The Mobilizing Effect of Right‐Wing Ideological Climates: Cross‐Level Interaction Effects on Different Types of Outgroup Attitudes

Abstract

The present research investigated a multilevel person‐context interactionist framework for the relationship between right‐wing ideologies and prejudice across two large, representative samples (Study 1: European Social Survey: N = 56,752; Study 2: World Values Survey: N = 74,042). Across three different operationalizations of right‐wing ideology, two contextual levels (regional and national) of right‐wing climate, and three types of outgroup attitudes (i.e., age‐, ethnicity‐, and gender‐based), the analyses consistently revealed cross‐level interactions, showing a strong association between right‐wing attitudes and negative outgroup attitudes at the individual level in contexts with a low right‐wing climate, whereas this relationship is weaker and often even absent in contexts with a high right‐wing climate. These cross‐level interactions remained significant after controlling for statistical artefacts (i.e., restriction of range and outliers). The authors propose norm setting as the mobilizing mechanism through which a right‐wing climate develops and curbs the influence of individual right‐wing social‐ideological attitudes on outgroup attitudes.