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Prior research on personality and politics has largely investigated relationships using national samples from North America and Europe. In contrast, we used multigroup path analysis to assess how Big Five personality, ideological attitudes ( RWA, SDO), and group identities (National and Ethnic Identification) predicted right versus left Political Behavior (party support, past voting, present voting intention) across majority and minority ethnic groups in a New Zealand national sample ( N = 6,333). The effects of personality on ideological attitudes and group identities were mostly invariant across ethnic groups and consistent with prior findings. In contrast, the effects of ideological attitudes on Political Behavior varied across ethnic groups being moderately strong for the European majority but nonsignificant for the minorities. Group identities had little effect on Political Behavior. We discuss cultural and contextual factors that might account for this disconnect between ideology and politics among the minority ethnic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tested the pathways between personality, social worldviews, and ideology, predicted by the Dual Process Model (DPM) of ideology and prejudice. These paths were tested using a full cross-lagged panel design administered to a New Zealand community sample in early 2008 (before the effects of the global financial crisis reached New Zealand) and again in 2009 (when the crisis was near its peak;n = 247). As hypothesized, low openness to experience predicted residualized change in dangerous worldview, which in turn predicted right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). Low agreeableness predicted competitive worldview, which in turn predicted social dominance orientation (SDO). RWA and SDO also exerted unexpected reciprocal effects on worldviews. This study provides the most comprehensive longitudinal test of the DPM to date, and was conducted during a period of systemic instability when the causal effects predicted by the DPM should be, and were, readily apparent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Most theories addressing the topic have proposed that threat and fear underlie right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), and many empirical findings have been consistent with this proposition. Important questions, however, remain unanswered, such as whether RWA is associated with fear and threat in general or only specific kinds of fear and threat. Theories of RWA generate markedly different predictions on this issue, particularly with respect to social or personal fears, and whether the association would also hold for the closely related construct of social dominance orientation (SDO). We investigated the issue by asking 463 undergraduate students to rate their feelings of fear, concern, and anxiety to a comprehensive 93-item list of potential fears and threats, which were formulated as either personal or social. Exploratory factors analysis identified five distinct fear–threat factors: Harm to Self, Child, or Country; Personal and Relationship Failures; Environmental and Economic Fears; Political and Personal Uncertainties; and Threats to Ingroup. All the fear–threat factors were correlated with RWA, with the strongest correlations being for Threats to Ingroup, and with stronger effects for social than for personal fears. None of the fear factors correlated with SDO. These relationships were not affected by controlling for Social Desirability or Emotional Stability (EMS). When the intercorrelations between fear factors and EMS were controlled using ridge regression, only Threats to Ingroup predicted RWA. Structural equation modeling indicated good fit for a model in which low levels of EMS had a significant path to Threats to Ingroup, which in turn had a significant path to RWA, and EMS having a significant though weak indirect (fully mediated) inverse effect on RWA. Implications of these findings for theories of authoritarianism and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intergroup contact is among the most effective ways to improve intergroup attitudes. Research examining whether the effects of contact are contingent on individual differences is limited, however. The authors test a dual process model perspective of individual differences in contact and prejudice. Their model predicts that intergroup contact should be particularly effective for people high in right-wing authoritarianism, but not those high in social dominance orientation, because these ideological attitudes are driven by different underlying motivational goals. The authors confirm these hypotheses in longitudinal (N = 805) and cross-sectional (N = 1,343) national probability samples. They also isolate perceived social threat, but not competitive threat, as a mediator for the interaction of right-wing authoritarianism and contact on prejudice. The authors elaborate on the individual difference mechanisms that facilitate and inhibit the effects of intergroup contact on prejudice and discuss how these relations may depend on contextual factors and the varying functions of prejudice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that two individual difference dimensions, Right-Wing authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), consistently predict prejudice. Traditionally it has been assumed that RWA and SDO both index generalized dispositions to dislike outgroups and those who differ, and therefore predict prejudice similarly. An alternative approach suggests that RWA and SDO express different motivational bases for prejudice that differentially interact with intergroup conditions to predict prejudice. This was tested by investigating students' reactions to varying descriptions of a bogus immigrant group. As hypothesized, the degree to which RWA and SDO predicted opposition to the immigrants was differentially contingent on the degree to which the immigrants were described as economically competitive, socially threatening (deviant) and socio-economically disadvantaged. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cross-lagged effects of the Big-Five personality dimensions on Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) were examined over 1 year (N = 112). Consistent with the Dual Process Cognitive-Motivational Model, SDO and RWA exhibited markedly different personality bases. Low Agreeableness and unexpectedly high Extraversion predicted change in the motivational goal for group-based dominance and superiority (SDO), whereas Openness to Experience predicted change in the motivational goal for social cohesion and collective security (RWA). Neuroticism and Conscientiousness did not predict change in SDO or RWA over time. These findings extend previous cross-sectional (correlational) research and indicate that key dimensions of personality (primarily Agreeableness and Openness to Experience) are an important temporal antecedent of the group-based motivational goals underlying individual differences in prejudice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Dual Process Model (DPM) approach to prejudice proposes that there should be at least two dimensions of generalized prejudice relating to outgroup stratification and social perception, which should be differentially predicted by Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). The current study assessed the causal effects of SDO and RWA on three dimensions of prejudice using a full cross-lagged longitudinal sample (N = 127). As expected, RWA, but not SDO, predicted prejudice towards ‘dangerous’ groups, SDO, but not RWA, predicted prejudice towards ‘derogated’ groups, and both RWA and SDO predicted prejudice towards ‘dissident’ groups. Results support previously untested causal predictions derived from the DPM and indicate that different forms of prejudice result from different SDO- and RWA-based motivational processes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we extended the Dual Process Model of Ideology and Prejudice by incorporating the Five-Factor Model of Personality (N = 924). Disagreeable people tended to view the social world as competitive, which in turn predicted heightened motivations for group-based dominance and superiority (Social Dominance Orientation or SDO), whereas people low in Openness to Experience and high in Conscientiousness directly expressed heightened security-cohesion motivations (Right-Wing Authoritarianism or RWA). Other personality dimensions were weakly associated with RWA, and these effects were mediated by dangerous worldview. Multiple distinct aspects of personality predict SDO and RWA both directly and indirectly through worldviews, but we found little evidence for the possibility that personality alters the extent to which worldviews (once formed) predict SDO and RWA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe and test a collective security model of authoritarianism. This model sees Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) as directly caused by collective security motivation (CSM), which is in turn influenced jointly by personality (with its effects mediated through group identification and dangerous world beliefs) and social threat (with its effects mediated through dangerous world beliefs). Two studies tested this model using student samples—one was correlational ( N = 218), while the other included an experimental manipulation of threat using future scenarios ( N = 136). Structural equation analyses partially supported the model suggesting that CSM fully mediated the effects of threat and group identification on RWA, but only partially mediated the effect of personality, which also had important direct effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been two broad approaches to how sociopolitical or ideological attitudes are structured. The more traditional unidimensional approach sees ideological attitudes as organized along a single left-to-right dimension, and influenced by a single coherent set of social and psychological causes, but has not been well supported empirically. During the past 2 decades evidence has increasingly suggested that there are two distinct dimensions of ideological attitudes, which seem best captured by the constructs of Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). These dimensions may sometimes be strongly related, but often are not, and seem to express quite different basic values or motivational goals. This has been formalized in a dual-process motivational model of ideological attitudes, which sees RWA and SDO as originating in different social worldview beliefs, personality trait dimensions, and social environmental influences, and as influencing socio-political and intergroup behavior and outcomes in different ways and through different mechanisms. New research supporting these propositions is reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the meta-analysis of investigating relationships among Big Five dimensions of personality, Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and prejudice. Under the investigations, RWA was predicted by low openness to experience but also conscientiousness, whereas SDO was predicted by low Agreeableness and also weakly by low openness to experience. Meanwhile, prejudice has a consistent with a dual process of motivational model of ideology.

Prior research suggests that individuals' prejudiced attitudes form a single generalized dimension predicted by Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). A dual process approach, however, expects different domains of generalized prejudice that relate differentially to RWA and SDO. To test this, 212 participants rated attitudes to 24 typically disliked groups. Factor analysis revealed three distinct generalized prejudice dimensions. Hierarchical Linear Modelling indicated that attitudes towards a ‘dangerous’ groups domain was significantly related only with RWA, attitudes toward a second ‘derogated’ groups domain was related only to SDO, and attitudes toward a third, ‘dissident’ groups, domain was significantly related to both, but powerfully with RWA and weakly with SDO. These findings have implications for explaining and reducing prejudice. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors argue that individual differences in men's Benevolent Sexism (BS) stem from a threat-driven security-cohesion motivation, indexed by Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), whereas Hostile Sexism (HS) stems from a competitively driven motivation for inter-group dominance, indexed by Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). In Study 1, meta -analysis indicated that men's SDO (controlling for R WA) was moderately positively associated with HS (r = .35) but not BS (r = .05), whereas men's RWA (controlling for SDO) was moderately associated with BS (r = .36) but only weakly associated with HS (r = .16). Study 2 replicated and extended these results by also modeling the dual personality traits and world-views underlying HS and BS. In Study 3, longitudinal analyses demonstrated that SDO predicted increases in HS (but not BS) and RWA predicted increases in BS (but not HS) throughout a 5-month period. Relations between the sociostructural and individual difference bases of men's ambivalent sexism are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dual-process model of individual differences in prejudice proneness proposes that Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) will influence prejudice against particular outgroups through different motivational mechanisms. RWA should cause negative attitudes toward groups seen as threatening social control, order, cohesion, and stability, such as deviant groups, and negativity toward these groups should be mediated through perceived threat from them. SDO should cause negative attitudes toward groups that activate competitiveness over relative dominance and superiority, such as socially subordinate groups low in power and status, and negativity toward these groups should be mediated through competitiveness toward them. Findings from four student samples that assessed attitudes toward seven social groups selected as likely to vary systematically in social threat and social subordination supported these predictions. The findings have implications for reconciling intergroup and individual difference explanations of prejudice and for interventions to reduce prejudice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A meta-analysis of 46 studies (N =12,939) examined the cross-sectional associations between dangerous worldview and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), and between competitive worldview and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). These dual associations were asymmetric; the dangerous worldview-RWA partial-correlation was moderate (r =.37), whereas the competitive worldview-SDO partial-correlation was stronger in size (r =.53). The results support a dual-process model perspective and indicate that RWA and SDO are consistently linked with distinct social schemas of the social world as dangerous and threatening (versus safe and secure), and competitive and cut-throat (versus co-operative and characterized by mutually beneficial exchange). We present a refined competitive worldview scale that reduces content overlap and provides a more accurate estimate of the worldview-SDO association. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We compare and contrast existing broad-bandwidth and frequency-specific worldview measures in the prediction of Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). As expected, broad-bandwidth and frequency-specific measures of dangerous worldview predicted common variance in RWA, and competitive worldview measures predicted common variance in SDO. Only the broad-bandwidth measures retained a unique concurrent association with RWA and SDO (n =347 New Zealand undergraduates). We argue that these alternative worldview measures share a common component reflecting schematic beliefs about the level of danger and threat in the social world (a descriptive belief component). The broad-bandwidth measure should be better suited for assessing a mixture of descriptive and prescriptive beliefs about how the social world ought to be, whereas the newer frequency-specific index is better suited for isolating the descriptive component of social worldview schemas. Directions for research examining heuristic biases that shape descriptive components of social worldview schemas are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]