Dangerous and competitive worldviews: A meta-analysis of their associations with Social Dominance Orientation and Right-Wing Authoritarianism

Abstract

A meta-analysis of 46 studies (N=12,939) examined the cross-sectional associations between dangerous worldview and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), and between competitive worldview and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). These dual associations were asymmetric; the dangerous worldview-RWA partial-correlation was moderate (r=.37), whereas the competitive worldview-SDO partial-correlation was stronger in size (r=.53). The results support a dual-process model perspective and indicate that RWA and SDO are consistently linked with distinct social schemas of the social world as dangerous and threatening (versus safe and secure), and competitive and cut-throat (versus co-operative and characterized by mutually beneficial exchange). We present a refined competitive worldview scale that reduces content overlap and provides a more accurate estimate of the worldview-SDO association.