Social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism together explain half of all prejudice

Evidence

As for explaining prejudice with personality measures, the results strongly replicated McFarland and Adelson’s findings. The SDO scores had the best overall relationships with the four target measures, leaving the RWA scale some distance behind. A regression analysis of the sum of Sam McFarland’s four tests (“Sum of Sam”), after standardizing the scores to control for unequal means and variances, found that SDO and RWA as a package accounted for 50% of overall prejudice. (That is, their multiple r equaled .71.) Subject’s sex came in third, with males again showing more prejudice than females. Gender raised the multiple r to .76. The remaining scales could add only pennies to this accounting. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 945

I think these revelations expose the separate roots of RWA and SDO prejudice. Rightwing authoritarians, who do not score high on PP-MAD, seem to be highly prejudiced mainly because they were raised to travel in tight, ethnocentric circles; and they fear that authority and conventions are crumbling so quickly that civilization will collapse and they will be eaten in the resulting jungle. In contrast, high SDOs already see life as “dog eat dog” and—compared with most people—are determined to do the eating. High RWAs also see themselves as “righteous dudes,” to the point of being quite self-righteous, and this disinhibits their aggression. But we have seen that high SDOs do not need this release, and we can now see why. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1016

According to this model, RWA reflects social cohesion and security motivation. Thus, RWA would drive prejudice towards outgroups seen as threatening or disrupting the stability, survival, and cohesion of the ingroup or society, and should be mediated through perceived threat from outgroups. SDO reflects competitive motivation to maintain or establish group dominance and superiority, and would therefore cause prejudice against competing or subordinate outgroups, who are viewed as inferior to the ingroup in power and status, and should therefore be mediated through competition for power, status, or resources with outgroups. Thus while RWA and SDO might often predict negative attitudes to the same groups (but for different reasons), they could also predict prejudice against quite different groups. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2481

According to this model, RWA reflects social cohesion and security motivation. Thus, RWA would drive prejudice towards outgroups seen as threatening or disrupting the stability, survival, and cohesion of the ingroup or society, and should be mediated through perceived threat from outgroups. SDO reflects competitive motivation to maintain or establish group dominance and superiority, and would therefore cause prejudice against competing or subordinate outgroups, who are viewed as inferior to the ingroup in power and status, and should therefore be mediated through competition for power, status, or resources with outgroups. Thus while RWA and SDO might often predict negative attitudes to the same groups (but for different reasons), they could also predict prejudice against quite different groups. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2481

For example, research has shown that individuals who are high in Social Dominance Orientation (i.e., those who believe in group inequality and support group hierarchies in society) tend to see the world in terms of inherent competition among groups for dominance and power, and are thus especially likely to display prejudice and discrimination (e.g., Esses et al., 1998; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Research has also shown that individuals who are high in Right- Wing Authoritarianism are especially sensitive to threats to their traditional values, and display negative attitudes and behavior toward those seen to hold values different from their own (e.g., Altemeyer, 1996; Esses, Haddock, & Zanna, 1993). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1492

Overall, research during the past decade suggests different psychological bases for RWA and SDO, with each associated with different sets of motivational goals and values, personality traits, and social belief systems or worldviews (referred to as “philosophies of life” by Allport). These findings have recently been integrated in a model of how motivational goals or values, personality traits, and social worldviews cause RWA and SDO, and how these in turn determine generalized outgroup prejudice. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2473

Categorization

• SEED: A potential essay angle: the difference between prejudice driven by fear-of-collapse group conformity versus prejudice driven by personal appetite for domination, and why anti-prejudice interventions must target each differently.
• DEFINE: Theoretically schematizes the two-factor account: RWA = fear-driven conventionalism, SDO = appetite-driven dominance.
• XREF: Extends and refines existing vault claims that a single authoritarian personality produces generalized prejudice; connects to the Allport/Adorno reassessment thread.
• corroborated: 7 independent passages support this claim — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 945; John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1016; John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2481 (+3 more)