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The right-wing authoritarianism scale measures the degree to which people defer to established authorities, show aggression toward out-groups when authorities sanction that aggression, and support traditional values endorsed by authorities.
Are there individual differences in the support of anti-democratic governmental actions which are general enough across situations that we ignore them at our scientific and social peril? That is, given that everyone submits to established authority to some extent, and certain situations will make most of us highly submissive, is it meaningful to talk about ‘authoritarian people’? Are there some people who are so generally submissive to established authority that it is scientifically useful to speak of ‘authoritarians’?
(Altemeyer 1981, p. 7)
The aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust was rife with questions as to the nature of bigotry, and scientific inquiry into these...
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References
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Saunders, B.A., Ngo, J. (2017). The Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1262-1
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