Political lawmakers show unusually high internal consistency on the RWA Scale

Evidence

In my own research through 1987, the RWA Scale (which changes a little every year) continued to show alphas of about . among Manitoba students and . among their parents (EOF, p. 29). However, samples of North American lawmakers showed astounding internal consistency when answering the scale. Alphas ranged from . to . in four Canadian provincial assemblies, and from . to . in four American state legislatures (EOF, chapter 7). — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 239

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why would lawmakers, presumably ideologically diverse across parties, show higher RWA coherence than parents or students? Worth chasing whether this reflects self-selection into politics.