Finding the Loch Ness Monster: Left-Wing Authoritarianism in the United States

Abstract

Although past research suggests authoritarianism may be a uniquely right-wing phenomenon, the present two studies tested the hypothesis that authoritarianism exists in both right-wing and left-wing contexts in essentially equal degrees. Across two studies, university (n 5 475) and Mechanical Turk (n 5 298) participants completed either the RWA (right-wing authoritarianism) scale or a newly developed (and parallel) LWA (left-wing authoritarianism) scale. Participants further completed measurements of ideology and three domain-specific scales: prejudice, dogmatism, and attitude strength. Findings from both studies lend support to an authoritarianism symmetry hypothesis: Significant positive correlations emerged between LWA and measurements of liberalism, prejudice, dogmatism, and attitude strength. These results largely paralleled those correlating RWA with identical conservative-focused measurements, and an overall effect-size measurement showed LWA was similarly related to those constructs (compared to RWA) in both Study 1 and Study 2. Taken together, these studies provide evidence that LWA may be a viable construct in ordinary U.S. samples.KEY WORDS: left-wing authoritarianism, right-wing authoritarianism, rigidity of the right, ideologyThe concept of left-wing authoritarianism-the idea that political liberals may be subject to the same reliance on simple authority and psychological rigidity as political conservatives-has a controversial history in psychology. While some have argued that left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) is a valid construct (

It’s security, stupid! Voters’ perceptions of immigrants as a security risk predicted support for Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election

“…Other emerging findings in the cross-sectional "Trump" literature suggest that denial of racism and sexist attitudes are associated with Trump support (Schaffner et al, 2018); however, scale construction is often self-evidently biased in favor of liberal worldviews (Reyna, 2018). The denial of racism and sexism scales in Schaffner et al (2018) suffer from the same ideological bias as modern racism scales (Carney & Enos, 2018;Chambers, Schlenker, & Collisson, 2013;Sniderman & Tetlock, 1986) and authoritarianism scales (Conway, Houck, Gornick, & Repke, 2017;Malka, Lelkes, & Holzer, 2018;Vallerga, 2010), which because of including conservative political content within scale items, by definition must be associated with support for conservative candidates. To claim that agreement with "Racial problems in the U.S. are rare, isolated situations" acts as an indication of racism rests on the assumption that racial problems are ubiquitous and pervasive, which data easily contradicts.…”

Anger and Authoritarianism Mediate the Effects of Fear on Support for the Far Right—What Vasilopoulos et al. (2019) Really Found

“…They show that the relationship between fear and right-wing orientation was positive, rather than negative (r [22,777] = 0.1038, p <.001), and so was the relationship between fear and authoritarianism (r [24,325] = 0.1748, p <.001), although these relationships were not reported in the original article. And-for those who remain skeptical, despite decades of evidence, about the existence of an "elective affinity" between authoritarianism and right-wing orientation (e.g., Conway, Houck, Gornick, & Repke, 2018;Ditto et al, 2019)-it is worth pointing out that these two variables were quite strongly correlated in the context of this very large, nationally representative survey in France (r [22,777] = 0.2284, p <.001). In addition, fear was positively correlated with rightist political orientation (or negatively correlated with leftist orientation), measured in terms of ideological self-placement (r [22,777] = 0.1038, p <.001).…”

The role of right‐wing authoritarianism and political sophistication in shaping attitudes toward redistribution

“…While some authors question the existence of leftwing authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996(Altemeyer, , 1998Jost, Blount, et al, 2003;Jost, Glaser, et al, 2003), others show that authoritarian tendencies can be observed among extreme left-wing activists but not the general public (Van Hiel, Duriez, & Kossowska, 2006), while still others argue that using proper measurements authoritarianism exists to similar degrees on both sides of the political spectrum (Conway, Houck, Gornick, & Repke, 2017). While some authors question the existence of leftwing authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996(Altemeyer, , 1998Jost, Blount, et al, 2003;Jost, Glaser, et al, 2003), others show that authoritarian tendencies can be observed among extreme left-wing activists but not the general public (Van Hiel, Duriez, & Kossowska, 2006), while still others argue that using proper measurements authoritarianism exists to similar degrees on both sides of the political spectrum (Conway, Houck, Gornick, & Repke, 2017).…”

“…The present findings are also relevant for the debate about whether authoritarianism is a right-wing phenomenon or can be found on the political left as well. While some authors question the existence of leftwing authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996(Altemeyer, , 1998Jost, Blount, et al, 2003;Jost, Glaser, et al, 2003), others show that authoritarian tendencies can be observed among extreme left-wing activists but not the general public (Van Hiel, Duriez, & Kossowska, 2006), while still others argue that using proper measurements authoritarianism exists to similar degrees on both sides of the political spectrum (Conway, Houck, Gornick, & Repke, 2017). Going beyond measurement issues, the present findings suggest that political sophistication plays an important role in whether authoritarian tendencies are associated with a consistent pattern of conservative political attitudes or with traditionally liberal viewpoints as well.…”