Talk:Right-wing authoritarianism/Archive 1

Archive 1

Examples

1. incorrect inferences from evidence & 4. Uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs:

• "Another kind of personality, the "left-wing authoritarian," submits to authorities who want to overthrow the established authorities. But (perhaps naturally) it is harder to find such people. (Source: Altemeyer, 1996, Chapter 9)." This is pure POV. Has anyone heard of Communism or Jacobin Radicalism during the French Revolution. Those were pure left-wing movements that refused to tolerate right-wing or traditionalist dissent. While there is no doubt right-wing authoritarianism, why doesn't Wikipedia balance it with a study of Left-wing authoritarianism?

Altmeyer is a Leftist, and his work is POV. I suggest merging this into a larger article about authoritarianism.

This is a good example of the poor thinking that goes along with RWA. The reason it fits is because if you read the full article (which is a response by Altmeyer to a relatively contemporaneous, if not a high quality, criticism of Altmeyer's work) you will see that the point Altmeyer was making is that even with that concepualization, he looked hard and could not find the evidence to support the construct. The article even lists examples of the sort of research he performed to identified the left wing authoritarins. http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_07_17/response.html . The paragraph from which this quote comes from follows:

"I have conceptualized left-wing authoritarianism as submission to revolutionary authorities, aggression in their names, and adherence to the conventions of the revolutionary movement. I certainly saw examples of this many years ago when handfuls of Maoists, Trotskyites, and Stalinists appeared on my campus. The Weathermen might be a familiar American example. But the problem is to find many such people now, and I am not sure Bramwell knew how and how hard and how long I have tried when he dismissed my efforts. (You can find it in Chapter 9 of The Authoritarian Specter, 1996, Harvard University Press. See also pages 71-72 in the earlier Advances in Experimental Social Psychology citation.)" Robert Altmeyer, July 2006. (Empahsis is mine, Briholt) Briholt (talk) 20:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

1. incorrect inferences from evidence:

• Wow, this whole article is nothing but hate speech that promotes a single person's bias and works. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.223.53.122 (talk) 21:02, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The article is not biased. It accurately describes a legitimate academic theory. The theory is legitimate, backed up by objective experimental evidence. This article objectively describes the theory. It isn't a personal attack if the claim is true.RomanHistorian 04:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

2. incorrect inferences from evidence & 4. Uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs:

• It is amusing that an almost exact copy of this article, titled "left wing authoritarianism" and with Ann Coulter cited drew widespread howls and was immediately deleted from Wikipedia as "hate speech" and "the opinion of one person" while this is defended as "legitimate academic theory". Just yet another reason why wikipedia will *never* be considered a valid research source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.223.70.81 (talk) 17:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

4. Uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs.

Of course you wont see anything about the libertarianism "Personality disorder" Can anyone direct me to one?

There will not be one, because rejecting all authority is seen as normal behavior under the libs, I guess.

This information is valid for anyone trying to understand exactly the type of person who is an RWA.

Significant Correlations

This article has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality. Discussion of this nomination can be found on the talk page. Research has discovered a wide range of RWA scale relationships over the years, which can be organized into four general categories. (The Authoritarian Specter) 1: Faulty reasoning — RWAs are more likely to: Make many incorrect inferences from evidence. Hold contradictory ideas that result from a cognitive attribute known as compartmentalized thinking. Uncritically accept that many problems are ‘our most serious problem.’ Uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs. Uncritically trust people who tell them what they want to hear. Use many double standards in their thinking and judgments. 2: Hostility Toward Outgroups — RWAs are more likely to: Weaken constitutional guarantees of liberty such as a Bill of Rights. Severely punish ‘common’ criminals in a role-playing situation. Admit they obtain personal pleasure from punishing such people. Be prejudiced and hostile against racial, ethnic, nationalistic, sexual, and linguistic minorities. Volunteer to help the government persecute almost anyone. Be mean-spirited toward those who have made mistakes and suffered. 3: Profound Character Attributes — RWAs are more likely to: Be dogmatic. Be zealots. Be hypocrites. Be absolutists Be bullies when they have power over others. Help cause and inflame intergroup conflict. Seek dominance over others by being competitive and destructive in situations requiring cooperation. 4: Blindness To One’s Own Failings And To The Failings Of Authority Figures Whom They Respect— RWAs are more likely to: Believe they have no personal failings. Avoid learning about their personal failings. Be highly self-righteous. Use religion to erase guilt over their acts and to maintain their self-righteousness. RWA is also correlated with political conservatism — not so much at the level of ordinary voters, but with increasing strength as one moves from voters to activists to office holders, and then from lower- to higher-level officeholders. (The Authoritarian Specter). Scores on the RWA Scale predict many attitudes and behaviors related to conservatism as defined in the general culture at the time. For instance, the scale has correlated reliably with political party affiliation; reactions to Watergate; pro-capitalist attitudes; severity of jury sentencing decisions; punishment of deviants; racial prejudice; homophobia; religious orthodoxy; victim blaming; and acceptance of covert governmental activities such as illegal bugging, political harassment, denial of the right to assemble, and illegal drug raids (Altemeyer, 1981, 1988, 1996, 1998). In one part of his summation, Altemeyer wrote that RWAs are more likely to be: "Conservative/Reform party (Canada) or Republican Party (United States) lawmakers who (1) have a conservative economic philosophy; (2) believe in social dominance; (3) are ethnocentric; (4) are highly nationalistic; (5) oppose abortion; (6) support capital punishment; (7) oppose gun-control legislation; (8) say they value freedom but actually want to undermine the Bill of Rights; (9) do not value equality very highly and oppose measures to increase it; (10) are not likely to rise in the Democratic party, but do so among Republicans." (The Authoritarian Specter) Altemeyer's own statement about this may be worth noting (from p. 239 of "Enemies of Freedom"): "right-wing authoritarians show little preference in general for any political party," and their prevalence in the Republican party reflects the long term effects of point (10) above.

4. Be absolutists

"There will not be one, because rejecting all authority is seen as normal behavior under the libs, I guess."(emphasis added) Briholt 20:28, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Absolutism is listed under number 3 of the section.

actually, it's listed under the 4th bullet under the 3rd section. since the section title "examples of profound character..." is listed here, I indicated the 4th example in the category. I agree it would be better to be consistent, but I haven't had time to copy the formating.Briholt (talk) 02:12, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

Uncapitalizing the first letter of "authoritarianism" would revert this page to its previous version, would be consistent with wikipedia naming conventions, and would look better, at least in my opinion. --Jcbutler (talk) 23:41, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

It's been a week and there has been no discussion. I don't think this is a controversial move, and in fact it was the previous version of the article, so I went ahead and moved it. --Jcbutler (talk) 20:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Crackpot?

Is this guy a comedic writer? I don't understand what this is all about

Another kind of personality, the "left-wing authoritarian," submits to authorities who want to overthrow the established authorities. But (perhaps naturally) it is harder to find such people. (Source: Altemeyer, 1996, Chapter 9).

Why would it be "naturally" harder to find someone who submits to authority on the "left"? In the previous sentence the article just discussed the Soviet Union. I looked at the link to Altman's book, and it doesn't even look like a serious work.

So is this a joke page, or what?

edit: Also, the page talks about how "RWA"s want the government to control them, and have little personal freedom, whereas Socialist governments are MORE tightly regulated than Conservative. Also, how does Libertarianism fit under this? I guess this is a joke page after all.

Regarding 'crackpot' or 'joke'--it's not. Take, for instance, a few recent experiments showing that people who consider themselves conservative tend to demonstrate difficulty in adapting to changing parameters of a task whereas those who consider themselves liberal adapt more easily: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v10/n10/abs/nn1979.html

or this one regarding a review that supports much of what is posted here: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml

Basically, we are finding some potentially reliable differences in how conservatives and liberals process information, and it correlates well with what Altmeyer described.Briholt (talk) 06:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.173.240.130 (talk) 22:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The "right" and "left" as discussed in this model are merely placeholder words denoting "established authority" and "political dissidents" respectively. They are not in any way connected to their US-contemporary political meaning. A "left-wing authoritarian" would be a person who would unquestioningly follow a leader seeking to overthrow the established order. The logic behind the presumption that it would be more difficult to find authoritarians in the "left" (dissident) group is that someone who is part of a dissident movement may be quite likely to dissent against his/her own authority figures. 85.226.239.90 (talk) 21:12, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a citation, or are you simply making this up? It's an interesting idea, but the research behind right-wing authoritarianism doesn't support your interpretation; it's very specific. Briholt (talk) 06:22, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm making it up on the spot, actually, from my interpretation . If you came over to an European country, you would see people holding what would pass for "socialist liberal" values in the US but thinking generally in a manner akin to stereotypically conservative people from US rural areas. The interpretation as you suggest it is very culture-specific, even if it may hold water inside US borders. Basically, what i'm saying is that conservatism can encompass a broad swath of political views depending on the cultural baggage a person is carrying. Consider the following highly stereotypical comparision (this is in no way an attempt to make an actual anthrophological example, and should merely be seen as a way to make you understand my point):

American Right-Wing Hillbilly: close-minded, bigoted, deeply christian, believes in free gun ownership, believes in strong social control (probably through a combination of the christian religion and "tradition"), believes that poor people should feed themselves, outside of the most extreme cases, and believes in little to no economic control (the invisible hand cures all). High probability of homosexual bigotry and racism.

Swedish Socialist Hillbilly: close-minded, bigoted, deeply secular (though probably agnostic), believes that only the military and the police should own guns (most people would react with confusion and perhaps terror faced with an american-style "private security organization", and militias are just plain scary.). Believes in *less* social control, based upon academic humanism warped through a matrix of "common sense" and "tradition". The state should feed all poor. Strong economical control is needed to preserve the welfare state and keep money out of the hands of sociopathic capitalists. (the welfare state and bureaucracy cures all). Homosexuality is accepted and encouraged outside neo-nazi circles (mainly composed of what we in a nice way can describe as the "marxist lumpenproletariat"), and the same goes for racism.

Now, this may to your ears (i'm now rudely assuming you are a self-identified US liberal) as the views of an "enlightened liberal", and "good", but the truth is that these views are based in as much bigotry, close-mindedness and reptile-brain thought as those of any gun-toting bumpersticker-wielding north-american hilbilly. When faced with political argument, these people simply act in a way very much compatible with this model. I understand that this may seem iconoclastic to your ears, but in my view you can't call a behavioural model that only fits one particular country a universal model of human behaviour, and in no way can you call spouting political one-liners without any real thought "enlightened", even if said political one-liners where the recipe for the perfect human society. In Sweden (being the only example i can honestly give), from your perspective, the "good guys" control academia, media, and the government (Sweden currently have a "conservative" government, but they mostly merely push for more economic freedom and educational choice.), and their views have "trickled down" (no pun intended) to the close-minded conservative people over a couple of generations, but from my interpretation of this model, they still qualify as conservative. 85.226.239.90 (talk) 02:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, note that i'm a CS undergrad with too much time on my hands, so if you have academic expertise in the field, please remember this when formulating your retorts. 85.226.239.90 (talk) 02:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Asside from being a CS undergrad, you're also a racist judgemental hack. Your description of poor Southerners is insulting and untrue. This garbage should have no place on Wikipedia. DOWN WITH RACISM AND IGNORANCE!

I don't actually believe that all poor southerners are like that. I was merely twisting a stereotype as a rhetorical device to make my point clear; I'm sorry if you misunderstood me. 79.136.61.34 (talk) 16:58, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I teach psychology to undergrads, and have done some research in personality myself, so I appreciate your request to keep things in perspective to all readers. What you are saying above makes sense, but again, you aren't citing anything; as you say "I'm making it up on the spot." Your claim that you "can't call a behavioural model that only fits one particular country a universal model of human behaviour" assumes that it doesn't fit other countries/cultures (i.e., you need to provide sources for that claim) or even that Altmeyer says it does. And even if what you say above about the spectrum of political attitudes is absolutely accurate, it doesn't change the title, nor the data (to which I'll say more in a moment), of Altmeyer's research. The points to remember are that Altmeyer's work is mostly in North America, and that his conclusions are from patterns of behavior--the labels come afterward. People throw around labels all the time, and as a result there is a problem in thinking that comes along for the reasons you cite above. So, start at the bottom and look at behavior. He's tracked patterns of behavior and has correlated (quite highly, I might add) them with North American Political attitudes. I don't know of efforts to take these behavioral patterns and correlate them with other populations. But it's the same sort of paradigm that is finding that people (in the U.S., anyway) with cognitive inflexibility, for example, are more likely to align themselves with U.S. notions of conservatism. In other words, rather than have your list of pejorative adjectives as to what a conservative or a liberal does, go the other way. Look at what people do, and find out whether they think of themselves as right or left, or whatever. If there is any significance to the behavior and the construct, well, you might have something meaningful.Briholt (talk) 06:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

"Research" section

Although I do not agree with Right-wing authoritarianism, I believe that the research section is highly biased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.106.237.249 (talk) 21:08, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to add content that gives the article a better balance, preferably from peer reviewed psychology journals. --Jcbutler (talk) 21:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Completely POV bullshit. Do not remove the tag or I'll contact an Admin for dispute resolution.68.45.183.30 (talk) 10:09, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

What tag? And if you feel that an Admin could make contributions to this article, please contact one. --Jcbutler (talk) 14:52, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

This article

Oh man, this discussion section is funny. Anyhow, I've made quite a few edits to this article in the past few days, but there is still much work that needs to be done. In particular, the "research" section needs to be re-written to incorporate quality, peer-reviewed, empirical research done by a variety of psychologists-- not just Altemeyer. We should probably get rid of the list format here. I also think there needs to be some kind of "limitations and criticism" section to address some of the controversies in the field, and perhaps some of the recent developments such as the work that is now appearing in Political Psychology on authoritarianism and threat. To avoid the complaints of bias and counterbias, I think we should reference every major point with published, empirical sources. --Jcbutler (talk) 23:41, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. I've never had the time to clean up this discussion page and have only found motivation when people actually demonstrate the types of attitudes Altmeyer describes. Could people stop putting of POV flags and accusations before actually reading the research so such research could be posted? Briholt (talk) 20:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there have been an abundance of POV flags here! I would prefer people use the citation request function if they have issues with any of the research reported. The page should be as neutral as possible, but empirical studies have to have the final say. --Jcbutler (talk) 21:51, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Some of your changes puzzle me. The definition of "left-wing conservatism" in the article does not match Altemeyer's, although neither seems real in America today. More importantly, why did you remove the phrase, "when they take an interest in politics"? The RWA score correlates more strongly with party affiliation as political involvement increases, and only when you get to members of Congress does it look like a straightforward measure of political conservatism (as far as I know). We should spell that out if we can. I removed Aletheon's material on John J Ray for now because the claims about what Ray showed seemed both POV and much too vague. I think one claim referred to what I just said, judging by the webpage, but I can't tell from the article text. Dan (talk) 04:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I assume you mean "left wing authoritarianism." What definition of Altemeyer's are you refering to? As for your other point, can you cite a study that partitions subjects by their level of interest in politics? Otherwise, the linear correlation between RWA and conservatism is pretty clearly established. And there is still a line in there somewhere about not all authoritarians being interested in politics. --Jcbutler (talk) 21:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Heh. Altemeyer talks about what I'd call revolutionary authoritarianism, presumably based on old Weathermen types since he couldn't find any scores >50 in America or Canada today. (I guess "revolutionary authoritarianism" and "traditionalist authoritarianism" don't roll off the tongue.) I found citations here and what looks like research here. (The latter seems to mention his "wild card" LWAs, who score higher on the RWA scale.) Now, looking at chapter 6 of Altemeyer's online book again, he may have actually downplayed the RWA scale's link with conservatism. He says they found greater correlations for people more involved in politics, but he does describe a significant link between RWA score and party affiliation for ordinary voters. He also gives a bigger number for people who self-identify as liberal or conservative. Ray's information technically concerns voting patterns instead of self-description. I don't know what to make of that. (Certainly conservatives will vote for "Democrats" in the South, for some positions.) Incidentally, what does Karen Sterner's challenge mean? If she just says that RWA scores change, and this has to do with fear, then it sounds like the online book incorporates her research. Dan (talk) 20:52, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The criticism section was no more "POV" than the article itself. And the comment that the criticisms were "vague" is laughable. Of course I'm putting the criticism section back in, it is backed up by published academic sources that offer direct criticism of the theorist in question. Aletheon (talk) 04:49, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, if they aren't vague, what do they mean? Dan (talk) 07:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you're having trouble deciphering the sentences, they are clearly written and to the point. The first sentence in the "Criticism" section establishes that there have been published criticisms of Altmeyer's work in relevant academic journals. This is a critical point that needs to be mentioned in this article in order to preserve a neutral point-of-view. The second sentence gives one specific objection of Dr. Ray, which is that Altmeyer's sample base was skewed in his RWA study. Dr. Ray claims to have sampled the general population whilst Altmeyer only sampled his students. The next sentence could and should be expanded, but as is it reflects the fact that Dr. Ray compared the actual voting patterns of those who were scored by the RWA scale and found that they did not in fact predict right-wing behavior. I will add this in to the relevant sentence. The final sentence gives a direct quote from Dr. Ray expressing his doubts about the foundational assumptions for Altmeyer's work. Aletheon (talk) 15:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

You started out giving Ray's own estimation of his work's importance. (Since we don't know who you are, this might as well be open self-promotion.) Only now have you begun to describe the work itself. And the claim you explained leaves out important bits of the story, as I said in my first comment. I had to follow a link at the start of this talk page to find out what this other claim means: Ray has conducted research that shows Altmeyer's RWA scale is "not valid as a measure of authoritarianism." It turns out Ray means that the RWA scale does not predict scores on one of his own scales, which sounds like it would have more to do with Social Dominance Orientation. (In other words, Altemeyer's work gives us no reason to expect a strong relationship between the RWA and Directiveness scales.) Does that seem like a fair assessment? Dan (talk) 17:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The quote from Dr. Ray is his own summary of two pieces of research he conducted (cited in article as Ray 1985, 1987) in response to Altmeyer's first book (1981). What does he mean by that claim? From what I have read, part of the story is that, apparently Altmeyer's RWA scale is even less nuanced than Adorno's F-scale. Ray goes on to publish other research that calls into question the empirical existence of this notion of a "general attitude to authority." (Ray & Lovejoy 1990) I suspect this also had something to do with his claim as quoted in the article. Aletheon (talk) 04:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

So it's not vague, but you don't actually know what it means either. (I should mention that the link I found here has the text of one of those cited works.) Dan (talk) 04:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

You deleted the entire Criticism section and labeled it vague. Now you're talking as if what was vague was the quote from Dr. Ray. I didn't say that I didn't know what it means. I gave two possible interpretations that seem likely to me. I did not say "I have no clue, I give up." Aletheon (talk) 05:15, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind having this criticism section, but it's important to point out that Ray's view is a clear minority in this line of research. Actually, he's pretty much by himself... --Jcbutler (talk) 21:34, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Please prove this consenus, because I'm not seeing any other support of this "theory" other than Altmeyer. 68.45.183.30 (talk) 10:10, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

This is not a page on logic or math, so I make no claims of proof. But if you are interested, I would recommend the book, Strengths and Weaknesses: The Authoritarian Personality Today [1]. This is an edited volume with contributions from the some of the most prominent experts in the field, including William Stone, Jos Meloen, Richard Christie, and Sam McFarland. It is probably the best summary work from the 1990s. Altemeyer was not involved in the project, and in fact, a couple of the authors are critical of some of his conclusions, such as his rejection of parents as a major cause of authoritarianism. Nevertheless, the book is largely supportive of Altemeyer's research. Here is what Christie says about the RWA scale:

This scale has the virtues of focusing on the core of authoritarianism, being counterbalanced so that agreement-prone respondents are not combined with ideologically consistent authoritarians, and having very high reliability. These characteristics make it especially useful in experimental work... This was demonstrated by the superiority of the RWA scale when "pitted" against other measures of authoritarianism in predicting experimental results (p.97).

And according to Stone:

Altemeyer's contribution has been in the creative testing of hypotheses about the behavior and motivation of high and low RWA scorers... his main contribution is in the establishment of empirical relationships between RWA and certain behaviors (p. 167).

Compare that with what Stone says about John J. Ray:

Ray is a critic of TAP [The Authoritarian Personality] who attacks from many directions, but whose basic empirical approach seems to have had little cumulative impact [emphasis mine]. Many of his articles are short and polemical, citing data from his own or previous studies. His work is controversial, partly because his political concerns are so obvious... Ray is not held in great repute [emphasis mine] by many other researchers in authoritarianism (p. 168).

Stone elaborates quite a bit from there, but that's probably enough to make the point. I don't want to trash the guy, but this is some of the harshest criticism I've ever seen in an academic work. Now if you can cite any scholarly work that praises Ray, other than something written by Ray himself, I'd be interested to see it. --Jcbutler (talk) 15:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Sampling concerns

Valois Bourbon has made some recent edits to this article in which he repeatedly inserts such qualifiers as "out of 300 million people living in the United States" in an attempt to discredit the research summarized here. He justifies his edits by claiming that psychology articles should always make mention of sampling methods, yet this is not the way sampling issues are handled in any other psychology article on Wikipedia, or in the psychological literature for that matter. Also, a glance at his contributions indicates that this editor is not really concerned with psychology, but is primarily interested in politics. Nevertheless, he is correct in pointing out that sampling is important, and so it could be worth some discussion. For the record, here is the abstract of a recent review article, which I hope will allay some of Valois Bourbon's concerns, at least on that part of the research examining the relation between RWA and personality:

"Despite a substantial literature examining personality, prejudice, and related constructs such as Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), there have been no systematic reviews in this area. The authors reviewed and meta-analyzed 71 studies (N = 22,068 participants) investigating relationships between Big Five dimensions of personality, RWA, SDO, and prejudice. 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. Consistent with a dual-process motivational model of ideology and prejudice, the effects of Agreeableness on prejudice were fully mediated by SDO, and those of Openness to Experience were largely mediated by RWA. Finally, the effects of Agreeableness and Openness to Experience were robust and consistent across samples, although subtle moderating factors were identified, including differences in personality inventory (NEO Personality Inventory-Revised vs. Big Five Inventory), differences across prejudice domain, and cross-cultural differences in Conscientiousness and Neuroticism. Implications for the study of personality and prejudice are discussed." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract) From: Sibley, C. G., Duckitt, J. (2008). Personality and prejudice: A meta-analysis and theoretical review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol 12(3), pp. 248-279, ISSN 1088-8683, Electronic ISSN 1532-7957.

I suppose that if we wanted to be totally accurate, we could include the phrase "22,068 out of 300 million" in every sentence on RWA personality characteristics, but it seems like it would be a bit wordy. Certainly we are talking about more people than a few "small samples," and the lack of samples showing contrary evidence is quite compelling.--Jcbutler (talk) 17:05, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't try take one survey as a reference, but take another's results.

The article you cited is an excellent example of sampling methods. Almost all of those 22,068 people were students in the United States, Canada or Belgium. Out of 72 surveys, only 3 surveys had over 1000 participants (none of of the three had anywhere near statistically significant sampling). Most surveys had 50-400 participants, mostly students. Not a single study took place in Asia (home to a third of world population), Africa, or Latin America. Valois bourbon (talk) 18:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

The fact that most of this research was done in North America and Europe does need to be addressed, and in fact, the research section is quite incomplete and disorganized in general. I have tried to improve this article over the past few months but more work needs to be done. A cross-cultural section would be a welcome addition. But your edits, Valois bourbon, misrepresented the research and did not address the specific points you just made. --Jcbutler (talk) 18:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

"Based on a survey of 82 American students, a researcher believes..."

How it "misrepresents" the research? WP:NPOV let the facts speak for themselves. Valois bourbon (talk) 08:32, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, study one had a sample of 82 participants. But you neglected to point out the extensive previous research that was reviewed in that article, or study two, which replicated study one with another sample. Did you not want those facts to be allowed to speak? --Jcbutler (talk) 15:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, extensive amount of 100-person surveys of American psychology students. Let the facts speak for themselves.Valois bourbon (talk) 12:20, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Well the combined N for both of the studies in the article was 160. In the previous research, Trapnell (1994) had N = 722, Goldberg and Rosolack (1991) had N = 503, Truskosky and Vaux (1997) used N = 143, Peterson et al. (1997) had a combined N = 355, and Riemann and Grubich (1993) had N = 185. So that is a combined N of 2068 from six samples, in both student and adult populations, all finding the same relationship between RWA and low openness to experience, without a single dissenting result. All of this, of course, was only the preliminary research to Sibley and Duckitt's (2008) analysis of N = 22,068, which also found the same thing. Can you hear the facts yet, or do they need to speak louder? --Jcbutler (talk) 13:23, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

As noted earlier, the meta-analysis found only 3 surveys with over 1000 surveyed and very few surveyed were from outside a few countries. World population is over 6,000,000,000 and not all of them are psychology students in American colleges.Valois bourbon (talk) 22:44, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Val, do you have any understanding about sampling, or the central limit theorem? Your questions indicate to me that you might be misunderstanding how inferential statistics work. You don't need to sample every person in a population, or even a majority for that matter. All you need is a random sample, at best, and if that's not feasible, you can get away with obtaining representative samples. There are other statistical procedures that can be employed to adjust samples to correct for un-representative samples. A main reason we use statistics is to make generalizations from small samples to large populations based on the idea that on average, samples tend to mimic the population.Briholt (talk) 19:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Signed comment from John Ray

I have removed this because of NOR, etc. Maybe there is a way of including it somehow.

Signed comment from John Ray:

Traditional encyclopedias have signed entries so I hope that nobody here is so rigid as to object to one:

It is admitted above and by Altermeyer himself that RWA has little correlation with conservative voting. Yet my surveys show that it correlates highly with conventional conservatism scales. Odd? Even odder is the RWA correlation with authoritarian behavior. Such correlations are no higher than RWA correlations with vote. But my Directiveness scale DOES correlate highly with authoritarian behavior -- with validation coefficients up to .8. Some contrast with the RWA scale! So how does RWA correlate with the Directiveness scale? Negligibly. So the obvious conclusion seems to be be that the RWA scale measures not any kind of authoritarianism but some kind of politically irrelevant conservatism. I fail to see how that lights anyone's fire.

JR

--75.92.218.187 (talk) 06:16, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Why is it called 'right-wing'

What's up with calling it 'right-wing' authoritarianism? It's not a solely right wing trait. In fact, I could point to many more left-wing authoritarians than right wing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.32.200.175 (talk) 02:07, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The point is not that there are no left-wing authoritarians, it's that there is such a thing as right-wing authoritarianism and reliable sources have written about it, meaning we can have an article on it. If you think there is enough coverage of left-wing authoritarianism in reliable sources, then by all means please write that article. Sincerely, Skomorokh 02:10, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

It's a misnomer, is all. The point is that it's a personality type that correlates with submission to political and religious authorities, conformity to the dominant social group (and hostility towards minorities and outsiders), support for the status quo and opposition to change in it.

In the West, or at least in the U.S. and Canada, that correlates almost exactly with right-wing politics: blind support for the government's military and police arms, opposition to people who want it to help minorities or the poor, support for the established economic order (capitalism), nativist politics, religious fundamentalism, opposition to any social or political change.

As the author points out though, in the Soviet Union or Maoist China that personality type would have (and did) correlated with left-wing politics. The title is a misnomer; "conservative authoritarian" would have probably been a better choice, denoting a person who either supports the status quo or wants a return to what it recently was. But I didn't write the theory. 216.15.41.45 (talk) 14:49, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

@216.15.41.45 you are right as to the authoritarian personalities / politicians in the Socialist bloc. I think Western lefties would be rather ashamed if they realized what message do their Russian 'counterparts' disseminate. In effect, Russian communist movement is close to Western 'right-wing' populists, in that they also promote traditional values (whatever this means), nationalism, a strong state aka great power etc. Western analysts often overlook this, and hence can't really comprehend that the alliance of Sergey Baburin with the communist party in Russia and at the same time his close association with politicians Le Pen in the West are quite natural. --Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 14:57, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Very true.

Kennedy commented on it after the Cuban missile crisis after seeing the behavior of the Joint Chiefs in Washington and that of the Politburo hawks in Moscow. He concluded that the hard-liners in Russia and America reinforced each other, needed each other, and in the end, weren't very different. 216.15.41.45 (talk) 21:48, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Tis indeed a thing that should have been called "Conservative Authoritarian" rather than RWA. Things that right-wing madmen like Le Pen and left-wing madmen like Sergey Baburin and the Russian Communist Party have in common;

• Strong sense of nationalism and militarism, even though the democratic and Marxist ideologies both argue against that.
• Association of that nationalism with the dominant ethno-sectarian group (WASPs in the U.S, white Catholics in France, Russians in Russia) and hostility to immigrants, minorities, and liberals who sympathize with them.
• Virulent anti-intellectualism. From Cultural Revolution-style Maoism to Palin-style Republicanism, RWAs do not like people who sit around and question things, considering them a drag on the system and a source of un-patriotic dissent and confusion.
• Support for the existing political and economic system, whatever that may be. Conservatives are left-wing in communist countries and right-wing in capitalist ones - they couldn't even begin to tell you why, except that since it's the system, it must be right.
• Homophobia. (Ironically, both sides blame homosexuality on the other; Western rightists see it as an abomination encouraged by the left-wing abandonment of Christianity, conservative communists see it as a bourgeois degeneracy).
• Theocratic inclinations. This might seem counter-intuitive given that communists were not religious, but it's not - imposing one religious viewpoint and suppressing all others is the same thing even if that viewpoint is atheism. Communists suppress all non-atheist views, the religious right attempts to do the same to all non-evangelical ones.

In short, RWA personality types correlate with strong military/police states, masculine and socially conservative values, cultural/racial homogeneity, and a knee-jerk rejection of all political change. People like Mikhail Suslov and William F. Buckley may be poles apart ideologically, but in personality might as well be clones of one another. 147.9.203.97 (talk) 17:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Lead?

The lead ought to be rewritten, to indicate that this is a theory/position put forth by an identifiable group of academics. The notion that the political spectrum can be divided along authoritarian-libertarian axis is by no means a majority viewpoint in political science, and this article should not imply that so is the case. --Soman (talk) 13:28, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a psychology article and it represents the majority position among social, political, and personality psychologists, not just a small, restricted group of academics. I am not very familiar with the political science perspective, but it is probably covered at authoritarianism. --Jcbutler (talk) 13:32, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

The claim that authoritarianism should be defined by the Established authorities and we should blindly accept their definition is itself rather authoritarian. I notice that this article makes no mention of Hans Eysenck, who certainly did not find that authoritarianism is exclusively "right wing." Selene —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.222.85.27 (talk) 03:24, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

The intro was somewhat confusing to me, if this is a uniquely psychological term, then psychology should be mentioned in the first sentence. I simply took for granted from the intro that we were talking about left/right distinctions in political sense. --Soman (talk) 15:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point. It mentions "personality" but it should be clearer. --Jcbutler (talk) 16:27, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

great, --Soman (talk) 16:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Changes to Assessment and Criticism sections

Most of the talk has been on the other sections as they are more politically potent perhaps, but I felt that these sections needed updating. There is a current debate in the literature on RWA regarding the scale itself and whether it is a single dimension or more (2 or 3). I have tried to capture this so that readers do not take the current version of the scale as unproblematic and I provide some sources for confirmation and more information on these debates.CannyK (talk) 02:30, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Similarly, there have been recent criticisms of work which uses RWA in the social psychology of religion. Some of these criticisms are quite technical and relate to the use of and interpretation of multiple regression. Nonetheless I have tried to describe these issues in brief as a signpost for a technically interested reader, and have provided a number of references which such readers might find helpful.CannyK (talk) 02:30, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Pro-capitalist authoritarians

This is the part I don't understand. If capitalism is all about freedom, why would authoritarians support it? Simple reasoning suggests that they would be more inclined to support a heavily planned economy.

The only conjecture I can come up with is this: perhaps RWAs somehow understand, consciously or subconsciously, that in a hard-core capitalist system with high levels of inequality and corporate power, the "ruling class" has more leverage to boss the rest of society around. And they end up supporting free-market conservatism because it fosters a hierarchical class structure where the poor and middle classes are compelled to submit to the rules of the ruling class. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karlbonner1982 (talk • contribs) 07:00, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Capitalism isn't about freedom its about money and power. You get it now? Capitalists are only economic liberalists. If someone elses liberty keeps them from making money (for example liberty to form labor organizations, or liberty to not sell certain things) then they are very authoritarian all of a sudden.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:47, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Capitalism merely means that the means of production are privately owned. TFD (talk) 22:38, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Description

Two static IPs with the Lockheed Martin Corporation in Denver, Colorado, have changed the description of the creator of the subject from "Canadian psychologist" to "left-wing psychologist".[2][3] That is not a normal way to describe academics, so I will reverse it. TFD (talk) 11:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Comments

Here are a few critique's of Altermeyer's methodology I found online: [[4]] [[5]] written by a John J. Ray. His observations would make a nice balance to this overwhelmingly biased article. --96.245.18.240 (talk) 02:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

The two cites you provide (thank you) are incredibly old. They make references to methodologies that in Altmeyer's current research has been updated (cf F-scale). I'm not sure they can be considered contemporary criticisms.Briholt (talk) 20:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

"Another kind of personality, the "left-wing authoritarian," submits to authorities who want to overthrow the established authorities. But (perhaps naturally) it is harder to find such people. (Source: Altemeyer, 1996, Chapter 9)." This is pure POV. Has anyone heard of Communism or Jacobin Radicalism during the French Revolution. Those were pure left-wing movements that refused to tolerate right-wing or traditionalist dissent. While there is no doubt right-wing authoritarianism, why doesn't Wikipedia balance it with a study of Left-wing authoritarianism? Altmeyer is a Leftist, and his work is POV. I suggest merging this into a larger article about authoritarianism.

This is a good example of the poor thinking that goes along with RWA. I'll make a copy of it below. The reason it fits is because if you read the full article (which is a response by Altmeyer to a relatively contemporaneous, if not a high quality, criticism of Altmeyer's work) you will see that the point Altmeyer was making is that even with that concepualization, he looked hard and could not find the evidence to support the construct. The article even lists examples of the sort of research he performed to identified the left wing authoritarins. Feel free to read the whole essay: http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_07_17/response.html Briholt (talk) 20:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Another example of poor thinking would be "liberals" thinking that they are still somehow anti-Establishment. Yet you are loyal to the Establishment far more than "right wing radicals." Functionally most "liberals" are now conservatives since they favor the "liberal" status quo. Many defended the Waco debacle which resulted in the deaths of numerous men, women, and children... how is that not authoritarian? 75.222.85.27 (talk) 03:32, 7 March 2011 (UTC)Selene

Were Stalin's or Mao's goals Leftist or Rightist? --96.245.18.240 (talk) 21:39, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

What is the relevance of this question? Briholt (talk) 20:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Because he is a "leftist", if that is even true, his research is automatically POV?! Have you even bothered to read this research? In his books, Altemeyer describes a major effort he made to identify and measure Left Wing Authoritarianism. This was unsuccessful. Also see Stone and Smith's article on this in the book, The Authoritarian Personality Today. They also concluded that authoritarianism is essentially a right-wing phenomenon. I'm not necessarily against cleaning up these articles and possibly even merging some of them, but please, lets stick to the published empirical evidence and avoid throwing our opinions around. Also, something needs to be done about this discussion page. It's a nearly unreadable series of rants and counter rants... --Jcbutler (talk) 22:16, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

To refer to his "research" as science undercuts the credibility of your profession. I don't believe this is "empirical" at all. Don't forget Brezhnev and the Communists used the psychiatric profession to declare their enemies insane because they didn't follow the party line. Doesn't researcher bias preclude data from being accurate? Altmeyer's measurements were purely subjective. It's all semantics. Now tell me if this testimony from this [YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbjp0ertHl4] is an example of right-wing or left-wing authoritarianism. --96.245.18.240 (talk) 00:27, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, science is typically defined by the methods used; Altmeyer's methods are common and accepted forms of research and are consequently considered science. To blithely disparage the work earns your comment to be classified as POV.Briholt (talk) 20:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

"I don't believe" -- Editors' beliefs aren't relevant and article discussion pages are not meant for airing them. -- 70.109.46.5 (talk) 04:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Removed POV challenge because there was no justification given for it in the first place. If you have evidence on par with Altmeyer's that can contradict his work, by all means report it. Briholt (talk) 06:44, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Undid edit to change word perverse back to profound as perverse, although potentially accurate, potentially represents an unnecessary POV. Briholt (talk) 16:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Removed Dr. Fred Bortz's (repeated) inclusion of a link to one of his book reviews on an unrelated subject. --Mrnorwood (talk) 19:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Removed claim of POV from article because no dispute was given for it. If a dispute exists, please articulate it here before altering the article. Briholt (talk) 16:29, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Removed following because both claims are not substantiated with evidence; the jonjayray link appears biased--it appears to just be a book review Briholt (talk) 18:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC) :

The RWA theory has had widespread acceptance but swingeing criticisms of it have also been made in the academic literature. See, for instance, http://jonjayray.tripod.com/alt.html

Removed the following paragraphs because it's unclear as to the relevance of this section. Also, the claim that the correlation is to be expected doesn't necessarily follow; to evaluate that claim one would need to provide more detailed statistics regarding the convergent validity of the measures in addition to a clear list of which items would contribute to this convergence, both of which are beyond the scope of Wikipedia. An alternative paragraph could mention that the overall point in studying RWA is to more clearly articulate the nature and limits of conservatism in general, and that overlap is to be expected. Briholt (talk) 06:28, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Since both the RWA scale and the SDO scale include many items that would normally be taken as indicating conservatism, the correlation between the two scales is to be expected.

(But they don't correlate very well: only about .25.)

Which 'they' do you refer? RWA to SDO? or RWA to conservatism? or SDO to conservatism? Briholt (talk) 06:28, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Explicity referring to a group as "homophobic" and "racist" with "profound character flaws" and "prejudiced beliefs" is a clear violation of the NPOV policy. DanBishop 03:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

No, you are wrong. This is exactly what the theory states. The theory uses terms such as "homophobic" and "racist." The theory is a legitimate, academic theory. This article accurately describes the theory. To claim that describing anyone as homophobic or racist amounts to some sort of personal attack or NPOV violation eliminates the potential usage of these terms when they are legitimately needed. The theory is a real academic theory with solid experimental evidence behind it. The theory is not meant to attack people. And this article accurately and objectively describes the theory. As anyone who has ever studied free speech or libel law/ would know, it isn't a personal attack if the claim is true.RomanHistorian 04:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

"a clear violation of the NPOV policy" it's no such thing, and there is nothing in the NPOV policy pages to spport that claim. What is clear is that you don't understand what "NPOV" means, because it doesn't come anywhere near touching such assertions. -- 70.109.46.5 (talk) 05:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

This material seems to be taken directly from behavioral psychologist Bob Altemeyer's book "The Authoritarian Specter," which is a compendium of 30 years of research into this behavior. It does not appear biased.

I think that as a general subject area, the study of prejudice is biased against right-wing people because the majority of the research is done by left-wing individuals, often radical left wing (eg Jim Sidanius is a former Black Panther). I think it it wouldn't be impossible to make the article NPOV, but too much work for me right now; I should finish my Masters thesis (on SDO and RWA) first. Ppe42 22:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Altemeyer makes clear that "Right Wing" Authoritarianism has little if anything to do with right or left politics. Under the theory, extremists on the left are classified as Right-Wing Authoritarians just as easily as extremists on the right. Altemeyer makes clear that traits of RWAs, such as being highly prejudiced, are not traits of right wing politics (think of Barry Goldwater), but rather of extremists politics.RomanHistorian 04:54, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I've provided a cite which can be used to bring some neutrality (or refutation) into this article. Intangible 19:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The citation can be misleading, as it refers to Adorno's model, which Altemeyer rejected on empirical grounds before developing his own model, based on a subset of the factors identified by Adorno, which were the only parts of Adorno's model he could empirically confirm. I believe it's a good idea to provide it, but as novice wikipedia editor--this is my first talk entry--I am unsure about how best to clarify this. Paul Rosenberg 03 August

This argument is an example of the genetic fallacy. It is commonplace across many areas for people to study something--a disease, a type of natural disaster, a social or psychological condition, etc.--that has affected them personally, or which they see as threatening. Work must be judged by scholarly disciplinary standards, not by biography. In point of fact, Altemeyer's own work--which he explains in detail in his three books--lead to rejection of both "left-leaning" and "right-leaning" theories, if one wants to go down that path of characterization. He empirically rejected both Adorno's original model, and later hypotheses that authoritarianism was equally present on the left. However, this is not an ideological finding. Altemeyer includes information about high-RWA Communists in the old Soviet Union supporting the Communist government. Thus, it is not an ideological measure, but a social psychological one. (The same would presumably have been true of SDO, despite the Communists' egalitarian lip-service.) I have added text to this effect to the main entry. Paul Rosenberg 03 August

"I think that" -- The opinions of editors aren't relevant. And consider that most studies of sociopathy are by people who aren't sociopaths, most studies of intelligence are by people who have IQs over 100, etc. ... this alone does not imply bias. In the case of a correlation between right wingers, not finding one would be suspect. 70.109.46.5 (talk) 05:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I have added some edits intended to make this more neutral. Your response is appreciated. I have tried to make it clear that the page is explaining what the authors of RWA theory hold to be true, rather than defining Wikipedians take on the world (which would be, of course, undefined). Opposing theories are appropriately discussed in a topic, but should not overwhelm the primary topic. Larger discussions of opposing theories would be covered on pages dedicated to them, and those pages should be linked to from this topic. Reportica

This article looks really POV to me as it lables anyone who is right of centre or conservative as racist, homophobe or conflict causing agressors (which is not the case). I think this article should be deleted or completely rewritten. The bias present in this article doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. If I hear the word Right-wing authoritarianism I think about I right-wing dictatorship, and not about a social or psychological theory. The title of this article is therefore highly misleading. --84.26.109.69 21:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the wording is a bit too much, but the ideas are spot on. Besides, as Reportica stated, these are clearly stated to be ideas from a book, not necessarily "fact." Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 04:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

RWA has been subject to nearly 40 years of empirical testing. You don't get much more "fact" than that. If string theory had this sort of confirmation behind it, there'd be some Nobel Prizes in order.

OTOH, efforts to bring "balance" into this article have introduced a lot of editorializing. That is why I have deleted the following two paragraphs from the section "Connection with Social Dominance Orientation":

The congruence between the SDO and RWA scale is however hardly surprising. Both scales are primarily catalogues of old-fashioned conservative attitudes that very few conservatives today would assent to, though many continue to display (e.g. George Allen, David Duke, Tramm Hudson, Trent Lott's Council of Conservative Citizens, support for racial profiling, etc.).

A catalogue of what Leftists believed in the 1930s (eugenics etc.) would sound equally peculiar today, however during the American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) President Lyndon Baines Johnson purged the high-RWA components from the Democratic Party creating the RWA disparity still discernable today.

The first paragraph is simply false. Those who score high on these scales DO assent to the attitudes the scales measure. (Also, it's not "Trent Lott's Council of Conservative Citizens." THAT is careless and inaccurate wording that DOES constitute bias.)

The second paragraph is partly false, partly misleading, and partly historically confused. Eugenics was embraced by a wide range of people in the early 1900s, but I've never seen any evidence that leftists were particularly prone to support it. Johnson didn't purge anyone from the Democratic Party. Racists DID leave the party in large numbers, but that was voluntary on their part, and happened gradually over time.

I also removed the following paragraph from the "History of the RWA Theory" section, as it is both out of place, and based on a complete misunderstanding and mischaracterization of Altemeyer's work:

Detractors contend Altemeyer's approach is a rather idiosyncratic one. They point out that Altemeyer also did a study of Left Wing Authoritarians (LWA) and could find no Left Wing Authoritarians in Canada. They argue that Canadians who have suffered pernicious effects of Canada's ban on private medicine would be surprised by his findings.

LWA is an empirical construct in parallel with RWA. It substitutes support for anti-establishment, revolutionary leadership in place of support for established authorities, but retains the authoritarian submission and aggression. While Altemeyer found many people who scored over 50% on the RWA scale, he found NONE who scored over 50% on the LWA. There is nothing idiosyncratic about this. It is a perfectly balanced approach. And it has nothing to do with Canada's health care system. The author of this "balancing" passage is merely adding confusion and obfuscation from a conservative POV as "balance" for inconvenient empirical research. Paul Rosenberg 26 Sept

The criticism from Sept 9 is based on careless reading: "This article looks really POV to me as it lables anyone who is right of centre or conservative as racist, homophobe or conflict causing agressors (which is not the case)." This is simply false. The article ACTUALLY states, "RWAs are more likely to: 'Be conservative/Reform party (Canada) or Republican Party (United States) lawmakers who...'" That's ARE MORE LIKELY TO. And that's what THE RESEARCH shows. The article also notes that high RWAs in the former Soviet Union supported the Communist government. (I have just strengthed this section to make it clear that this was not just a prediction, but a confirmed finding.)

Rather than trying to "balance" 40 or so years of empirical research with rightwing spin, and creating a muddled picture of RWA itself, it would be preferrable to create a separate section discussing the criticisms--which should ALSO make it clear that these criticisms are NOT based on empirical research. Paul Rosenberg 26 Sept

Possibly including example RWA test questions and noting the high-RWA answers vs the low-RWA answers may help clear up the debate. As Paul Rosenberg previously commented, it IS (as far as I understand it) basically a test of "Both scales are primarily catalogues of old-fashioned conservative attitudes" (though in the early 1900s, those views may have been considered "progressive," as the labels seem to have flipped ideologies in the ensuing century). Thus, people who hold those "old-fashioned conservative attitudes" will score highly on RWA, a name defined by a scientific correlation, not a "liberal bias."

Starting the article with something like "People who answer affirmatively to these questions (example RWA test questions here), are considered high in RWA. The name was inspired by the fact that people who score highly on this test are traditionally hold authoritarian right wing political views (in the US, where the idea began), and is based on the correlation between political views and test scores, not any political bias." MyOwnLittlWorld - Nov 17, 2006

I agree with the folks above who defended RWA as an empirical issue. It's just a fact that this pattern of thoughts and behavior correlates on the right rather than on the left. Left-wingers can be dogmatic and biased, but there doesn't seem to be a left-wing authoritarian, at least not that anyone can find. One point I would make about this article, however, is that the correlations section could be detailed with more empirical content, rather than the somewhat vague labels that do appear POV at first glance. It would also be nice to see some rigorous referencing here. Jcbutler 16:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow, this whole article is nothing but hate speech that promotes a single person's bias and works. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.223.53.122 (talk) 21:02, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The article is not biased. It accurately describes a legitimate academic theory. The theory is legitimate, backed up by objective experimental evidence. This article objectively describes the theory. It isn't a personal attack if the claim is true.RomanHistorian 04:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

That's rich. Especially from a person that authors a blog for the Dail Kos. A known leftist, goverernment-hating, communistic safehold. That's not biased is it??? Because that is certainly true.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.246.128.158 (talk) 02:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

For someone so incensed by this page, you're a perfect example of what it's talking about. Why don't you go read up on the research behind this and make an argument instead of regurgitating misinformation and making personal attacks? -205.174.62.76 19:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"Especially from a person that authors a blog for the Dail Kos." -- Ad hominem. "A known leftist" -- The site is certainly left of center, but that doesn't imply anything about any individual with a blog there. And what's wrong with being left of center? You're right of center ... is only that allowed? If you are capable of making neutral, objective factual statements (which, I admit, is open to question), then surely so are people with blogs at Daily Kos. "goverernment-hating" -- in the U.S., hatred for the government is mostly a right wing stance. People at Daily Kos are mostly, but not all, statist. "communistic" -- probably not in the sense that you conceive of that, if your conception goes beyond a bogeyman. "safehold" -- it's just a discussion board, like Stormfront or Free Republic or other places you prefer to hang out at. "That's not biased is it???" -- What is "that"? Your statement is clearly biased. Whether DailyKos is "biased" is irrelevant. "Because that is certainly true.."-- No, actually, it's loony right wing crackpottery. -- 70.109.46.5 (talk) 05:26, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not denying this theory ,it is legitimate. But the problem is we don't see articles about authority problems or disorders linked to this.I ran some searches and came up with nothing.

Perhaps you could be more clear in what you mean by authority problems/disorders. As stated, I'm not sure why it's relevant to topic of RWA. also, don't forget to sign your posts.Briholt (talk) 02:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

It is amusing that an almost exact copy of this article, titled "left wing authoritarianism" and with Ann Coulter cited drew widespread howls and was immediately deleted from Wikipedia as "hate speech" and "the opinion of one person" while this is defended as "legitimate academic theory". Just yet another reason why wikipedia will *never* be considered a valid research source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.223.70.81 (talk) 17:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

A fake article about fake research should certainly be deleted. -- 70.109.46.5 (talk) 05:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/RWA--rightwing_authoritarianism

This article on the "daily kos" pedia.

Of course you wont see anything about the libertarianism "Personality disorder"

Can anyone direct me to one?

No because it hasn't been demonstrated to be a useful construct, and therefore, does not exist. Should such a construct be articulated and tested for it's usefulness, it could earn it's own wikipage and place in academic research. Briholt 20:28, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

There will not be one, because rejecting all authority is seen as normal behavior under the libs, I guess.

This serves as a good example of faulty reasoning to reinforce one's belief system. The best one could claim is that MOST liberals (certainly not all) would recommend QUESTIONING all authority.Briholt (talk) 02:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

In the U.S, rejecting the legitimacy of government is largely a right wing stance, characterized by Grover Norquist's "I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub" and his "no taxes" pledge signed by most Republicans in Congress. Liberals, OTOH, are vilified in many right wing quarters as "statist". -- 70.109.46.5 (talk)

Political ideologies

It has been suggested that some political sidebars be added, with user Finsternish suggesting that since RWA seems to relate to Umberto Eco's description of fascism, it should be linked. While I would agree that RWA seems to relate t Eco's definition, Eco's definition is not the only one and fascism seems to be a lot more than just obedience to authorities. In addition, RWA could easily be linked to ideologies such as Stalinism (indeed Bob Altemyer suspected many communists would be quite authoritarian). Lastly, the page is mainly about a psychological phenomenon as opposed to be a political one and I think that linking it in with fascism is overstepping the boundaries too much - the fascism sidebar mainly focuses on politics rather than psychology.Sdio7 (talk) 20:50, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Religious reason and prohibitions in Right-wing politics

I am trying to determine the underlying causes for the re-emergence of ultra-conservative right-wing movements, especially across Europe following the Austerity decades of the early 20th century. This may perhaps also inform the political philosophy behind many other profoundly religious and dictatorial-military regimes.

To that end I have started a draft document user-page here > User:Timpo/Religious_reason_and_prohibitions_in_Right-wing_politics with a section concentrating on Religion as a successful survival strategy. Please feel free to add your comments and contributions to the talk page Regards, Timpo (talk) 10:30, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

"Right-wing"?

Are you sure this is the accurate term? Qua the opening of the article:

"Right-wing authoritarians are people who have a high degree of willingness to submit to authorities they perceive as established and legitimate, who adhere to societal conventions and norms, and who are hostile and punitive in their attitudes towards people who don't adhere to them. They value uniformity and are in favour of using group authority, including coercion, to achieve it."

With their emphasis on state power, suppression of free speech and criticism of authority figures, that sounds like an objectively more appropriate description of modern liberals. --Morgenstern91 (talk) 14:57, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Is this a question or an editorial? This is the accurate term; this is what the variable is called by political scientists. It doesn't necessarily imply right-wing views, but statistically speaking, it's highly correlated with them and inversely correlated with liberal views. Finsternish (talk) 04:35, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

The article says, "Right-wing authoritarians are people who have a high degree of willingness to submit to authorities they perceive as established and legitimate, who adhere to societal conventions and norms and who are hostile and punitive in their attitudes towards people who do not adhere to them." This would fit some people of ANTIFA and other left wingers. Finsterish defends this, saying, "this is what the variable is called by political scientists." Then we need a citation!! If this is true about the usage of political sceintists, then this is another case of a term that the public understand one way but academics understand another way. This inevitably leads to confusion, with the academics usually prevailing on Wikipedia because the public does not generate publications to cite.Pete unseth (talk) 19:24, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

antifa do not generally "adhere adhere to societal conventions and norms," nor are they right-wing. If they are authoritarian, they would more likely be left-wing authoritarians, which is mentioned already in this article. Whether or not they fit that label though is something better discussed in another article. TFD (talk) 19:33, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Certain editors repeatedly erase sampling methods

Certain editors seem to erase any mention of sampling methods in respective surveys.

It is utmost importance that these studies were typically surveys of 10-100 American psychology students in liberal arts colleges.

However, the world's population has a radically different profile (i.e. not everyone is psychology student or westerners) and the world population amounts to over 6,500,000,000 people. Zeros are here just in case someone does not understand how big the world is.

The censorship of sampling methods makes this article not just non-encyclopedic, but mostly garbage. Chinese blue-collar workers and peasants make a fifth of world population, yet studies focus on U.S. psychology students and have sample sizes smaller than in pseudoscience. It must be mentioned.Valois bourbon (talk) 17:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Please someone restore sampling methods or contact Wikipedia administrations to enforce Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Let the facts speak for themselves, Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Attributing and substantiating biased statements, Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Anglo-American focus and systematic bias, and Wikipedia:Controversial_articles.Valois bourbon (talk) 17:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I challenge you to find me a study with only 10 participants. Most of the samples used in RWA research are quite respectable, and some of them are even large and representative of their populations (admittedly, primarily North American and European). The fact that studies find the same pattern over and over again, as shown in the meta-analysis, and the absence of disconfirming data, is evidence of the generality of the results. This is an issue of external validity and cross-cultural generalization, not whether or not the results are "garbage." Your hostile tone and your other edits indicate to me that you have a political agenda and are not "letting the facts speak for themselves." I don't think this article is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies and I invite any administrators to provide their input and guidance. --Jcbutler (talk) 18:35, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Not primarily, solely. The cross-review you cited did not find a single survey outside these few countries. 3503 American college students is the largest survey ever according to your paper and it's the only published paper with over 1000. You don't need to have passed statistics course to see that it is not representative even for the United States (not all of 300,000,000 American are students), let alone other countries.

actually, if you know anything about statistics and sampling, it does not take as many subjects as you are suggesting to have a reasonable estimate of a population at large. Granted, this depends on who and how they are sampled, but those methods are reviewed and criticized by peers as as a condition of publication. 3500 students is a massive sample and would be very informative about the population.Briholt (talk) 19:01, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

If you have no problems with "left the facts speak for themselves", insert the sample group of each study you refer to. Currently, the article refers to surveys of 68 and 82 American psychology students.

It sounds to me as political agenda if you systematically erase citations of sample groups. Valois bourbon (talk) 18:53, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Val, I don't buy the idea that every study cited on Wikipedia needs to have sampling details. I do agree that we need to be more clear of the limited geographical distribution of the RWA research, though unfortunately, that criticism applies to the majority of psychological research. By the way, we should probably add South Africa and New Zealand to the list (did you notice where Sibley and Duckitt are from?), though you could claim that those samples are also Euro-centered. Samples from Asia are definitely needed. --Jcbutler (talk) 19:13, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has WP:SUBSTANTIATE policy. When citing sources, editors should specify who claims what.

Also, modifying the original claim (e.g. "we found evidence that the survey group sought dominance" -> "authoritarians seek dominance") is not very encyclopedic.

Valois bourbon (talk) 09:10, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

And here is what the article (WP RWA) actually says: "Both at the individual level and the societal level, authoritarianism was correlated with vertical individualism (or dominance seeking) and vertical or hierarchical collectivism, which is the tendency to submit to the demands of one's ingroup." This is a faithful summary of the researchers' findings, paraphrased directly from their conclusions. I inserted definitions of vertical individualism and vertical collectivism because most readers will not be familiar with these concepts. If you think I've misrepresented anything, say so, and please state your source. As for the WP:SUBSTANTIATE policy, the references clearly specify who is making the claim, i.e. the original author of the source. Valois, I want to thank you for your edits to this article. Even though I've argued that they were inappropriate, they did inspire some improvements that have hopefully made this a better article than it was. --Jcbutler (talk) 15:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

It is a constant issue in American questionnaire-based studies that they use the handiest group for academics to sample: college studies. In many important ways, college students do not represent the population at large. Many of them have not worked a full-time job for four months, paid off a debt, signed a lease, fed a baby in the middle of the night. Their thinking is still largely molded by theories they have been told, but have not yet had time and circumstances to think deeply about these ideas. They are not a valid sample for many topics. Telling readers about the sampled group is important. Pete unseth (talk) 16:56, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Percent 20 to 25 authoritarian

There was a recent edit made by Kurzon thar suggested that 20 to 25 percent of americans are likely authoritarian. I see that it is sourced to a claim by Altmeyer, but does anybody suspect it is not a supported claim from Altmeyer? From the sourced quote, he simply refers to dogmatic and close minded people. Is this anecdotal and then related to authoritarianism, or is there actual evidence? SciphiTekia (talk) 16:46, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

We need a better source than John Dean quoting what Altemeyer told him. IIRC, research showed that about 18% of Americans and citizens of other Western nations were RWA. While Altemeyer may guess rightly or wrongly that the figure in the U.S. is now higher, we would need stronger sourcing to make the claim. The estimate that a third of the population was RWA would seem far too high. In 2020, Trump received only 31% of the eligible vote. That would mean that all of them were RWA. TFD (talk) 17:16, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree except for possibly that last 2 lines. I'm not sure if it's a supported generalization to say that all Trump voters are RWA. This would be hasty. There is likely a correlation between RWA and Trump vote but to say that all Trump voters are RWA implies a perfect correlation which is unsupported SciphiTekia (talk) 12:54, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Since there are many factors that could lead to a Trump vote rather than psychology (perhaps voting for character or information/misinformation, demographics, etc.) SciphiTekia (talk) 12:55, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I find it odd that voters for a candidate are seen as so shallow, choosing based on psychology, character or information/misinformation, demographics. I think many voters in any election consider a candidate's policies. To simply view voters as demographic or psychological blocks is insulting to the voters. Did only Black voters vote for Obama? Did only White voters vote for Trump? Reality is more complex (and fun!) than political categories. Pete unseth (talk) 16:47, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

In fact the major determinants for how people vote has been factors such as class, region, religion, ethnicity, gender, education. That's because political parties have attempted to represent specific demographic groups. Blacks in the U.S. for example perceive Democrats as better representing their interests and vote for them overwhelmingly. Only a minority of voters are motivated by psychological factors. For example, someone who otherwise would be a Democrat might vote Republican because of the abortion issue. The concept of the authoritarian personality was originally developed to explain why some voters don't vote as their demographics would predict.TFD (talk) 17:04, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I didn't say that all Trump voters were RWA, I said that all of them would have to be RWA in order for the figure of 30% to be accurate. So that makes the original figure of 18% more realistic.TFD (talk) 15:05, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Oh, okay, my bad. I misinterpreted what you said SciphiTekia (talk) 16:25, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

@Pete unseth, sorry I dont know how to reply to specific person on phone.

I was using demographics and stuff as examples to push my point, which you agree, that voters are complex. I certainly didnt mean to imply the factors I listed were comprehensive SciphiTekia (talk) 17:26, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Sure, voters are complex. That's why concepts such as RWA are helpful in understanding them. TFD (talk) 17:31, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I think theres some confusion, I'm trying to reply to two people lol. I was saying to @Pete unseth that voters are complex, but I agree with @TCD that RWA is useful. I do not believe these are mutually exclusive. I apologize for the confusion, I'm not sure how to individually reply to someone on the phone SciphiTekia (talk) 17:38, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Left-wing authoritarianism

I see the guy who came up with the term right-wing authoritarianism has also now come up with left-wing authoritarianism. The terminology, I think, causes needless confusion. Right-wing authoritarians are simply authoritarians in the name of the establishment or perceived traditional authority; this allowed him to define Communist hardliners in the Soviet Union as right-wing authoritarians. Left-wing authoritarians simply want to overthrow the existing establishment and replace it with a new, revolutionary authority. This doesn't match well with popular understandings of the terms left-wing and right-wing. Anyway since his research showed that many relatively left-wing authoritarians were also elevated on right-wing authoritarianism and since he found that similar concepts applied to left-wing authoritarianism as to right-wing authoritarianism (the only difference being the authority submitted to), it may be best just to turn this into an article on the psychological study of authoritarianism as a personality construct.--NeantHumain (talk) 20:34, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, it's a misnomer. He's not talking about political systems, he's talking about attitudes towards the system whether it's right-wing or left-wing. Conservative authoritarian and progressive authoritarian would be more like it, or reactionary and radical. But again, we didn't write the theory... 216.15.41.45 (talk) 14:29, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see how it is a misnomer. If there is a misnomer, then it is the identification of American political parties. Conservatism is about supporting the status quo. Right-wing politics is about supporting traditional or cultural values. Either word could be used to describe this research, but perhaps conservatism would be more apt. Either way, "the guy who came up with the term" used right-wing, and not in a novel way. NeantHumain's "Communist hardliners" are definitely conservatives and most likely right-wing (depending on the year, perhaps). Neither Right-Wing nor Conservatism is a word that means Republican, or Democrat, or any specific instance of a political belief. These words are not interchangeable. 65.121.28.16 (talk) 21:29, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I am surpirsed that this article has elicited no feedback at all. It reeks of the Stalinesque use of psuedo-science to promote politically correct thought and speech. It is tendencious and self-affirming in its entirety and merely a vacuous attack on conservative/libertarian politics. It surprises me not at all that this tripe emanates from the petri dish called UC Berkeley, a school long past its intellectual prime. However, it is clear that this is the type of thinking that has come to guide the agendists of academia, the main stream media, and lemming-like leftist America. Sad, very sad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qbones (talk • contribs) 16:12, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. TFD (talk) 16:18, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Although maybe that rant could be copied into the main article, as an example of exactly the sort of knee-jerk anti-intellectualism that characterizes RWAs :) Wardog (talk) 13:32, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Since the Establishment is now "liberal" more than "conservative," among other things, it's clear that Altmeyer's approach is, at best, out of date. 75.222.85.27 (talk) 03:45, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Why there is not a "left-wing authoritarianism" article, that's just not fair and I'm not speaking it because of my political positions, I think that there must be or a "left-wing authoritarianism" article or "right-wing authoritarianism" article must not exist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.27.230.192 (talk) 13:39, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Needs to be adjusted for new research out of Emory University: Clarifying the Structure and Nature of Left-wing Authoritarianism

“ In the present studies, we inves- tigate 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 meas- ure and data-driven conceptualization of LWA across six samples (N = 7,258) and conduct quantitative tests of LWA’s relations with over 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 au- thoritarianism.” Pbj224 (talk) 06:21, 1 December 2021 (UTC)