The Relationship between Sources of Moral Authority, Political Attitude and Authoritarianism

Ali Teymoori,Wan Shahrazad W S,Arash Heydari

doi:10.5539/ass.v8n4p50

Abstract

Individuals with different political attitudes attribute their political tendencies to different sources of moral authority. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between moral authority sources, political attitude and authoritarianism. A total of 128 subjects from two universities participated in this study by completing the Moral Authority Test-Revised (MAS-R) and the Authoritarianism Scale. Respondents were also asked regarding their political tendencies. Findings showed no significant difference of political attitudes in attribution to different sources of moral authority and authoritarianism. There was however a significant relation of authoritarianism with external source of moral authority, but not with principle and self interest sources. This implies that authoritarians relied on external source of authority figures in moral judgment rather than one's own interest or principle issues. The findings were discussed in terms of the characteristics of the sample and sociopolitical sphere of Iran.

Highlights

The political approaches of individuals are varied in a wide range of issues, but usually they are brought to a contradictory continuum which is usually labeled differently across nations
If the sample was taken from bigger universities especially the ones that are really active in political issues and have politically active student communities, the results might differ dramatically since the differences of individuals with different political affiliations are more sound
Based on the socio-political sphere of Iran, it seems that besides asking the explicit question from participants, political attitude would be better captured by implicit way of asking the political tendency like the pessimistic view to authority, economic dimension of political ideology, freedom of expression and so forth

Summary

Introduction

The political approaches of individuals are varied in a wide range of issues, but usually they are brought to a contradictory continuum which is usually labeled differently across nations. The continuum of left and right in some of the western countries or conservative and liberalism in United States is an example of the extreme sides of the continuum The differences of these two extreme political ideologies have always been the focus of psychosocial research from their personality and morality viewpoints. Liberals (left-wing orientation) have shown higher maturity in their morality (Candee and Kohlberg, 1987; Emler et al, 1983; Haan et al, 1968; Kohlberg and Candee, 1984; Raaijmakers and Hoof, 2006) From another point of view, it has been found that conservatives have a wide range of moral spectrum while liberals have a limited number of moral foundations

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