Personality and emotional correlates of right-wing authoritarianism

Social Behavior and Personality, 2000 by Bulter, J Corey

RESULTS AND DiscussioN

Internal reliability was adequate to good for all measures. Coefficient alpha = .90 for the RWA Scale-77 for PA_80 for NA,36 for SWLS, and.85 for the CESD depression inventory. Furthermore, the emotion measures correlated with each other as would be expected. Positive affect correlated with negative affect at r--.02, ns; with happiness at r--.33, p

Tomkins' (1965) predicted association between right-wing ideology and negative affect was tested in this study by examining the correlation between authoritariamsm and the various emotional measures. RWA correlated with positive affect at r= -.05, ns; with negative affect at r= -.02, ns; with happiness at r= -.07, ns; with life satisfaction at r= -.14, ns; and with depression at r= -.0 1, ns. Life satisfaction was the only measure which even approached a significant relationship with authontananism, and this was in the opposite direction from the hypothesis. Furthermore, the SWLS is primarily a measure of the cognitive component of well-being (Pavot & Diener, 1993), as contrasted to the relatively pure emotional states assessed by most of the other scales. Thus there is no support whatsoever in these data for the hypothesis that ideology is associated with emotion. It is conceivable that authoritarians differ from nonauthoritarian in their unconscious affect which could not have been assessed with self-report measures. This posthoc and probably unfalsifiable suggestion is, however, incongruous with modern conceptions of emotion as a conscious, subjective state (e.g. Clore, LeDoux, Zajonc, Davidson, & Ekman, 1994). We may not always be aware of why we experience a particular emotion, but there is little doubt that we are aware of the experience itself.

Perhaps the relationship between emotion and authoritarianism is more specific than global dimensions of affect would indicate. Altemeyer (1996) has suggested that authoritarians have a low threshold for fear, and that this motive may underlie much of their intolerance and aggression against people deemed as threatening. The PANAS contains three items which are relevant to this emotion: "scared," "nervous," and "afraid. " These individual items correlate with RWA Scale at r--. 11, ns; r= -.08, ns; and r= -.09, ns, respectively, providing little support for this assertion. It is possible that, even though authoritarians are not generally more fearful, certain unusual or stressful situations might arouse greater fear in them. It is also possible that the greater religiosity of authoritarians buffers them from their fears and anxieties (see Gartner, Larson, Allen, & Gartner, 199 1). Unfortunately, neither of these hypotheses can be addressed by this study.

CONCLUSIONS

These three studies examined the possibility that the right-wing authoritarian syndrome is associated with openness to experience, conscientiousness, and negative affect. Consistent with previous research, authoritarian and conservative attitudes were indeed inversely correlated with openness to experience. In both Studies I and 2, this personality dimension was the strongest predictor of RWA scores. Furthermore, authoritarianism correlated well with the various NEO PI-R facets of openness, suggesting that it can be considered the equivalent of a facet within this superordinate trait. Because all of these correlations are moderate in magnitude, however, it would be no more accurate to say that authoritarianism is identical to being closed to experience than it would be to say that any given facet is equivalent to the larger constellation of traits which constitute the 0 factor. To be closed to experience is to be habitually restricted in one's range of acceptable ways of thinking, acting and being. This research indicates that people growing up with a closed disposition may find themselves naturally gravitating toward the traditional values and authoritarian thinking which define right-wing ideology. If an individual can tolerate only one category of experiences, the most likely candidates are the dictates of authority which have been socialized since childhood