Highly Dominating, Highly Authoritarian Personalities

Bob Altemeyer

The Journal of Social Psychology · 2004 · 214 citations · 10 references

Concepts

TL;DR

The study focuses on the minority of individuals scoring high on both Social Dominance Orientation and Right‑Wing Authoritarianism. The paper argues that these few individuals can significantly influence society by becoming leaders of prejudiced right‑wing movements. They exhibit a blend of power‑hungry, manipulative, amoral traits of social dominators with the religious ethnocentrism and dogmatism of right‑wing authoritarians. Analysis of nearly 4,000 students and 2,600 parents shows that high SDO‑high RWA individuals are among the most prejudiced people. Keywords: authoritarians, leadership, prejudice, right‑wing movements, social dominators.

Abstract

Abstract The author considered the small part of the population whose members score highly on both the Social Dominance Orientation scale and the Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale. Studies of these High SDO-High RWAs, culled from samples of nearly 4,000 Canadian university students and over 2600 of their parents and reported in the present article, reveal that these dominating authoritarians are among the most prejudiced persons in society. Furthermore, they seem to combine the worst elements of each kind of personality, being power-hungry, unsupportive of equality, manipulative, and amoral, as social dominators are in general, while also being religiously ethnocentric and dogmatic, as right-wing authoritarians tend to be. The author suggested that, although they are small in number, such persons can have considerable impact on society because they are well-positioned to become the leaders of prejudiced right-wing political movements. Keywords: authoritariansleadershipprejudiceright-wing movementssocial dominators

References

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