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

Abstract

Using data from the Austrian National Election Study (Study 1) and the American National Election Study (Study 2), this research investigated the role of right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) in shaping attitudes toward governmental action related to the redistribution of wealth. We show that RWA is a relevant variable in explaining attitudes toward redistribution policies, and that the association between RWA and redistribution attitudes is moderated by political sophistication. RWA was associated with opposition to redistribution policies among individuals high in political sophistication, while among individuals low in political sophistication, RWA was either associated with support for redistribution policies (Study 1) or unrelated to redistribution attitudes (Study 2). Results suggest that exposure to the political discourse in a society affects how psychological needs and motives are related to preferences regarding the redistribution of wealth through the government.

The Conditional Effects of Authoritarianism on COVID-19 Pandemic Health Behaviors and Policy Preferences

“…Recent psychological theories of mass politics amend the motivated social cognition account by contending at least two dimensions—one socio-cultural, the other economic—are necessary to capture the full array of ideological orientations in the U.S. public (Feldman & Johnston, 2014 ; Treier & Hillygus, 2009 ), and that psychological traits are more consistently associated with socio-cultural ideologies than economic ones (for reviews, see Federico & Malka, 2018 and Johnston & Ollerenshaw, 2020 ). Indeed, the connection between threat sensitivity and economic conservatism is arguably theoretically unclear (Crawford, 2017 ), and empirical studies frequently find authoritarianism is directly associated with liberal economic preferences (Arikan & Sekercioglu, 2019 ; Jedinger & Burger, 2019 ; Johnston et al, 2017 ; Malka et al, 2019 ; Ollerenshaw & Johnston, 2022 ). This literature suggests authoritarianism, rooted in threat sensitivity and the dispositional need for certainty and security, is closely associated with social conservatism and right-wing political identification in the U.S., but inconsistently related to economic preferences.…”

Support for progressive taxation: self-interest (rightly understood), ideology, and political sophistication

“…We might, therefore, expect that more sophisticated citizens will be more effective in determining the 'right' degree of progressiveness that is in line with their own preferences. Higher levels of political sophistication should allow citizens to better grasp the relation between their own policy preferences, and the specific tax measures that are necessary to achieve those goals (Jedinger & Burger, 2019;Kölln, 2018).…”

Do Smarter People Have More Conservative Economic Attitudes? Assessing the Relationship Between Cognitive Ability and Economic Ideology

“…In this respect, it has been argued that a functional link between psychological needs and political attitudes exists primarily for sociocultural but not for economic attitudes (e.g., Federico & Malka, 2018 ; Johnston & Wronski, 2015 ; Malka & Soto, 2015 ). From this perspective, in contexts where social and economic conservatism are communicated as a coherent package in the political discourse, individuals with high epistemic needs who are familiar with the discourse and perceive politics as personally relevant tend to endorse economic conservatism to express their identity as conservatives rather than because economic conservatism is particularly suitable to satisfy their needs (for empirical evidence, see Jedinger & Burger, 2019 , 2020 ; Johnston et al, 2017 ; Malka et al, 2014 ).…”

“…1 The distinction between the sociocultural and the economic dimension of ideology refers to fundamental lines of tension concerning the proper way of organizing society. Specific political attitudes can be associated with both ideology dimensions (e.g., Jedinger & Burger, 2019, 2020. However, specific attitudes that are typically considered sociocultural (e.g., on immigration, women's rights, or acceptance of homosexuality) are usually more strongly associated with the sociocultural ideology dimension while specific economic attitudes (e.g., on minimum wages, social welfare, or market optimism) are usually more strongly associated with the economic ideology dimension.…”