Understanding Leaders of Repressive Social Movements

Abstract

Researchers studying right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) have discussed the need to distinguish authoritarian followers from leaders. Altemeyer's (2003) studies raise several issues about political leadership in the real world. First, are most leaders of authoritarian social movements high on both RWA and social dominance (SDO)? Second, is it possible to be an authoritarian leader of a repressive social movement without being high on SDO? Third, it would be useful to develop techniques to assess SDO at a distance. Fourth, what roles do the psychological motives of need for power, need for affiliation and intimacy, and need for responsibility play in motivating leadership behavior in high SDO leaders? Finally, does social dominance exist in countries with non–Western value systems? Understanding the psychology of leaders of repressive social movements may help us develop ways to limit access to the power they crave and to mitigate the damage that they do.