Spouses’ authoritarianism scores correlate substantially, possibly due to assortative mating.

Evidence

I have some hesitation about the assortive mating explanation. Why did it not show up on the other MPQ dimensions? And would it not have to be very powerful to bring fraternal twins so close to the level of similarity found in persons who had identical genes? But I could easily believe women and men mated assortively when it came to authoritarianism, although it might not be the first topic to come up in the moonlight. Husbands’ and wives’ RWA scores correlate about . in my parent studies (although they had been married long enough simply to have become more similar). — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 950

Why did it not show up on the other MPQ dimensions? And would it not have to be very powerful to bring fraternal twins so close to the level of similarity found in persons who had identical genes? But I could easily believe women and men mated assortively when it came to authoritarianism, although it might not be the first topic to come up in the moonlight. Husbands’ and wives’ RWA scores correlate about . in my parent studies (although they had been married long enough simply to have become more similar). — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 950

Categorization

• CANDY: The dry aside about assortative mating on authoritarianism — ‘it might not be the first topic to come up in the moonlight’ — is a wry, quotable observational joke.
• XREF: Assortative mating on authoritarianism shapes how RWA (and related traditionalist/nationalist attitudes) clusters and reproduces within families and communities.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 950