Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale Research Articles

The Validity and Reliability of Measures of Right-Wing Authoritarianism in South Africa

In this article we examine the findings of three studies of right-wing authoritarianism conducted in South Africa. The main aim of the article is to report on the validity and reliability of measures of right-wing authoritarianism across three samples, namely a group of police officers, a group of students at a historically English university and a group of students at a historically Afrikaans university. Two measures of authoritarianism were used: the 30-item version of Altemeyer's (1981, 1988) Right-wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale and the 14-item version of Altemeyer's RWA scale developed by Duckitt (1993a) for use in South African samples. Participants were also given measures of conservatism, prejudice and political beliefs. These scales were then subjected to analyses of internal consistency, factor analysis and correlational analysis. The findings depart somewhat from previous studies in this area in that they do not show the levels of validity and reliability reported in other contexts, nor do these measures perform as theoretically indicated by Altemeyer (1981, 1988) and Duckitt (1989, 1991a). Across all three samples, low correlations were found with measures of prejudice, conservatism and political party preferences. In addition, the three-component model (authoritarian aggression, authoritarian submission and conventionalism) proposed by these authors did not emerge in factor analysis. These findings cause the authors to question the use of RWA scales in South Africa, with a number of implications for authoritarian research in this context.

Authoritarianism and Sociopolitical Attitudes in Response to Threats of Terror

The relationship between threat and authoritarianism in relation to support for democratic values and military aggression was examined. Participants completed Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale, read a scenario concerning 9/11/01 that was either threatening or nonthreatening, and completed the Democratic Values Scale and the Militarism Scale. Simple linear regressions indicate RWA scores contributed significant variation to Democratic Value Scale scores (43% of the variance) and Militarism Scale Scores (22% of the variance). There was a significant difference in the contribution of RWA scores between the threatening and nonthreatening conditions on the Democratic Values Scale (34% and 17%, respectively). These results suggest that in the presence of threat, there is increased activation of authoritarian responses.

Self-esteem, authoritarianism, and democratic values in the face of threat.

This study investigated the associations among terrorist threat, right-wing authoritarianism, self-esteem, and their relations in support for democratic values. Students (n = 140) completed Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale, Rosenberg's Self-esteem Scale, and the Democratic Values Scale. The participants also read an editorial regarding the events of 9/11/01 and completed two mortality-salience questions to induce a sense of threat. Results showed that self-esteem was a significant contributor to the prediction of scores on the Democratic Values Scale. Furthermore, the interaction between self-esteem and right-wing authoritarianism explained significant variance in the Democratic Values Scale scores. The results are interpreted in light of theories addressing authoritarianism and self-esteem.

Reactions to an offense in relation to authoritarianism, knowledge about risk, and freedom of action

AbstractThis research investigated a situation where a fictitious company distributed contaminated meat that led to serious food poisoning. Participants (N = 241) responded to scenarios that varied information about knowledge of risk (aware, unaware) and freedom of action (free to act, constrained by higher authority). They provided judgments concerning compliance, foreseeability, negligence, recklessness, seriousness of offense, responsibility, deservingness, anger, sympathy, harshness/leniency of penalty, compensation, jail sentence, and community service. They also completed Altemeyer's Right‐Wing Authoritarianism Scale. Results implied that high authoritarians were less sensitive and less responsive to information about the risk of contamination and more sensitive and more responsive to information about constraints from the higher authority when compared with low authoritarians. These interaction effects involving authoritarianism and the two contextual variables occurred for judgments that related to the organizations and to the executive officers within them. These differences in the reactions of high and low authoritarians to the contextual cues were interpreted as reflecting the effects of value differences and possible differences in the way information was subsequently processed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Intrinsic and extrinsic religiousness: genetic and environmental influences and personality correlates.

This report presents findings for the Intrinsic (IR) and Extrinsic (ER) religiousness scales from the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. The scales were shown to be internally consistent, sufficiently distinct from the scales of the California Psychological Inventory and the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire and unrelated to a number of measures of response style to justify treating them as distinct traits. The I scales also showed considerable evidence of construct validity in its correlations with religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism as assessed by the MMPI and Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale. Data on IR and ER from 35 pairs of monozygotic twins reared apart (MZA) and 37 pairs of dizygotic twins reared apart (DZA) were fitted to a biometric model and demonstrated significant heritability (0.43 and 0.39), with a model containing genetic plus environmental factors fitting significantly better than a model containing only an environmental component. Twin similarity could not be explained by placement on a self-reported measure of family Moral Religious Emphasis as measured by the Family Environment Scale.

Intrinsic and extrinsic religiousness: genetic and environmental influences and personality correlates

AbstractThis report presents findings for the Intrinsic (IR) and Extrinsic (ER) religiousness scales from the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. The scales were shown to be internally consistent, sufficiently distinct from the scales of the California Psychological Inventory and the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire and unrelated to a number of measures of response style to justify treating them as distinct traits. The I scales also showed considerable evidence of construct validity in its correlations with religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism as assessed by the MMPI and Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale. Data on IR and ER from 35 pairs of monozygotic twins reared apart (MZA) and 37 pairs of dizygotic twins reared apart (DZA) were fitted to a biometric model and demonstrated significant heritability (0.43 and 0.39), with a model containing genetic plus environmental factors fitting significantly better than a model containing only an environmental component. Twin similarity could not be explained by placement on a self-reported measure of family Moral Religious Emphasis as measured by the Family Environment Scale.

Authoritarianism and Attitudes toward Contemporary Social Issues

Three studies were conducted to examine the relevance of authoritarianism to contemporary social attitudes, with special emphasis on AIDS, drug use, and the environment. In Studies 1 and 2, students scoring higher on authoritarianism (measured by Byrne's balanced F scale and Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale, respectively) were more likely to endorse harsh, punitive sentiments and solutions to the problems of AIDS and drugs and less likely to endorse more egalitarian ones. These two issues are presumed to represent a threat to the "American way of life" and provide clear out-groups for authoritarian aggression. Regarding the environment, authoritarians express hostility toward the environmental movement, rather than toward polluters. In Study 3, authoritarianism was further related to attitudes on abortion, child abuse, homelessness, the space program, the trade deficit, political changes in the Soviet Union, and the purposes of colleges and universities. These results show that the concept of authoritarianism is applicable to attitudes on many important issues of the 1 990s.