Individual variation in authoritarianism results from heterogeneous life experiences plus genetic factors

Evidence

But some broke the rules and got pregnant, or totaled the car, or got ensnared in a vicious drug habit. And some students grew up with a High RWA father and a Low RWA mother. Some had only one parent. Some effectively had none, and grew up on their own. There was probably a different family situation in every house’on your block when you were growing up, and all the kids had their own set of experiences in life. Throw in possible genetic factors, and that is where the distribution of RWA scores comes from. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 1056

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the vault’s Altemeyer childhood-experience narrative as the causal account behind aggregate authoritarian distributions; parallel to how Cooper/etc. treat formative experience shaping ideology.