Adult authoritarianism shifts with education, parenthood, and era
Evidence
But we also have evidence that authoritarianism can shift back and forth during adulthood. Higher education usually lowers it, especially among High RWAs. It appears that getting older, per se, does not cause RWA scores to climb. But becoming parents likely will. We know that levels of right-wing authoritarianism in university students change periodically over time, perhaps even cyclically, arguably in reaction to the events of the preceding era. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 1186
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: Echoes generational cohort effects in political psychology (Inglehart’s value change) and cyclical threat-response theory.
Related
- Authoritarianism remains changeable throughout life rather than fixed in youth (similarity 0.93)
- Authoritarianism declines with age and even more with parenthood (similarity 0.90)
- Major social events can shift adult authoritarianism in either direction (similarity 0.89)
- Adult authoritarianism is set during adolescence by specific experiences (similarity 0.87)
- Parenthood raises authoritarianism while higher education lowers it (similarity 0.86)
- Parenthood duration does not rebound authoritarianism scores higher (similarity 0.84)
- People do not inevitably grow more conservative with age (similarity 0.84)
- Restrictive versus egalitarian childrearing predicts later authoritarian attitudes (similarity 0.82)
- Adult personality and authoritarianism remain changeable long past childhood (similarity 0.82)
- Authoritarians change their customs more slowly than nonauthoritarians and follow authorities, not peers. (similarity 0.82)
- Individual variation in authoritarianism results from heterogeneous life experiences plus genetic factors (similarity 0.82)
- Having children reverses the drop in authoritarianism caused by university education (similarity 0.82)
- Imagined left-wing upheaval sharply raises projected authoritarianism (similarity 0.82)
- Authoritarians change their norms more with authority fiat than with peer behavior (similarity 0.81)
- Adolescent conflict with authority reduces later authoritarianism (similarity 0.81)