Right-wing authoritarianism


In psychology, right-wing authoritarianism is a set of attitudes describing somebody who is highly submissive to their authority figures, acts aggressively in their name, and is conformist in thought and behavior. The prevalence of this attitude in a population varies from culture to culture, as a person's upbringing and education play a strong role in determining whether somebody develops this sort of worldview.
Right-wing authoritarianism was defined by Bob Altemeyer as a refinement of the research of Theodor Adorno. Adorno was the first to propose the existence of an authoritarian personality as part of an attempt to explain the rise of fascism and the Holocaust, but his theory fell into disfavor because it was associated with Freudian psychoanalysis. Altemeyer felt that Adorno was on to something, and so developed a more scientifically rigorous theory.
The RWA scale was designed to measure authoritarianism in North America. It has proven to be similarly reliable in English-speaking countries such as Australia, but less effective in other countries such as France due to cultural differences and translation issues.

Definition

, the Canadian-American social psychologist who first coined the term and its meaning in 1981, defined right-wing authoritarian as someone who exhibits:
  1. a high degree of submission to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.
  2. a general aggressiveness, directed against various persons, that is perceived to be sanctioned by established authorities.
  3. a high degree of adherence to the social conventions that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities.
In his writings, Altemeyer sometimes refers to right-wing authoritarians as "authoritarian followers". This is to emphasize that he is not speaking of authoritarian leaders, which is the more commonly understood meaning of "authoritarian". Altemeyer refers to authoritarian leaders by the term "social dominator", and he has written extensively on the relationship between authoritarian followers and social dominators.

Submissiveness

Right-wing authoritarians tend to accept what their leaders say is true and readily comply with their commands. They believe that respecting authority is an important moral virtue that everyone in the community must hold. They tend to place strict limits on how far the authorities can be criticized, and believe that the critics are troublemakers who do not know what they are talking about. RWAs are extremely submissive even to authority figures who are dishonest, corrupt, and inept. They will insist that their leaders are honest, caring, and competent, dismissing any evidence to the contrary as either false or inconsequential. They believe that the authorities have the right to make their own decisions, even if that includes breaking the rules that they impose on everyone else.
The "leader" is somebody whom the authoritarian believes has the moral right to rule his society. Right-wing authoritarians are highly submissive to authority figures whom they consider legitimate, and conversely can be very rebellious towards authority figures they consider illegitimate. An example of the latter is American conservatives' attitude towards President Barack Obama. Although Obama was legally their president and had won the election legitimately, many American conservatives felt he had no moral right to be president. An aspect of this attitude was the "birther" movement, espousing the conspiracy theory that Obama was actually born in Kenya and had used a forged birth certificate to qualify himself for office.

Aggression

Authoritarians can behave very aggressively towards people whom their leaders have marked as enemies, or whom the authoritarians perceive to be threats to the proper social order. Anyone can become the target of authoritarian aggression, but it is more frequently outsiders or socially unconventional people who are targeted. Examples include communists and Jews in Nazi Germany, and feminists and homosexuals in the United States. But an authoritarian is more likely than a non-authoritarian to attack even conventional people if his authority figures sanction such an attack. Altemeyer has further observed that authoritarians prefer to attack when the odds are in their favor, going so far as to call authoritarians "cowardly" because they typically attack victims who cannot defend themselves, such as women.
The factor that best instigates authoritarian aggression is fear, particularly fear of people. This can include violent people such as bullies, terrorists, and foreign invaders, but it can also include people they perceive as morally degenerate, such as homosexuals and atheists.
Authoritarians strongly believe in punishment. All things being equal, they tend to recommend harsher punishments than non-authoritarian judges would. They are more in favor of corporal punishment and the death penalty. But they tend to be forgiving or even approving if the crime was committed by a high-status individual against an unconventional or lower-status victim. In this regard, authoritarian aggression is about enforcing social hierarchies and norms. Examples cited by Altemeyer include a policeman beating up an "uppity" protester, an accountant assaulting a beggar, or an anti-gay protester assaulting a gay rights activist.

Conventionalism

Authoritarians have a strong commitment to the traditional norms of society and consider conformity to be a moral imperative for all members of the group. Authoritarians want to be like everyone else and everyone to be like them.

Assessment

Right-wing authoritarianism is measured by the RWA scale, which uses a Likert scale response. Subjects are given a questionnaire with 22 statements, and for each statement on the questionnaire, they must express how far they agree with the statement with one of these ratings: "very strongly disagree", "strongly disagree", "moderately disagree", "slightly disagree", "completely neutral", "slightly agree", "moderately agree", "strongly agree", and "very strongly agree". The examiner will then score each response according to how authoritarian it is, ranging from 1 to 9. Some of these statements are authoritarian in nature while others are liberal, so the examiner scores them differently. If the subject "very strongly agrees" with question #4, the examiner will give him 1 point because it is a liberal statement, and if he "very strongly agrees" with #3, the examiner will give him 9 points because it is an authoritarian statement. This mixture of authoritarian and liberal statements is designed to prevent test subjects from succumbing to acquiescence bias.
  1. The established authorities generally turn out to be right about things, while the radicals and protestors are usually just "loud mouths" showing off their ignorance.
  2. Women should have to promise to obey their husbands when they get married.
  3. Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.
  4. Gays and lesbians are just as healthy and moral as anybody else.
  5. It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people's minds.
  6. Atheists and others who have rebelled against the established religions are no doubt every bit as good and virtuous as those who attend church regularly.
  7. The only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our traditional values, put some tough leaders in power, and silence the troublemakers spreading bad ideas.
  8. There is absolutely nothing wrong with nudist camps.
  9. Our country needs free thinkers who have the courage to defy traditional ways, even if this upsets many people.
  10. Our country will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the perversions eating away at our moral fiber and traditional beliefs.
  11. Everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences, even if it makes them different from everyone else.
  12. The "old-fashioned ways" and the "old-fashioned values" still show the best way to live.
  13. You have to admire those who challenged the law and the majority's view by protesting for women's abortion rights, for animal rights, or to abolish school prayer.
  14. What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path.
  15. Some of the best people in our country are those who are challenging our government, criticizing religion, and ignoring the "normal way things are supposed to be done."
  16. God's laws about abortion, pornography and marriage must be strictly followed before it is too late, and those who break them must be strongly punished.
  17. There are many radical, immoral people in our country today, who are trying to ruin it for their own godless purposes, whom the authorities should put out of action.
  18. A "woman's place" should be wherever she wants to be. The days when women are submissive to their husbands and social conventions belong strictly in the past.
  19. 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.
  20. There is no "one right way" to live life; everybody has to create their own way.
  21. Homosexuals and feminists should be praised for being brave enough to defy "traditional family values."
  22. This country would work a lot better if certain groups of troublemakers would just shut up and accept their group's traditional place in society.
Psychometrically, the RWA scale was a significant improvement over the F-scale which was the original measure of the authoritarian personality. The F-scale was worded so that agreement always indicated an authoritarian response, thus leaving it susceptible to the acquiescence response bias. The RWA scale is balanced to have an equal number of pro and anti authoritarian statements. The RWA scale also has excellent internal consistency, with coefficient alpha typically measuring between 0.85 and 0.94. The RWA scale has been modified over the years as many of the items lost their social significance as society changed. The current version is 22 items long.
Although Altemeyer has continually updated the scale, researchers in different domains have tended to lock-in on particular versions. In the social psychology of religion, the 1992 version of the scale is still commonly used. In addition, the length of the earlier versions led many researchers to develop shorter versions of the scale. Some of those are published, but many researchers simply select a subset of items to use in their research, a practice that Altemeyer strongly criticizes.
The uni-dimensionality of the scale has also been challenged recently. Florian Funke showed that it is possible to extract the three underlying dimensions of RWA if the double- and triple-barreled nature of the items is removed. Given the possibility of underlying dimensions emerging from the scale, it is then the case that the scale is no longer balanced since all the items primarily capturing authoritarian aggression are pro-trait worded and all the items primarily measuring conventionalism are con-trait worded. Work by Winnifred R. Louis, Kenneth I. Mavor and Chris G. Sibley recently demonstrated that the existence of two or three factors in the RWA scale reflects real differences in these dimensions rather than acquiescence response bias.