Right wing authoritarianism

Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) is a personality and ideological variable studied in political, social and personality psychology. Right-wing authoritarians are people who have a high degree of willingness to submit to authorities they perceive as established and legitimate, who adhere to societal conventions and norms and who are hostile and punitive in their attitudes towards people who do not adhere to them. They value uniformity and are in favour of using group authority, including coercion, to achieve it.

The concept of right-wing authoritarianism was introduced in 1981 by Canadian-American psychologist Bob Altemeyer as a refinement of the authoritarian personality theory originally pioneered by University of California, Berkeley researchers Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson and Nevitt Sanford. After extensive questionnaire research and statistical analysis, Altemeyer found that only three of the original nine hypothesized components of the model correlated together: authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression and conventionalism. Researchers have traditionally assumed that there was just one kind of authoritarian personality, who could be either a follower or a leader. The discovery that followers and leaders are usually different types of authoritarians is based on research done by Sam McFarland.

Right-wing authoritarianism is measured by the RWA scale, which uses a Likert scale response. The first scored item on the scale states: "Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us". People who strongly agree with this are showing a tendency toward authoritarian submission ("Our country desperately needs a mighty leader"), authoritarian aggression ("who will do what has to be done to destroy") and conventionalism ("the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us").

Psychometrically, the RWA scale was a significant improvement over the F-scale, which was the original measure of the authoritarian personality. The F-scale was worded so that agreement always indicated an authoritarian response, thus leaving it susceptible to the acquiescence response bias. The RWA scale is balanced to have an equal number of pro and anti authoritarian statements. The RWA scale also has excellent internal reliability, with coefficient alpha typically measuring between 0.85 and 0.94.

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