TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2021//
TI  - Clarifying the structure and nature of left-wing authoritarianism
JO  - Journal of personality and social psychology
A1  - Costello, Thomas H.
A1  - Bowes, Shauna M.
A1  - Stevens, Sean T.
A1  - Waldman, Irwin D.
A1  - Tasimi, Arber
A1  - Lilienfeld, Scott O.
SP  - ePub
EP  - ePub
VL  - ePub
IS  - ePub
N2  - Authoritarianism has been the subject of scientific inquiry for nearly a century, yet the vast majority of authoritarianism research has focused on right-wing authoritarianism. In the present studies, we investigate the nature, structure, and nomological network of left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), a construct famously known as "the Loch Ness Monster" of political psychology. We iteratively construct a measure and data-driven conceptualization of LWA across six samples (N = 7,258) and conduct quantitative tests of LWA's relations with more than 60 authoritarianism-related variables. We find that LWA, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation reflect a shared constellation of personality traits, cognitive features, beliefs, and motivational values that might be considered the "heart" of authoritarianism. Relative to right-wing authoritarians, left-wing authoritarians were lower in dogmatism and cognitive rigidity, higher in negative emotionality, and expressed stronger support for a political system with substantial centralized state control. Our results also indicate that LWA powerfully predicts behavioral aggression and is strongly correlated with participation in political violence. We conclude that a movement away from exclusively right-wing conceptualizations of authoritarianism may be required to illuminate authoritarianism's central features, conceptual breadth, and psychological appeal. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0022-3514
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000341
ID  - ref1
ER  -