Sales’s threat-authoritarianism finding may be an artifact of ordering and record keeping

Evidence

Alternative explanations of Sales’s (1973) study are possible. Because both of his lowthreat periods preceded high-threat periods, perhaps the increases in threat and authoritarianism were both merely the result of population changes or other long-term secular trends or the result of improved record keeping in later time periods. A critical question, therefore, is what happens to the authoritarianism indicators when low threat follows high threat? — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 736

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is exactly the design weakness the chapter’s own study addresses — worth tracking how the reversal design answers it.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 736