Right-wing authoritarianism maps onto a single Big-5 derived trait of social conformity

Evidence

Heaven and Bucci (2001) found that RWA correlated with personality trait measures of dutifulness, orderliness, and moralism. This is consistent with Altemeyer’s (1998) earlier findings that high RWAs are selfrighteous, conscientious, agreeable, and low on openness, as well as Jost et al’s (2003) review, which indicated that authoritarianism was associated with intolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty, needs for order, structure, and closure, and low scores on integrative complexity and openness to experience. These findings suggest a coherent trait pattern, which Duckitt (2001; Duckitt et al., 2002) captured in a single construct and trait (refined from one of Saucier’s Big 5 personality dimensions): “Social Conformity.” The Social Conformity scale (including items such as “obedient,” “respectful,” “moralistic,” versus “nonconforming,” “rebellious,” “unpredictable”) is highly reliable, unidimensional, and highly correlated with the RWA scale, but nonsignificantly correlated with the SDO scale. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2470

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains how the personality trait ‘Social Conformity’ was constructed from a Big 5 dimension.