Abstract
Right Wing Authoritarianism (i.e., RWA) is associated with enhanced conservatism and social prejudice. Because research linking RWA to attitudes is largely correlational (i.e., it provides control for neither RWA nor attitude learning), it is not clear how RWA relates to attitude learning dynamics. We addressed this question in 11 evaluative conditioning experiments that ensured rigorous control of the affective learning setting. Results from two integrative data analyses suggest that (i) individuals scoring higher in RWA show a stronger acquisition of positive attitudes, and that (ii) the residuals of this stronger acquisition remain even after exposure to counter-attitudinal information. Implications of these findings for research on RWA and its link to social prejudice are discussed.
Highlights
Several Evaluative conditioning (EC) studies were conducted by our research team between 2015 and 2018 in order to provide information relevant to the question of interest: Is Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) positively related to a resistance toward counter-attitudinal information? In each of the experiments, a set of Greebles were paired with valenced pictures, with half of the Greebles being paired with positive pictures and the other half being paired with negative pictures
We chose to evaluate the attitude after the conditioning phase in integrative data analysis 2 in order to determine whether the link between RWA and the relative resistance to counter-attitudinal information is the reflection of a link between RWA and the acquisition of attitudes
A larger sample size would enhance the precision and sensitivity of the test of the interaction between RWA and valence. These findings suggest that the results obtained in the first Integrative Data Analyses (IDAs) are likely to be driven by a positivity effect in attitude acquisition in higher-RWA individuals
Summary
Research on RWA and attitudes has been largely observational: both RWA and social attitudes are often studied as observed variables (i.e., without consider ing causal determinism). This observational strategy has advanced our understanding of how RWA relates to prejudice and social attitudes. The aim of the present research was to contribute to the latter question by making use of a carefully controlled attitude learning paradigm. It should be noted, that RWA will not be studied as an experimentally manipulated variable here. Beyond the correlation between RWA and negative attitudes towards outgroups, RWA is associated with more stable attitudes over a period of six months (Asbrock et al, 2010) and with a lower likelihood that these attitudes will change
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