Authoritarianism’s cross-cultural consistency remains unproven for most of the world.

Evidence

Mind you, we have heard from only a few places. Minorities within North America and vast majorities in virtually all the countries in the world have not been studied. I fully expect the scale to fall apart here and there, and perhaps everywhere else. We have no universal trait here, I am sure. Still, we have something a little grander than I ever expected it to be. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 248

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• DEEPTHINKING: A researcher pushing back on the universalist reading of his own data — a model of self-correcting science.

Related

• Authoritarians differ only in degree, not kind, from ordinary cognitive fallibility (similarity 0.83)
• Authoritarians differ from others only in degree of shared human weaknesses (similarity 0.82)
• Even low authoritarians share belief in pseudo-science and motivated reasoning (similarity 0.82)
• RWA covariation may be culturally restricted rather than universal (similarity 0.82)
• Even experts conflate authoritarianism with neo-Nazism (similarity 0.80)
• Authoritarians fail to challenge their own contradictory reasoning (similarity 0.80)
• Authoritarian Christians believe every orthodox Christian doctrine more than nonauthoritarians do (similarity 0.79)
• Authoritarians fail at drawing correct inferences even with evidence in view (similarity 0.79)
• Authoritarianism is more systematically organized in politicians than their formal economic ideologies. (similarity 0.79)
• Authoritarian and non-authoritarian groups differ in degree, not kind, of traits. (similarity 0.79)
• Authoritarianism does not correlate with academic grades or general intelligence (similarity 0.78)
• Authoritarianism is a socialized cultural belief system, not a marker of individual pathology. (similarity 0.78)
• A single personality construct explains diverse attitudes across the globe (similarity 0.78)
• No left-wing authoritarians were found among 2,500 respondents over two decades (similarity 0.78)
• Researchers can compartmentalize knowledge across roles and overlook implications. (similarity 0.78)