Relations between Right-Wing Authoritarianism, Social Dominance Orientation, Individualism-Collectivism and Political Identities

Abstract

This study compares university students who have nationalist, conservative, social democrat and socialist political identities in terms of right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation and individualism-collectivism values. The sample was composed of 125 students with “nationalist” identity, 102 students with “conservative” identity, 144 students with “social democrat” identity and 139 students with “socialist” identity. The right-wing authoritarianism scale (RWA), social dominance orientation scale (SDO) and individualism-collectivism scale (INDCOL) were used in this study. The results showed that the students with conservative political identity received higher scores in right-wing authoritarianism personality traits than students of other political identities. In a similar way, the students with nationalist identity also had higher levels of high RWA than those with social democrat or socialist identity. The low RWA scores received by the socialist identity group were found to be higher on comparing with other identity groups. The vertical individualism and vertical collectivist levels of students with nationalist identity were higher than those of identity groups. And finally, it was also found that the right-wing authoritarianism, vertical individualism and high RWA levels of students who attended numerical or science departments were higher than the levels of students who attended verbal departments. The findings obtained are discussed within the framework of previous studies and theoretical approaches.