Experimentally induced social threat raises authoritarianism via changed threat worldview

Evidence

Four recent studies using structural equation modeling with latent variables showed excellent overall fit for the causal relationships proposed among the two personality, two worldview, two ideological attitude dimensions, with each other and with intergroup attitudes for large samples in New Zealand, South Africa, and the USA (Duckitt, 2001; Duckitt et al., 2002). An experiment showed that manipulating social threat (using scenarios) increased RWA, but not SDO, with the effect being entirely mediated through a change in social worldview towards an increased perception of the social world as dangerous and threatening (Duckitt & Fisher, 2003). — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2480

Categorization

• XREF: The experimental manipulation showing threat shifts RWA but not SDO provides a causal test directly paralleling the reader’s interest in how situational cues shift ideological attitudes — connects to Zakaria and other works on the social psychology of threat and authoritarian impulse. — connects to: Authoritarianism operates independent of status-threat condition — Brenda Major and Alison Blodorn and Gregory Major Blascovich, The threat of increasing diversity: Why…, 73; Societal threat causally drives authoritarianism rather than merely co-occurring with it. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 832