The correlation between right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation: The moderating effects of political and religious identity
Francesca Dallago, Rossana Cima, Michele Roccato, and Luca Ricolfi University of Turin
Alberto Mirisola University of Palermo
Running head: RWA AND SDO
Word count (excluding references, tables, and figures): 3,568
Authors’ Note
Francesca Dallago, Department of Psychology, University of Turin Rossana Cima, Department of Social Sciences, University of Turin Michele Roccato, Department of Psychology, University of Turin Luca Ricolfi, Department of Social Sciences, University of Turin Alberto Mirisola, Department of Psychology, University of Palermo
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michele Roccato, Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Via Verdi 10, 10124 Turin, Italy. Phone: + +390116702015. Fax : ++390116702061. E-mail: roccato@psych.unito.it
Abstract
In a secondary analysis performed on a representative sample of the Italian population (N = 887), we analyzed the correlation between right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), exploring the moderating effect exerted on such correlation by political interest and religion importance. RWA and SDO showed a moderate and significant bivariate correlation (r = .38), moderated by political interest and religion importance. Limits and implications of the research are discussed.
Abstract word count = 71
KEYWORDS: Right-wing authoritarianism; Social dominance orientation; Political interest; Religiosity
The correlation between right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation: The moderating effects of political and religious identity
Since the conceptualization of the social dominance orientation (SDO) construct (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994), the analysis of the relation between right-wing authoritarianism (RWA, Altemeyer, 1981, 1988, 1996) and SDO has represented a very interesting challenge for people studying authoritarianism and related constructs. Such analysis is interesting for two main reasons. On the one hand, because one could state that RWA is an operationalization of the tendency to submit to an anti-democratic authority, and SDO is an operationalization of the tendency to submit other people to one’s own anti-democratic authority, and, on the other hand, because RWA and SDO, although not equivalent, both from the theoretical and the statistical points of view showed to be the main predictors of prejudice (Altemeyer, 1998).
RWA is defined as the covariation of three attitudinal clusters: (a) Authoritarian submission (a strong tendency to submit to authorities which are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives); (b) Authoritarian aggression (a general aggressiveness, directed against various persons, perceived to be sanctioned by established authorities); and (c) Conventionalism (a strong tendency to adhere to the social conventions which are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities) (Altemeyer, 1996). RWA positively correlates with prejudice, support of the death penalty, punitive attitudes toward unconventional persons, religiosity, approval of the injustice perpetrated by governing authorities, and obedience in Milgram-style experiments (Altemeyer, 1981, 1988, 1996, Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992, 1997).
SDO is the psychological side of a broader social dominance theory, developed by Sidanius and Pratto (Pratto et al., 1994; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) to explain the oppression,
discrimination, brutality and tyranny which characterize many human societies. Sidanius, Levin, Federico, and Pratto (2001) defined SDO as the degree to which people support group-based hierarchy and inequality, regardless of the consequences for one’s ingroup. SDO is conceptualized as a general approach to the relationships between social groups (those defined by gender, race, social class, nationality, religion, skin color and the like) on which the various cultures base their social stratification. SDO is the psychosocial basis for the development of hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myths—i.e. attitudes, values, beliefs and ideologies which provide moral and intellectual justification for the practices which result in an unequal allocation of social values among social groups. SDO strongly correlates with a number of social attitudes, ideological beliefs and behavior patterns which promote inequality in the relationships between groups. These include prejudice, racism, sexism, nationalism, just world beliefs, and politico-economic conservatism (Pratto, 1999; Pratto et al., 1994; Pratto, Stallworth, Sidanius, & Siers, 1997; Sidanius, Devereux, & Pratto, 1992; Sidanius, Levin, Liu, & Pratto, 2000; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999; Sidanius, Pratto, & Bobo, 1996).
According to Duckitt’s dual process model (2001; Duckitt, Wagner, du Plessis, & Birum, 2002), SDO and RWA reflect ideological attitudes expressing two motivational goals underlying individual differences in prejudice: group-based dominance and superiority for SDO, and social control and collective security for RWA. These motivational goals are directly made salient by social worldview and indirectly by personality variables--by tough-mindedness and social conformity respectively (Sibley & Duckitt, 2008). RWA is fostered by the perception of living in dangerous contexts, where social order is at stake, while SDO is fostered by the perception of living in competitive contexts, where the status quo is at risk (Dru, 2007; Duckitt, 2001, Duckitt et al 2002, Feldman & Stenner 1997; Sibley, Wilson & Duckitt, 2007). Consistently with that, Duckitt (2006) found that RWA is an effective predictor of prejudice toward groups threatening social order (e.g. drug dealers),
whereas SDO is a strong predictor of prejudice toward groups which are low in status and power (e.g. housewives).
As concerns this paper, the most relevant section of the model explained the variability of the correlation between RWA and SDO as a function of socio-structural and demographics variables. According to Duckitt (2001), two variables moderate the RWA-SDO association. The first one is the degree of the contrast between left and right in the country in which the research is performed. In countries characterized by a strong left-right contrast, or mainly organized along a single left–right dimension (such as Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and Italy), political attitudes are strongly structured. As a consequence, RWA and SDO should show strong correlations, since left-wingers will be characterized by low scores for both RWA and SDO and right-wingers will be characterized by high scores for both RWA and SDO. On the contrary, in countries characterized by a weak left-right contrast (such as the USA, Canada, South Africa, and Poland) political attitudes are weakly structured. As a consequence, RWA and SDO should show weak or null correlations, since the RWA and the SDO scores will often be independent of each other.
The second variable moderating the correlation between RWA and SDO is the age of the sample studied. Since ideology and political attitudes crystallize in adulthood--when, in order to meet a strong need for coherence, RWA and SDO begin to influence each other--the correlation between RWA and SDO should be weaker in student vs. adult samples, since among the former political attitudes are less structured and consistent than among the latter. However, Roccato and Ricolfi’s (2005) meta-analysis showed that country ideologization is a much more effective moderator of the RWA-SDO correlation than age, and that the latter moderates such correlation in much ideologized countries only. Moreover, Mirisola, Sibley, Boca, and Duckitt (2007) suggested that age should be considered just as a proxy variable for
the degree to which people are politically socialized, while political interest, involvement, participation, and identification should assess it more directly.
Consistent with this ideological consistency socialization hypothesis, in Duriez, Van Hiel, and Kossowska’s (2005) research the correlation between RWA and SDO was stronger in Belgium—a politically ideologized country—than in the less ideologized Poland;
moreover, in Belgium it was particularly strong among political activists. More recently, Mirisola and colleagues (2007) confirmed the Duckitt’s hypothesis that political interest and participation moderate the consistency between RWA and SDO in politically ideologized social contexts, showing that the association between RWA and SDO was significantly stronger among people high in political identification compared with that found among people low in political identification. Moreover, such association was stronger when political identity was primed than when personal identity was primed and in a control condition in which identity was not primed. Finally, and particularly important for this study, political orientation on the one hand and both RWA and SDO on the other hand showed a strong correlation in the political identity condition, a moderate correlation in the control condition, and no correlation in the personal identity condition.
Consistent with Reynolds, Turner, Haslam, and Ryan (2001; see also Verkuyten & Hagendoorn, 1998), these findings may be considered as showing that the ideological consistency of RWA and SDO as well as their relations with other variables depend on the level of self-categorization induced by the context. As a matter of fact, methodological research systematically shows that the content and the structure of the questionnaires may exert strong “context” effects on participants’ answers (see for instance Schuman & Presser, 1981). As concerns RWA and SDO, it is likely that answering to the items of the RWA scale will make participants’ political identity particularly salient, as the scale may be considered as tapping “a basic ideological dimension… a more precise, and certainly more operational,
definition of what the basic left/right dimension really is” (Altemeyer, 1988, p. 256). The same holds true for the items of the SDO scale, as they mainly assesses participants’ attitude towards group-based equality, and Bobbio (1996) showed that the distinction between left- and right-wingers is mainly based on their different attitude towards equality (left-wingers are pro-equality, while right-wingers are pro-inequality). Thus, it is likely that salience of the political domain, automatically activated by answering to the RWA and the SDO items, promotes a high ideological consistency between RWA and SDO in highly ideologized societies, while it should not foster such a consistency in countries characterized by a low degree of ideological contrasts.
Similarly, one may hypothesize that religious identity may be considered as another conceptual domain automatically activated when answering the RWA and the SDO scales, and that such domain potentially moderates the association between RWA and SDO. As matter of fact, on the one hand, strong correlations between RWA and religiosity (especially amongst Catholics) are systematically found (see for instance Altemeyer, 1988; Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992), plausibly because religiosity, making values and ingroup norms
particularly salient, fosters RWA via the mediation of perception of strong similarity among the ingroup members, and of the tendency to rigidly distinguishing between one’s self-righteous ingroup and the ougroups, perceived as threatening social order (Dru, 2007). On the other hand, the relation between SDO and religiosity tends to be not significant (Altemeyer, 2004; Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1997; Heaven & Connors, 2001) or even
negative, plausibly because religion may be considered as a hierarchy-attenuating legitimizing myth (Dru, 2007; Roccato, 2008). As a consequence, at least in politically ideologized
countries, very religious people should show low ideological consistency between RWA and SDO. This was empirically confirmed by Cima and Dallago (2007), in an exploratory
particularly weak, and it may even become negative. Nevertheless, at present the moderating role of both political identity and religious identity have never been empirically tested.
Goals and hypotheses
Our research aimed at further analyzing the association between RWA and SDO. We had two main goals. First, consistent with Duckitt et al. (2002) and Duriez et al. (2005), to replicate the moderation effect exerted by political interest on the ideological consistence between RWA and SDO in a representative sample of the Italian population. Second, to analyze the moderating influence exerted on this correlation by political interest and religiosity at the same time. Based on past research on religiosity, RWA and SDO (Altemeyer, 1988; Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992; Cima & Dallago, 2007; Dru, 2007; Roccato, 2008) we hypothesized that political interest should heighten the correlation between RWA and SDO, that religiosity should lower it, and that the moderating role exerted by political interest and religiosity should explain different portions of the common variance of RWA and SDO.
Method Participants and Procedure
We performed a secondary analysis on the data gathered by the Observatory of the North-West, a research institute of the University of Torino. Three times a year, the Observatory surveys Italian public opinion on various issues concerning culture, politics, economy, and society. The sample we used was a mail panel consisting of 887 people, representative of the Italian population over 17 years of age, according to gender, age, education, area of residence, size of the place of residence, and vote choice at the 2004 European election.
Measures
RWA was assessed by a reduced, balanced version (10 items, 5 response categories) of Giampaglia and Roccato’s (2002) Italian adaptation of the Altemeyer’s (1998) RWA scale.
Like it happens in the original version, all of its items assessed at least two, or even three, of the attitudinal clusters defining RWA. The internal consistency of the scale was not very high ( =.61). However, factor analysis (maximum likelihood extraction, oblimin rotation) showed one of the two usual factorial structures of the scale (cf. Altemeyer, 1996; Duckitt & Fisher, 2003; Krauss, 2002; Roccato & Ricolfi, 2005, Study 3; Tarr & Lorr, 1991): two factors, the first (explained variance = 28.53%) consisting of all the pro-trait items, and the second (explained variance = 15.29%) of all the con-trait items. RWA total scores were obtained by averaging the scores of each item of the scale, after reversing the anti-authoritarian items.
SDO was assessed by means of a reduced, balanced version (10 items, 5 response categories) of Di Stefano and Roccato’s (2005) Italian adaptation of the SDO6 scale (Sidanius
& Pratto, 1999). Its was found to be equal to .70. In this case as well, factor analysis showed a bifactorial structure, with the pro-SDO items loading on factor 1 (explained variance = 23.09%) and the anti-SDO items loading on factor 2 (explained variance = 14.54%). SDO total scores were computed by averaging the scores of each item, after reversing the anti-dominance scores.1
Political interest was assessed using a single four-categories item, asking participant to report how much they were interested in politics, while political orientation was assessed using a single ten-categories item (a = extreme left, 10 = extreme right), and religiosity was assessed using a single item with 5 response categories, ranging from 1 = very important to 5 = not important at all.
Results Correlations among Variables
Correlations and descriptive statistics for RWA, SDO, political orientation, political interest, and religion importance are shown in Table 1. Except for the correlation with religion importance, that was positive for RWA, and non significant for SDO, the pattern of
correlations between RWA and SDO with our other variables was pretty similar: RWA and SDO showed a weak, although significant negative correlation with political interest and a positive significant correlation with a rightist political placement. The correlation between RWA and SDO was r = .37, i.e. it was statistically equal to r = .42, i.e. the mean of the correlations between RWA and SDO that Roccato and Ricolfi (2005) reported in the section of their meta-analysis dedicated to display the results found in countries mainly organized along a single left-right dimension, Z = .1.335, p = .09.
Did Political Interest and Religiosity Moderate the Association between RWA and SDO? In order to examine whether political interest and religion importance moderated the
magnitude of the association between RWA and SDO we used moderated multiple regression (Aiken & West, 1991; Cohen, Cohen, West & Aiken, 2003). We chose SDO as the dependent variable and RWA, political interest, political orientation, religion importance, and age as centered predictors. We entered independent predictors at step 1, and interaction terms involving RWA (RWA x political interest, RWA x religion importance, RWA x political orientation and RWA x age) at step 2. Table 2 shows that RWA and political orientation significantly predicted SDO (s = 0.33, p < .05 and 0.21, p < .05 respectively). Adding the first-order interactions involving RWA provided a significant increase in the fit of the model, F (4, 877) = 15.04, p < .05. As expected, both the RWA x political interest and the RWA x religion importance interactions were significant, showing that political interest and religion importance moderated independently the RWA-SDO association.
To examine the second-order interactions involving RWA, a second moderated regression analysis was performed. Based on Cohen et al. (2003), we chose SDO as the dependent variable, and RWA, political interest, political orientation, religion importance and age as centered predictors. All the first-order interactions were entered at the step 2 and all the second-order interactions were entered at the step 3. No second-order interacions significantly
influenced the relation between RWA and SDO: Thus, political interest and religion importance showed to be additive, but not multiplicative, moderators of the association between RWA and SDO.
Two simple slopes analyses were performed to describe the moderating effects of political interest and of religion importance, respectively. As shown in Figure 1, RWA was more strongly associated with SDO for participants high in political interest. Consistent with Mirisola et al. (2007), RWA strongly and significantly predicted SDO at high levels of political interest (simple slope = .41, t(883) = 12.34, p < .05 ), moderately at medium levels of political interest (simple slope = .32, t(883) = 11.67, p < .05 ), and weakly at low levels of political interest (simple slope = .23, t(883) = 5.99, p < .05 ). Reverse trends were observerd for religion importance (cf. Figure 2): RWA weakly predicted SDO at high levels of religion importance (simple slope = .15, t(883) = 4.16, p < .05 ), moderately at medium levels of religion importance (simple slope = .32, t(883) = 10.99, p < .05 ), and strongly at low levels of religion importance (simple slope = .49, t(883) = 14.08, p < .05 ).
Discussion
At present the most influential model on the correlation between RWA and SDO is that developed by Duckitt (2001; Duckitt et al., 2002). According to this model, the correlation between RWA and SDO is moderated by the degree of the left-wing contrast in the country where the research is performed and the age of the sample: The higher the values of these two variables, the stronger the correlation should be. In a subsequent specification of the model, Mirisola and colleagues (2007), analyzing the answers given by two small convenience samples, showed that in countries in which politics is organized along a main left-right dimension, the consistence between RWA and SDO depends on participants’ political involvement: The stronger their political identity, the stronger the correlation.
We replicated Mirisola and colleagues’ results in a wide, representative sample of the Italian population, showing that political interest actually moderated the correlation between RWA and SDO even when working on a representative sample, at least in Italy—a strongly ideologized country. As, to the best of our knowledge, this was the first time that such an analysis was performed, this result may be considered as a baseline with which to compare the results gained in future research, performed in other contexts. Moreover, we showed that —independent from political identity—religious identity also moderated the correlation between RWA and SDO: The weaker one’s religiosity, the stronger the correlation. It is plausible that answering the items of the RWA and of the SDO scales automatically activated participants’ political and religious identity: Political identity salience reasonably fosters ideological consistence between RWA and SDO, at least in countries—like Italy— characterized by a strong distinction between left and right, while religious identity reasonably weakens the consistency between the two constructs. The latter results were consistent with the literature, showing that—especially in Catholic countries--very religious people tend to be characterized by high needs of order and social control, and low needs of power and dominance, and that catholic education tends to foster conformism and
benevolence for disadvantaged groups, low level of achievement values, and low interest for economic success (Bressler & Westoff, 1963; Wadsworth, Runte, & Tookey, 1968).
As a whole, our results could be considered as a confirmation of the Duckitt’s model taking into account both political identity and religious identity. Futher steps may try to replicate the effects we found in Italy in countries not characterized by strong ideological contrast: It is plausible to hypothesize that in such countries political identity should not moderate the association between RWA and SDO, while religious identity should moderate it.
Based on Wullf’s (1991) conception of religiosity as structured in two basic dimensions (inclusion vs. exclusion of transcendence and the tendency to interpret religion symbolically
or literally), Duriez and Van Hiel (2002) conceptualized four different approaches to Catholicism: Orthodoxy, Second naiveté, External critique, and Relativism. Orthodoxy correlated positively, and Relativism negatively, with RWA, while External critique correlated positively, and Second naiveté negatively, with SDO. New research taking into consideration the different moderating role of the association between RWA and SDO played by these different approaches to religiosity, will be particularly fruitful.
Our research had one main limit. As we worked on secondary data, we could not assess political identity and political religiosity in a completely satisfactory way. Future research performed assessing political identity and religiosity in a more accurate way will be obviously welcome. However, it had a main strong point also: Contrary to previous research performed on this topic, our results, instead of being based on small, convenience samples, were
obtained working on a wide sample, representative of the Italian population. This was
particularly relevant, as research showed that the correlation between RWA and SDO is rather unstable, and that it partly depends on the composition of the sample one analyzes (Cima & Dallago, 2007; Roccato & Ricolfi, 2005). Thus, we feel like concluding that they may be considered as a first point of reference, to be used for comparing new results, found in subsequent research.
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Footnote
1 As suggested by an anonymous reviewer, given the low reliability of the RWA and SDO
scales, we analyzed the relations about RWA and SDO with gender, age, and political orientation in order to get an indirect information about their validity. All the results —presented in Table 1 or available upon request--were consistent with the literature.
Table 1.
Descriptive statistics and correlations between RWA, SDO, religion importance, political interest and political identification
Variable 1 2 3 4 5 1. RWA 2. SDO .37* 3. Religion importance .40* .02 4. Political interest -.18* -.16* .03 5. Political orientation .34* .34* .20* -.04 M 3.15 2.50 4.05 2.12 5.39 SD 6.16 5.12 1.34 .78 2.44 * p < .05
Table 2.
Moderated regression analyses testing the effects of political interest and religion importance on the association between RWA and SDO
B SE R2 Step 1 RWA .27 .03 .33* Political interest -.37 .20 -.06 Religion importance -.83 .13 -.20* Political orientation .43 .07 .21* Age .00 .01 .00 .22* Step 2
RWA x Political interest .08 -03 .08*
RWA x Religion importance -.12 .02 -.22*
RWA x Political orientation .00 .01 .00
RWA x Age .00 .00 .03 .27*
Note. B = unstandardized regression coefficient, SE = standard error of unstardardized
regression coefficient, = standardized regression coefficient, R2= variance explained by step 1 and step 2.
* p < .05
Figure captions
Figure 1. Moderating effect of political interest on the association between RWA and SDO. Figure 2. Moderating effect of religion importance on the association between RWA and SDO.
