Right-wing party supporters show higher authoritarianism and social dominance than left-wing supporters.

Evidence

You find the same rank ordering when you look at right-wing authoritarianism, and that leads to a rather striking analysis of what kind of people prefer the programs of the different political parties. Combining the parents who served in the October 1995 and 1996 and January 1997 studies (N= 1314), 84 of them favored the Reform Party on the federal level. Of these, 22 placed in the top quartile of the RWA distribution, 18 were High SDOs, and 14 more were both. So altogether (54/ 84=) 64% of the Reform Party supporters could be characterized as high right-wing authoritarians or high social dominators, or both. Of the 316 who favored the Conservatives, 46% were high RWAs or high SDOs, or both. The figure for the 356 Liberals equaled 39%, and that for the 107 NDP supporters was 29%. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1060

Categorization

• QUESTION: This Canadian sample links specific political parties (Reform/Conservative/Liberal/NDP) to RWA/SDO profiles. Worth chasing whether similar rank-ordering held in other national multiparty systems.