Higher-authoritarian legislators were less likely to respond to the survey
Evidence
We also know that usually, the greater the response rate from a chamber, the greater the gap between Democrats and Republicans. The correlation between response rate and the size of this gap averaged .69. So it seems probable that (1) High RWAs responded less than others did, and (2) if I had heard from all, the parties would have separated more than they did, not less. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 3691
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: Links to the author’s earlier observation about the Canadian data: self-selection biases twisted the samples of legislators who mailed back surveys.
Related
- High authoritarians avoided responding, biasing party gaps downward (similarity 0.93)
- High authoritarians are less likely to respond to surveys (similarity 0.88)
- High-authoritarian politicians refuse psychology surveys more than lows do (similarity 0.87)
- The most authoritarian lawmakers systematically refused to answer the survey (similarity 0.86)
- Self-selection bias masks the true magnitude of partisan authoritarian differences. (similarity 0.83)
- US Republican legislators scored well above Democrats on authoritarianism (similarity 0.82)
- Party differences in authoritarianism nearly vanished among sampled state legislators (similarity 0.81)
- Political elites actually differ in authoritarianism more than bystanders estimate (similarity 0.81)
- Actual legislators show extreme partisan differences in authoritarianism levels (similarity 0.80)
- Low-authoritarian politicians in the South are almost always Democrats (similarity 0.80)
- Study samples showed greater authoritarian divergence between parties than students estimated (similarity 0.80)
- Elected conservative lawmakers score far higher on authoritarianism than liberals. (similarity 0.79)
- Right-wing authoritarians among legislators oppose freedom and equality at a .84 correlation (similarity 0.79)
- Very high authoritarians hold elected office in most state legislatures (similarity 0.79)
- Reform MPs scored far higher on authoritarianism than Liberal or NDP MPs. (similarity 0.78)