientation

Further reading

See also