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| − | ==Overview==
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| − | [[category:books]]''[[The Authoritarians]]'' is a book written by retiring University of Manitoba professor [[Bob Altemeyer]] and published solely [http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ online] in PDF format, available for free download. (The PDFs are compatible with KGhostView and KPDF, although the footnote links did not work in KGhostView.)
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| − | The book is about what it calls "Right Wing Authoritarianism", or "RWA" for short; individuals and groups exhibit varying degrees of this as a personality trait (in two specific dimensions: "follower" intensity and "leader" intensity), and are correspondingly referred to as "high-RWA" or "low-RWA" where they have unusually high or low levels of it in either of these dimensions (the dimension is generally also specified, though "follower" seems to be the default if it is not).
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| − | ===Notes on Authoritarianism===
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| − | ====authoritarian followers====
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| − | '''Followers''' score highly on:
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| − | * <i>The Right-Wing Authoritarianism</i> scale (RWA) (Chapter 1)
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| − | * Could be ~26% of US public (see footnote 9 chapter 3)
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| − | '''Followers''' are:
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| − | * Submissive to established, legitimate Authorities in their society
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| − | ** Scored low on <i>Illegal Government Wiretap Seriousness</i> test
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| − | ** Favoured the <i>Repeal Bill of Rights letter</i>
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| − | * Highly aggressive on behalf of those Authorities
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| − | ** Longer Sentences for the <i>Punishment of Mr Smith</i>
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| − | * Self-Righteous
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| − | ** Score highly on the <i>Predijuce</i> test
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| − | * Fearful
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| − | ** Score highly on the <i>Posse</i> test
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| − | * Highly Conventional
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| − | ** Score highly on the <i>Dangerous World</i> test
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| − | ** Score highly on the <i>Young People Notion</i> test
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| − | ** Performed poorly on the <i>Global Change Game</i>
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| − | ** Score low on the <i>Experiences</i> Scale (Chapter 2)
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| − | * Illogical, uncritical Thinkers
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| − | ** Less independent on the <i>Existence of God decision</i> test (Chapter 3)
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| − | * Have Highly Compartmentalized Minds
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| − | ** Believed that [[US justifications for invading Iraq|US found weapons of Mass Destruction within Iraq]]
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| − | * Exhibit Double Standards
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| − | ** Show Double standard on the <i>Trials Case</i> test
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| − | * Hypocritical
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| − | ** Score highly on the <i>Censorship</i> Quiz
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| − | * Un-Self-Reflective
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| − | * Profoundly Ethnocentric
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| − | ** Score highly on the <i>Group Loyality</i> Quiz
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| − | * Dogmatic
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| − | ** Score highly on the <i>Dogmatic</i> (DOG) Scale
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| − | ====authoritarian leaders====
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| − | '''Leaders''' score highly on the:
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| − | * <i>Social Dominance Orientation</i> scale Chapter 5
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| − | * Weak correlation with the <i>RWA</i> scale
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| − | ** ''(which is why they are more like separate dimensions)''
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| − | '''Leaders''' are:
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| − | * More prejudiced than followers
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| − | * Desire power
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| − | ** Score highly on the <i>Personal Power, Meanness, and Dominance Scale</i> (MAD)
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| − | * Intimidating, Ruthless, Vengeful, Religious Pretense, Little Empathy
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| − | ** Score highly on The <i>Exploitive Manipulative Amoral Dishonesty</i> Scale (Exploitive-MAD)
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| − | * Dislike Equality
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| − | ** Score highly on the <i>Against Equality</i> test
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| − | * "Lethal Union" with Authoritarian in power, RWA following.
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| − | ====double-high authoritarians====
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| − | '''Double-Highs''' score highly on both "follower" and "leader" scales:
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| − | * <i>The Right-Wing Authoritarianism</i> scale (RWA) Chapter 1
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| − | * <i>Social Dominance Orientation scale</i> Chapter 5
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| − | * 5-10% of Authoritarian Leaders are Double Highs
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| − | '''Double Highs''' are:
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| − | * Worst of the lot - Score "worst" on all scales
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| − | ** Score highly on The <i>Exploitive Manipulative Amoral Dishonesty</i> Scale
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| − | ** Score highly on the <i>"Militia"</i> scale
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| − | * Most prejudice
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| − | ** Very high on the <i>Prejudice test</i>
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| − | * Best chance of attracting RWA followers
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| − | ** Together performed badly on the <i>Global Change Game</i>
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| − | *** planet reliably reduced to radioactive wasteland
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| − | ** Overreach on power and domination
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| − | ====religious fundamentalists====
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| − | '''Religious Fundamentalists''' score highly on the
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| − | * <i>Religious Fundamentalism</i> scale (Chapter 4)
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| − | * Solid Majority are RWA (followers?)
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| − | * Correlated .47 with <i>Dangerous World</i>
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| − | * Correlated .61 on <i>"Liberal--Conservatism"</i> Scale
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| − | '''Religious Fundamentalists''' are:
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| − | * [[Evangelical]]
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| − | ** Most are classified as Evangelical by the <i>Evangelical Test</i>
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| − | * Religiously intolerant
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| − | ** Score highly on the <i>Religious Ethnocentrism</i> scale
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| − | * Illogical, uncritical Thinkers, Compartmentalized minds, Double standards, Hypocritical, Dogmatic, Selective Ignorance
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| − | ** Correlated .62 with <i>Dogmatic</i> Scale
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| − | ** <i>School Prayer: Majority Rights, unless...</i> test
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| − | ** Selective Ignorance on [[Evolution]]
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| − | ** <i>The [[Bible]] is always right, unless...</i> test
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| − | * Little belief in Scientific Method
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| − | * Happy
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| − | * Zealots
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| − | ** Score highly on the <i>Zealot</i> scale
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| − | * Less Guilt
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| − | ** Have cheap grace on the <i>Guilt resolution</i> test
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| − | * Bible read
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| − | ** Scored only 60% on easy <i>Bible</i> Quiz
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| − | ** Read on average about 20 books of the bible 1/3 of total
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| − | |}
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| | ==Links to the Book (complete)== | | ==Links to the Book (complete)== |
| | :* Introduction (best to read this first) | | :* Introduction (best to read this first) |
nzkotsxe tezruobcp ygdmhqt scuhp qhgvnucos pjlkbnqhc ptjmflzds
Links to the Book (complete)
- Introduction (best to read this first)
- Who Are the Authoritarian Followers?
- The Roots of Authoritarian Aggression, and Authoritarianism Itself
- How Authoritarian Followers Think
- Authoritarian Followers and Religious Fundamentalism
- Authoritarian Leaders
- Authoritarianism and Politics
- What's To Be Done?
Terminology
Chapter 1 explains the reason for the word "Right" (in "Right Wing Authoritarian") in relation to the "high degree of submission to the established, legitimate authorities in their society" exhibited by authoritarian followers:
| Chapter 1 of The Authoritarians says:
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Because the submission occurs to traditional authority, I call these followers right-wing authoritarians. I'm using the word "right" in one of its earliest meanings, for in Old English "riht"(pronounced "writ") as an adjective meant lawful, proper, correct, doing what the authorities said.
In North America people who submit to the established authorities to extraordinary degrees often turn out to be political conservatives, so you can call them "right-wingers" both in my new-fangled psychological sense and in the usual political sense as well. But someone who lived in a country long ruled by Communists and who ardently supported the Communist Party would also be one of my psychological right-wing authoritarians even though we would also say he was a political left-winger. So a right-wing authoritarian follower doesn’t necessarily have conservative political views. Instead he's someone who readily submits to the established authorities in society, attacks others in their name, and is highly conventional. It's an aspect of his personality, not a description of his politics. Right-wing authoritarianism is a personality trait, like being characteristically bashful or happy or grumpy or dopey.
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This explanation seems to imply that the "R" in "RWA" is not to be taken as applying specifically to the political right wing. Dr. Altemeyer's later elaboration about this question on Google groups seems to be saying, in essence, that although the phenomenon is not confined to the political right, the experiments he did and the data he gathered were specifically addressing the political right. The "Right [Wing]" was therefore included in the term in order to be as unassuming as possible in giving a label to that which was measured.
To give another example: One might do experiments using water from Lake Huron and describe the results as representing "the properties of water", but it would probably be more accurate (certainly more scientifically rigorous) to say they represent "the properties of water from Lake Huron". The book similarly describes the properties of "Right Wing Authoritarians", although it seems likely that the results will turn out to be generalizable in many ways to Authoritarians of other stripes.
Links
Reference
Notes
Questions for follow-up studies
- Is there a correlation between "RWA" level and...
- ...interest in spectator sports?
- ...friendships? (do high-RWAs and low-RWAs get along?)
- ...creativity? artistic talent?
Some examples of "left-wing" authoritarianism are raised here.