Concept and origins
Adorno and colleagues (1950) studied the authoritarian personality to identify people prone to supporting fascism, but their psychoanalytic explanations and measures drew heavy criticism. Altemeyer (1981) refined this work and defined right-wing authoritarianism as three covarying attitude clusters: submission to authority; aggression toward targets that authorities deem legitimate, such as deviants or minorities; and conventionalism, the desire to uphold social conventions and traditions. He saw these not as a fixed personality type but as attitudes formed through social learning.
Threat and prejudice
Duckitt's (2001) dual-process model holds that a worldview of the world as dangerous and threatening raises motives for order and security, leading to RWA. Social dominance orientation, from social dominance theory, is instead linked to seeing the world as a competitive jungle. Duckitt and Sibley (2007) showed that RWA better predicts prejudice toward groups seen as threatening social norms, while social dominance orientation better predicts prejudice toward low-status groups. In Sibley and Duckitt's (2008) meta-analysis both were strong predictors of prejudice. Feldman (2003) reinterpreted authoritarianism as a value conflict between social conformity and personal autonomy.
Measurement and critiques
Funke (2005) noted that many items on Altemeyer's scale combine two or three components in one sentence, making the components hard to measure separately. Critics also note that items reflect conservative issues of a particular era and society, so their meaning can shift as politics change. Debate continues over whether left-wing authoritarianism exists. Even so, RWA is widely used as a key variable explaining populism, opposition to immigration and political attitudes under threat.
FAQ
- What is right-wing authoritarianism in simple terms?
- A tendency combining readiness to obey authority, harshness toward people authorities condemn and a desire to preserve tradition and convention.
- Does right-wing refer to a political party?
- No. It has the psychological meaning of following established authority in a society and is not the same as party support.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26
References
- Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper & Brothers. The classic origin of authoritarianism research.
- Altemeyer, B. (1981). Right-Wing Authoritarianism. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. Defines RWA's three clusters and introduces the scale.
- Duckitt, J. (2001). A dual-process cognitive-motivational theory of ideology and prejudice. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 33, 41–113. The dual-process model linking threat worldviews to RWA.
- Feldman, S. (2003). Enforcing social conformity: A theory of authoritarianism. Political Psychology, 24(1), 41–74. Recasts authoritarianism as a conformity–autonomy value conflict.
- Funke, F. (2005). The dimensionality of right-wing authoritarianism: Lessons from the dilemma between theory and measurement. Political Psychology, 26(2), 195–218. On the multidimensionality of RWA measurement.
- Duckitt, J., & Sibley, C. G. (2007). Right wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation and the dimensions of generalized prejudice. European Journal of Personality, 21(2), 113–130. RWA and SDO predict different dimensions of prejudice.
- Sibley, C. G., & Duckitt, J. (2008). Personality and prejudice: A meta-analysis and theoretical review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12(3), 248–279. A meta-analysis of personality, RWA, SDO and prejudice.