Right‐Wing Ideology as a Predictor of Collective Action: A Test Across Four Political Issue Domains

Abstract

Despite a vast literature documenting motivations for collective action, the role of sociopolitical ideologies, including right‐wing ideologies, in predicting collective action is underresearched. Literature on right‐wing ideological beliefs suggests that those higher in right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) or social dominance orientation (SDO) hold specific attitudes or endorse specific policies, in part, because of factors such as perceived fear‐based threat or empathy. In the present research, structural equation modeling (SEM) was run on pooled data from a diverse Canadian university sample and two American adult samples (total N = 1,469). Participants completed measures of RWA, SDO, fear‐based threat, empathy, and domain‐specific collective action. Results showed that RWA and SDO both related positively to collective action targeting societal moral breakdown but negatively to collective action aimed at equalizing race relations or fighting climate change. Whereas the indirect effects of right‐wing ideologies via fear‐based threat or empathy were significant in all four domains for SDO, the indirect effect of RWA was only significant in the climate change domain. Implications are discussed.

Evaluating Belief System Networks as a Theory of Political Belief System Dynamics

“…Our aim with this manuscript is to develop a theory of political belief system dynamics and to test the ability of one computational model of this theory to account for disparate phenomenon in the belief systems literature. This is a necessary task because the belief systems literature currently encompasses multiple fields, including social psychology (Jost, 2006), political psychology (e.g., Choma et al, 2020), political science (e.g., Converse, 1964), and sociology (e.g., Boutyline & Vaisey, 2017) which leaves the field fractured. There are a variety of ostensibly independent findings without a clear idea about how those findings fit together.…”

Intergroup contact and social change: An integrated Contact‐Collective Action Model

“…However, some groups may engage in collective action that aims to preserve the status quo and intergroup disparities (Blee & Creasap, 2010). It is important to consider the groups' ideology to explain why some groups may oppose progressive social change (Becker, 2020;Choma et al, 2020;Stewart et al, 2016). Indeed, advantaged group members are more likely to approve of hierarchies (i.e., INTERGROUP CONTACT AND SOCIAL CHANGE 20 social dominance orientation; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) and endorse right-wing authoritarianism tendency (Altemeyer, 1998).…”

“…To illustrate, positive intergroup contact increases the advantaged group's identification with (Reimer et al., 2017) and empathy toward disadvantaged group members’ struggle (Selvanathan et al., 2018). However, people characterized by a strong social dominance orientation (i.e., a worldview that favors unequal relationships among social groups) tend to be motivated to maintain social hierarchies and are therefore less empathetic toward disadvantaged group members (Bäckström & Björklund, 2007; Choma et al., 2020). Consequently, interactions with disadvantaged group members may not increase their support for progressive social change or may even increase support for reactionary social change (Ho & Kteily, 2020; Hoskin et al., 2019).…”

Intergroup Contact and Social Change: An Integrated Contact-Collective Action Model

“…However, some groups may engage in collective action that aims to preserve the status quo and intergroup disparities (Blee & Creasap, 2010). It is important to consider the groups' ideology to explain why some groups may oppose progressive social change (Becker, 2020;Choma et al, 2020;Stewart et al, 2016). Indeed, advantaged group members are more likely to approve of hierarchies (i.e., INTERGROUP CONTACT AND SOCIAL CHANGE 20 social dominance orientation; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) and endorse right-wing authoritarianism tendency (Altemeyer, 1998).…”

“…However, people characterized by a strong social dominance orientation (i.e., a worldview that favors unequal relationships among social groups) tend to be motivated to maintain social hierarchies and are therefore less empathetic toward disadvantaged group members (Bäckström & Björklund, 2007;Choma et al, 2020). Consequently, interactions with disadvantaged group members may not increase their support for progressive social change or may even increase support for reactionary social change (Ho & Kteily, 2020;Hoskin et al, 2019).…”