Personality and emotional correlates of right-wing authoritarianism

Social Behavior and Personality, 2000 by Bulter, J Corey

Authoritarianism, the tendency to be hierarchicaL conventional, and intolerant, has been implicated by research as an extreme feature of general right-wing ideology. The relationship between this ideological pattern and variables of personality and emotion was investigated in three studies. Studies I and 2 assessed personality traits in terms of the five-factor model, as well as right-wing authoritarianism, conservatism, and a battery of other political attitude measures. Study 3 examined the positive and negative affect of individuals with differing levels of authoritarianism. The results demonstrate that the authoritarian syndrome is primarily characterized by law openness to experience, and that it is unrelated to self-reported measures of emotion.

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Ever since the publication, half a century ago, of The Authoritarian Personality (Adomo, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford, 1950), the idea that social and political beliefs could be understood in terms of basic personality structure has captured the imagination of psychologists. A gripping issue in the era of World War 11, authoritarianism was conceived by these early researchers as the potential for fascism. Then and now, the authoritarian could be characterized as conventional, submissive to authority, and aggressive toward deviants and outsiders (Altemeyer, 1981). Although the original construct has oscillated in popularity, receiving both glowing praise and substantial criticism, the study of authoritarianism seems to have made a comeback in recent years (Peterson, Smirles, & Wentworth, 1997). Particularly noteworthy is Altemeyer's contribution of a psychometrically sound and substantially validated instrument in this arena, the RightWing Authoritarianism Scale (Altemeyer, 1981, 1988, 1996). With this improved methodology, as well as theoretical mechanisms which are no longer tied to psychodynamic models, contemporary researchers stand poised to make great progress in understanding the many right-wing and reactionary political movements which are currently flourishing around the world. In fact, it seems very possible that militant fundamentalists, radical militiamen, neo-Nazi skinheads, and other intolerant extremists have common personality characteristics (George & Wilcox, 1996). Because personality, temperament, and emotion are substantially intermingled, it seems worthwhile to study the role of both the personality and the affective variables associated with right-wing authoritarianism.

In a theoretical paper published several years ago, Stone (1983) drew upon earlier work by Tomkins (1963, 1965) and proposed that there are two dimensions of personality and ideology, left and right. The former is characterized by positive affect, human, liberalism, and egalitarianism, whereas the latter includes negative affect, normativism, conservatism and authoritarianism. In a more recent analysis of the literature, Eckhardt (1991) similarly proposed that because such dimensions as authoritarianism, conservatism, dogmatism, militarism, and religiosity are consistently correlated, they should be considered different aspects of the same multifaceted construct, or "different parts of the same forest" (p. 121). The author noted that the weakest member in this constellation of affect, cognition, and behavior was the connection between personality and ideology. Neuroticism, in particular, does not reliably correlate with the rest of the pattern. This is a peculiar finding if we recall that the authoritarian syndrome was originally described as a disorder of the personality. The problem may be an over reliance on the psychodynamic approach and its concomitant principles of anxiety, denial, repression, and projection. As Altemeyer (1988, 1996) has noted, this model of childhood conflict and inflated superegos is now untenable as an explanatory theory of authoritarianism.

Contemporary research has demonstrated that the origins of authoritarianism are derived from several different sources, including genetics (Scarr, 1981); life experiences, especially those occurring during adolescence (Altemeyer, 1988); and possibly educational experiences (Altemeyer, 1996). But this research has not revealed much about the traits and tendencies associated with the authoritarian personality itself. In fact, Altemeyer's research program adopted an explicitly social learning perspective, defining authoritarianism as an attitudinal cluster (Altemeyer, 1981). Although quite successful, this approach has neglected the larger issue of personality structure and dynamics. We are left with the question, what exactly is the authoritarian personality if not a weak ego which is unable to express libidinal impulses?

The most influential and scientifically verified contemporary personality theory is based on the five-factor model, which has gradually grown out of several decades of trait research by numerous independent investigators (John, 1990; McCrae & John, 1992). According to a strong interpretation of the model, the superordinate traits of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience (sometimes called intellect), agreeableness, and conscientiousness are considered necessary and sufficient to account for the entire personality sphere. Logically, if the authoritarian syndrome is related to personality, it should correlate with one or more of these five domains. Preliminary research has already begun to address this issue. Goldberg and Rosolack (1991) administered Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarian (RWA) Scale and Goldberg's 235-item measure of the Big Five to 503 university students. Authoritarianism correlated significantly with intellect/openness (r= -. 30) and conscientiousness (r--.23), and very modestly with extraversion (r= - .14). In another investigation, Peterson, Smirles, and Wentworth (1997) found that the RWA Scale correlated r= -. 36 with openness to experience, but not significantly with any of the other four major traits. These researchers used the 44 item Big Five Inventory developed by John, Donahue and Kende (1991).

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Personality and emotional correlates of right-wing authoritarianism

Social Behavior and Personality, 2000 by Bulter, J Corey

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