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Social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) are foundational constructs in intergroup relations, yet their development across the lifespan is poorly understood. The few studies on the topic demonstrate that age positively correlates with both SDO and RWA. However, it is unclear whether this association is due to (a) normative aging, (b) generational differences associated with the period in which one was born and raised, or (c) a combination of these processes. This study estimates a series of cohort-sequential latent growth models to examine change due to both aging and cohort effects using 11 annual waves of longitudinal panel data collected from a nationwide random sample of adults (Ns = 61,858–61,862). Mean levels of SDO and RWA both trended upward across the adult lifespan, although this pattern was more marked for RWA. Cohort effects also emerged for both constructs and were again more pronounced for RWA. Contextual factors thus appear to influence authoritarianism more than they impact the preference for intergroup hierarchy. Similar trends emerged when differentiating birth cohorts by gender and ethnic majority status. Age and cohort effects for generalized prejudice among an ethnic majority group were also assessed (N = 47,955), revealing that prejudice declined in early adulthood but began to stabilize in middle age. This is the first large-scale study to document how SDO, RWA, and generalized prejudice change over the adult lifespan while also examining trends associated with the period in which a person was born and socialized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social dominance orientation (SDO) holds a central position in social dominance theory. Since the development, validation, and publication of the SDO7 scale in 2015, which was designed to distinguish between the dominance (SDO-D) and (anti-)egalitarianism (SDO-E) facets of SDO, it has become common in the literature to distinguish between these facets using the SDO7. This is based on the theoretical proposition that SDO-D and SDO-E meaningfully differ and have different relationships with other constructs. However, the present study critically reviews the original validity evidence provided for the SDO7's distinction between SDO-D and SDO-E and notes conceptual and empirical reasons to question this distinction. Because a sizable number of studies have used the SDO7 since the presentation of that original validity evidence, the present study uses meta-analysis to leverage this burgeoning literature to determine whether there has since been more convincing empirical evidence for the distinction between these facets. The meta-analysis finds that SDO-D and SDO-E have a magnitude of intercorrelation that would often be considered adequate for a reliability coefficient (mean ρ =.83), have extremely similar patterns and magnitudes of relationships with the variables in their nomological network, and have nearly identical means and standard deviations. Although the SDO7 is a useful, reliable, and valid measure of overall SDO, its use to distinguish between SDO-D and SDO-E is not empirically supported. The present meta-analysis also provides insights into the nomological network of SDO-D, SDO-E, and overall SDO and the distributional characteristics of study participants' SDO scale scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral adaptability is the ability to adapt one's interpersonal behavior to the expectations of the social interaction partners. In this paper, we investigated two factors that impact the extent to which people express behavioral adaptability. First, we investigated whether behavioral adaptability depends on the interaction partners' social categories (in-group vs. out-group). Second, we tested whether social dominance orientation (SDO) is related to behavioral adaptability and whether this relationship depends on the interaction partners' belonging to the in- or out-group. To do so, we conducted 2 studies in which we manipulated whether the interaction partners belong to the in- or to the out-group and in which we assessed participants SDO. In both studies, participants were in the role of a leader who had to give separate pep talks to 2 subordinates who differed in terms of preferred leadership style and we operationalized behavioral adaptability by coding to what extent participants adapted (Study 1) or reported that they would adapt (Study 2) their leadership style according to their subordinates' individual preferences. Study 1 used immersive virtual reality and included White/Caucasian male participants (N = 173). Study 2 was a vignette study including men and women who were either White/Caucasian or Black/African American (N = 741). Results showed that the subordinates' social category did not impact the extent to which participants express behavioral adaptability. However, SDO was differently related to behavioral adaptability depending both on participants social categories (e.g., ethnicity and sex) and subordinates' belonging to the in- or out-group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authoritarianism has been the subject of scientific inquiry for nearly a century, yet the vast majority of authoritarianism research has focused on right-wing authoritarianism. In the present studies, we investigate the nature, structure, and nomological network of left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), a construct famously known as "the Loch Ness Monster" of political psychology. We iteratively construct a measure and data-driven conceptualization of LWA across six samples (N = 7,258) and conduct quantitative tests of LWA's relations with more than 60 authoritarianism-related variables. We find that LWA, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation reflect a shared constellation of personality traits, cognitive features, beliefs, and motivational values that might be considered the "heart" of authoritarianism. Relative to right-wing authoritarians, left-wing authoritarians were lower in dogmatism and cognitive rigidity, higher in negative emotionality, and expressed stronger support for a political system with substantial centralized state control. Our results also indicate that LWA powerfully predicts behavioral aggression and is strongly correlated with participation in political violence. We conclude that a movement away from exclusively right-wing conceptualizations of authoritarianism may be required to illuminate authoritarianism's central features, conceptual breadth, and psychological appeal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intergroup contact is among the most effective ways to improve intergroup attitudes. Although it is now beyond any doubt that contact can reduce prejudice, in this article we provide evidence that its benefits can extend beyond intergroup relations—a process referred to as cognitive liberalization (Hodson, Crisp, Meleady, & Earle, 2018). We focus specifically on the impact of intergroup contact on environmentally relevant attitudes and behavior. Recent studies suggest that support for an inequality-based ideology (social dominance orientation [SDO]) can predict both intergroup attitudes and broader environmental conduct. Individuals higher in SDO are more willing to exploit the environment in unsustainable ways because doing so aids the production and maintenance of hierarchical social structures. In 4 studies conducted with British adults, we show that by promoting less hierarchical and more egalitarian viewpoints (reduced SDO), intergroup contact encourages more environmentally responsible attitudes and behavior. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal data support this model. Effects are more strongly explained by reductions in an antiegalitarian motive than a dominance motive. We discuss how these findings help define an expanded vision for intergroup contact theory that moves beyond traditional conflict-related outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the relationship between group-based egalitarianism and empathy for members of advantaged groups (e.g. corporate executives; state officials) versus disadvantaged groups (e.g., blue-collar workers; schoolteachers) subjected to harmful actions, events, or policies. Whereas previous research suggests that anti-egalitarians (vs. egalitarians) dispositionally exhibit less empathy for others, we propose that this relationship depends on the target's position in the social hierarchy. We examined this question across eight studies (N = 3,154) conducted in the U.S. and the U.K., including online and in-person experiments and examining attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. We observed that (anti-)egalitarianism negatively predicted empathy for members of disadvantaged groups subjected to harmful situations, but positively predicted empathy for members of advantaged groups. This pattern held regardless of perceivers' own membership in advantaged or disadvantaged groups (i.e., perceiver gender, race, or SES). (Anti-)egalitarianism's differential effects on empathy for advantaged versus disadvantaged targets were attributable in part to differences in perceived degree of harm incurred (beyond roles for perceived value conflict and perceived deservingness): Egalitarians perceived the same action as more harmful than anti-egalitarians when it occurred to a disadvantaged target but less harmful than anti-egalitarians when it occurred to an advantaged target. We also explored how these patterns informed individuals' downstream policy attitudes and policy-relevant behavior (e.g.. willingness to sign a petition). Our findings enrich understanding of (anti-)egalitarianism by testing competing perspectives on the link between (anti-)egalitarianism and empathy, and by demonstrating when and why individuals' preferences for social equality (vs. hierarchy) lead them to extend versus withhold empathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on multiracial categorization has focused on majority group social perceivers (i.e., White Americans), demonstrating that they (a) typically categorize Black-White multiracials according to a rule of hypodescent, associating them more with their lower status parent group than their higher status parent group and (b) do so at least in part to preserve the hierarchical status quo. The current work examines whether members of an ethnic minority group, Black Americans, also associate Black-White multiracials more with their minority versus majority parent group and if so, why. The first 2 studies (1A and IB) directly compared Black and White Americans, and found that although both Blacks and Whites categorized Black-White multiracials as more Black than White, White's use of hypodescent was associated with intergroup antiegalitarianism, whereas Black's use of hypodescent was associated with intergroup egalitarianism. Studies 2-3 reveal that egalitarian Blacks use hypodescent in part because they perceive that Black-White biracials face discrimination and consequently feel a sense of linked fate with them. This research establishes that the use of hypodescent extends to minority as well as majority perceivers but also shows that the beliefs associated with the use of hypodescent differ as a function of perceiver social status. In doing so, we broaden the social scientific understanding of hypodescent, showing how it can be an inclusionary rather than exclusionary phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debate surrounding the issue of inequality and hierarchy between social groups has become increasingly prominent in recent years. At the same time, individuals disagree about the extent to which inequality between advantaged and disadvantaged groups exists. Whereas prior work has examined the ways in which individuals legitimize (or delegitimize) inequality as a function of their motivations, we consider whether individuals’ orientation toward group-based hierarchy motivates the extent to which they perceive inequality between social groups in the first place. Across 8 studies in both real-world (race, gender, and class) and artificial contexts, and involving members of both advantaged and disadvantaged groups, we show that the more individuals endorse hierarchy between groups, the less they perceive inequality between groups at the top and groups at the bottom. Perceiving less inequality is associated with rejecting egalitarian social policies aimed at reducing it. We show that these differences in hierarchy perception as a function of individuals’ motivational orientation hold even when inequality is depicted abstractly using images, and even when individuals are financially incentivized to accurately report their true perceptions. Using a novel methodology to assess accurate memory of hierarchy, we find that differences may be driven by both antiegalitarians underestimating inequality, and egalitarians overestimating it. In sum, our results identify a novel perceptual bias rooted in individuals’ chronic motivations toward hierarchy-maintenance, with the potential to influence their policy attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new conceptualization and measurement of social dominance orientation--individual differences in the preference for group based hierarchy and inequality--is introduced. In contrast to previous measures of social dominance orientation that were designed to be unidimensional, the new measure (SDO?) embeds theoretically grounded subdimensions of SDO--SDO-Dominance (SDO-D) and SDO-Egalitarianism (SDO-E). SDO-D constitutes a preference for systems of group-based dominance in which high status groups forcefully oppress lower status groups. SDO-E constitutes a preference for systems of group-based inequality that are maintained by an interrelated network of subtle hierarchy-enhancing ideologies and social policies. Confirmatory factor and criterion validity analyses confirmed that SDO-D and SDO-E are theoretically distinct and dissociate in terms of the intergroup outcomes they best predict. For the first time, distinct personality and individual difference bases of SDO-D and SDO-E are outlined. We clarify the construct validity of SDO by strictly assessing a preference for dominance hierarchies in general, removing a possible confound relating to support for hierarchy benefitting the ingroup. Consistent with this, results show that among members of a disadvantaged ethnic minority group (African Americans), endorsement of SDO7 is inversely related to ingroup identity. We further demonstrate these effects using nationally representative samples of U.S. Blacks and Whites, documenting the generalizability of these findings. Finally, we introduce and validate a brief 4-item measure of each dimension. This article importantly extends our theoretical understanding of one of the most generative constructs in social psychology, and introduces powerful new tools for its measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]