The dimensional structure of people's fears, threats, and concerns and their relationship with right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation

• Published in: International journal of psychology 2013-02, Vol.48 (1), p.6-17
• Main Authors: Shaffer, Barbara, Duckitt, John
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anxiety; Authoritarianism; Confounding Factors (Epidemiology); Dominance-Subordination; emotional stability; Emotions; Exploratory factor analysis; Factor Analysis, Statistical; Fear; fears and threats; Female; Humans; Ingroups; Male; Models, Psychological; Models, Statistical; New Zealand; Politics; Regression Analysis; Right wing perspectives; right-wing authoritarianism; Selection Bias; Social Desirability; Social Dominance; social dominance orientation; Social domination; Social Identification; Stress, Psychological - psychology; Students - psychology; Students - statistics & numerical data; Surveys and Questionnaires; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0020-7594; 1464-066X
• DOI: 10.1080/00207594.2012.696651

Most theories addressing the topic have proposed that threat and fear underlie right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA), and many empirical findings have been consistent with this proposition. Important questions, however, remain unanswered, such as whether RWA is associated with fear and threat in general or only specific kinds of fear and threat. Theories of RWA generate markedly different predictions on this issue, particularly with respect to social or personal fears, and whether the association would also hold for the closely related construct of social dominance orientation (SDO). We investigated the issue by asking 463 undergraduate students to rate their feelings of fear, concern, and anxiety to a comprehensive 93‐item list of potential fears and threats, which were formulated as either personal or social. Exploratory factors analysis identified five distinct fear–threat factors: Harm to Self, Child, or Country; Personal and Relationship Failures; Environmental and Economic Fears; Political and Personal Uncertainties; and Threats to Ingroup. All the fear–threat factors were correlated with RWA, with the strongest correlations being for Threats to Ingroup, and with stronger effects for social than for personal fears. None of the fear factors correlated with SDO. These relationships were not affected by controlling for Social Desirability or Emotional Stability (EMS). When the intercorrelations between fear factors and EMS were controlled using ridge regression, only Threats to Ingroup predicted RWA. Structural equation modeling indicated good fit for a model in which low levels of EMS had a significant path to Threats to Ingroup, which in turn had a significant path to RWA, and EMS having a significant though weak indirect (fully mediated) inverse effect on RWA. Implications of these findings for theories of authoritarianism and future research are discussed. La plupart des théories suggèrent que la menace et la peur sous‐tendent l'autoritarisme de droite. De nombreuses données de recherche confortent cette idée. D'importantes questions n'ont toutefois toujours pas reçu de réponses. Par exemple, l'autoritarisme de droite est‐il associé à la menace et à la peur en général ou à des types de menace et de peur spécifiques? Les théories portant sur l'autoritarisme de droite ont proposé différentes prédictions à l'égard de cette question. Cela est particulièrement vrai en ce qui concerne les peurs sociales ou personnelles et par rapport à la question de savoir s