Authoritarian prejudice is ideological, not rooted in psychodynamic conflict.

Evidence

Altemeyer (1981) has reconceptualized the authoritarian personality as being rooted in ideology, rather than psychodynamics. Right-Wing Authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1981) assesses a tendency toward group conformity and the acceptance of conservative political ideologies that demean cultural outgroups. People high in Right-Wing Authoritarianism are hypervigilant toward perceived threats to the ingroup, and therefore (especially during difficult life conditions that threaten the ingroup) are likely to scapegoat outgroups. The other most prominent individual difference measure of prejudice, Social Dominance Orientation (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), assesses a preference for group-based hierarchy. People high in Social Dominance Orientation seek to preserve established dominance hierarchies (which are threatened during times of social upheaval) and may scapegoat to restore ingroup dominance. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1602

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clearly delineates Right-Wing Authoritarianism from Social Dominance Orientation as the two leading individual-difference measures of prejudice.
• XREF: Connects to the earlier scapegoat and authoritarian-personality discussion in Allport’s original framework. — connects to: Authoritarian personality theory holds that a psychological structure, not objective circumstances, determines fascist character — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1780; The unified immigrant-enemy category was engineered by intellectuals, not mass instinct. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 563