Mediational effects of right-wing authoritarianism factors in the path religiosity - prejudice towards sexual and gender diversity.

Previous studies have found that Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) factors partially mediate the relationship between religiosity and attitudes towards homosexuals. Most of these studies have been conducted in the USA, which has distinct characteristics from countries such as Brazil, which is collectivistic and mostly composed of Catholics. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate differential mediator effects of RWA factors in the path between religiosity and prejudice towards sexual and gender diversity. Five hundred and seven individuals between 18 and 79 years old (M = 39.30; SD = 17.91) participated in the study, 60.4% of whom were male. Instruments used were the Brazilian version of RWA which is composed by the factors Traditionalism (TR); Authoritarianism (AT); Submission to Authority (SA); Contestation to Authority (CA); and the Prejudice towards Sexual and Gender Diversity – R (PSGDR) scale. RWA factors SA, CA and AT partially mediated the investigated path whereas TR fully mediated it. The results stress that interventions that aim to reduce this sort of prejudice should target support to traditional values rather than religiosity per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]