Questions: Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Prejudice

Question 1

A new government passes laws legalizing same-sex marriage, which a high-RWA individual's religious community strongly opposes. How would RWA theory predict this person to respond to the new government authority?

• A. Accept the authority without question — high-RWA individuals are generally submissive to all established authorities
• B. Resist the authority, since RWA involves submission to one's own ingroup's traditional authorities, not all authorities
• C. Accept the authority but privately disapprove, because public compliance with authority is mandatory for high-RWA individuals
• D. Support the authority if it also maintains other traditional hierarchies like economic inequality

Answer: (B)

The key misconception about RWA is that it means general obedience to authority. In fact, RWA involves submission specifically to authorities within one's own group's traditional structure. When an external authority challenges those traditions, high-RWA individuals are predicted to resist it — potentially vigorously. The defining feature is loyalty to the ingroup's established order, not deference to whoever holds power. This is what distinguishes RWA from simple conformism.

Question 2

High-RWA individuals show elevated prejudice against racial minorities, sexual minorities, immigrants, and people with criminal records — groups with very different characteristics. What is the common psychological thread that explains this?

• A. High-RWA individuals prefer hierarchy in general, so they reject any group that occupies a lower social status
• B. All these groups are perceived as threatening traditional values or group norms — threat perception links RWA to broad-spectrum prejudice
• C. High-RWA individuals were exposed to negative stereotypes about all these groups during childhood socialization
• D. These groups all have lower socioeconomic status, and high-RWA individuals are prejudiced against lower-status groups

Answer: (B)

RWA predicts broad-spectrum prejudice because any group perceived as threatening traditional social order or group norms becomes a target of authoritarian aggression — regardless of the group's actual characteristics. The common thread is perceived threat to traditional values, not the groups' objective features or status. This is also why RWA differs from social dominance orientation (SDO): SDO targets low-status groups specifically, while RWA targets perceived threats specifically. Options A and D describe SDO's mechanism, not RWA's.

Question 3

RWA predicts prejudice most strongly when the target outgroup is framed as threatening or immoral, not merely different.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

Threat perception is the psychological mechanism linking RWA to prejudice. The authoritarian aggression component of RWA is specifically about punishing those who violate group norms or are perceived as dangerous. Outgroups framed as threatening traditional values activate this component most strongly. When an outgroup is merely different but not perceived as threatening, RWA predicts less prejudice. This threat-mediation distinguishes RWA's mechanism from other predictors of prejudice.

Question 4

RWA and social dominance orientation (SDO) are effectively two names for the same underlying personality dimension, since both predict general prejudice against outgroups.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

RWA and SDO predict prejudice through distinct mechanisms and can diverge for specific targets. RWA drives prejudice through perceived threat to ingroup norms — authoritarian aggression toward deviants and threatening outgroups. SDO drives prejudice through endorsement of group-based hierarchy — the belief that some groups should dominate others. For some targets they converge; for others they diverge or even oppose. For example, SDO predicts stronger anti-poor prejudice while RWA predicts stronger anti-gay prejudice in many cultural contexts. Treating them as interchangeable loses the explanatory specificity each provides.

Question 5

Why is it a misconception to describe RWA simply as 'obedience to authority,' and how does the correct understanding explain why high-RWA individuals are prejudiced against diverse outgroups?

Model answer: RWA is not general obedience but loyalty to one's own ingroup's traditional authority and norms, combined with aggression toward those who threaten those traditions. This explains broad-spectrum prejudice: any group perceived as threatening the ingroup's traditional order becomes a target, regardless of the groups' other characteristics. The unifying feature is perceived norm violation or threat, not status or difference per se.

The 'obedience' framing is misleading because it predicts the wrong pattern — true obedience would mean high-RWA individuals accept any authority figure. Instead, they resist authorities that challenge their group's traditions. The prejudice prediction follows logically: since authoritarian aggression is specifically directed at norm violators and perceived threats to the ingroup's social order, diverse outgroups become prejudice targets when they are framed as threatening those traditions — regardless of what those groups actually have in common.