The personality construct of hardiness, III: Relationships with repression, innovativeness, authoritarianism, and performance

Previous research has established hardiness as a dispositional factor in preserving and enhancing performance and health despite stressful circumstances. The present four studies continue this construct-validational process by (a) introducing a shortened version of the hardiness measure and (b) testing hypotheses concerning the relationship between hardiness and repressive coping, right-wing authoritarianism, innovative behavior, and billable hours (a measure of consulting effectiveness). Results of these studies suggest the adequate reliability and validity of the Personal Views Survey III-R, which is the shortened, 18-item measure of hardiness. Further, results support the hypothesis that the relationship of hardiness is negative with repressive coping and right-wing authoritarianism and positive with innovative behavior and billable hours. Hardiness also appears unrelated to socially desirable responding.     

Predicting right-wing authoritarianism via personality and dangerous world beliefs: direct, indirect, and interactive effects

In an Italian sample (N = 483, 78.23% women, mean age = 27.61 years old), we used structural equation modeling with latent variables and interactions to analyze the direct, indirect, and interactive effects exerted on right-wing authoritarianism by the Big Five factors of personality and by dangerous world beliefs. Openness, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness exerted direct effects on right-wing authoritarianism; the first two relationships were partially mediated by dangerous world beliefs. Most importantly, the relationship between dangerous world beliefs and right-wing authoritarianism was moderated by Openness: dangerous world beliefs significantly influenced right-wing authoritarianism solely for participants high in Openness. Limitations and possible developments of this research are discussed.     

Right‐wing authoritarianism,social dominance orientation and personality: an analysis using the IPIP measure

Although both right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) have been found to predict racial and intergroup prejudice, previous research has suggested that RWA and SDO have quite distinct psychological features. We therefore examined the Big Five personality correlates of these two measures using facet scales from the International Personality Item Pool measure. Respondents were 220 university undergraduate volunteers. Significant sex differences were noted with respect to SDO and some facet scales. A series of analyses supported the view that RWA and SDO are aligned with different personality traits, while the discussion centred on the psychological profile of authoritarians and dominators. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Socioeconomic status,perceived parental control,and authoritarianism: Development of authoritarianism in Iranian society

The purpose of the current study is to examine the relationship between socioeconomic status, parental control, and authoritarianism in Iran. A sample of 460 students was surveyed from Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz in Iran. Results demonstrated that subjective socioeconomic status, parental control, and parents' education have significant influence on authoritarianism. Further analysis showed that parental control partially mediates parents' education association with authoritarianism with a relatively high effect size. These findings highlight the importance of parental control and socioeconomic status in the development of authoritarianism in Iran. Furthermore, the higher authoritarianism of low socioeconomic status is mostly due to lower education levels rather than the income of the family. The findings were discussed with regards to literature as well as the socio‐cultural sphere of Iran.     

Self-esteem, authoritarianism, and democratic values in the face of threat

This study investigated the associations among terrorist threat, right-wing authoritarianism, self-esteem, and their relations in support for democratic values. Students (n = 140) completed Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale, Rosenberg's Self-esteem Scale, and the Democratic Values Scale. The participants also read an editorial regarding the events of 9/11/01 and completed two mortality-salience questions to induce a sense of threat. Results showed that self-esteem was a significant contributor to the prediction of scores on the Democratic Values Scale. Furthermore, the interaction between self-esteem and right-wing authoritarianism explained significant variance in the Democratic Values Scale scores. The results are interpreted in light of theories addressing authoritarianism and self-esteem.     

The robust self-esteem proxy: Impressions of self-esteem inform judgments of personality and social value

People use impressions of an evaluative target’s self-esteem to infer their possession of socially desirable traits. But will people still use this self-esteem proxy when trait-relevant diagnostic information is available? We test this possibility in two experiments: participants learn that a target person has low or high self-esteem, and then receive diagnostic information about the target’s academic success or failure and positive or negative affectivity (Study 1), or watch a video of the target’s extraverted or introverted behavior (Study 2). In both experiments, participants’ impressions of the target’s traits accurately tracked diagnostic information, but impressions also revealed an independent self-esteem proxy effect. Evidently, the self-esteem proxy is robust and influences person perception even in the presence of vivid individuating information.     

Threat and authoritarianism in the United States, 1978-1987

Studies at both the individual and collective levels have implicated threat as an important factor in authoritarianism. As a follow-up to Sales's (1973) study relating behavioral indicators of authoritarianism to levels of social threat, the present research analyzed archival data from the United States for high-threat (1978-1982) and low-threat (1983-1987) periods. Societal measures of most attitude and behavioral components of the authoritarian syndrome significantly decreased between the high-threat and the low-threat periods. These results support the threat-authoritarianism relationship but also suggest a more complicated theoretical model that links perceived social conditions, arousal of authoritarian sentiments, dispositional authoritarianism, and the nature of political appeals--particularly those that engage authoritarian aggression.     

Right wing authoritarianism,social dominance orientation and the dimensions of generalized prejudice

Prior research suggests that individuals' prejudiced attitudes form a single generalized dimension predicted by Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). A dual process approach, however, expects different domains of generalized prejudice that relate differentially to RWA and SDO. To test this, 212 participants rated attitudes to 24 typically disliked groups. Factor analysis revealed three distinct generalized prejudice dimensions. Hierarchical Linear Modelling indicated that attitudes towards a ‘dangerous’ groups domain was significantly related only with RWA, attitudes toward a second ‘derogated’ groups domain was related only to SDO, and attitudes toward a third, ‘dissident’ groups, domain was significantly related to both, but powerfully with RWA and weakly with SDO. These findings have implications for explaining and reducing prejudice. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social desirability, personality questionnaires, and the “better than average” effect

It is well established that respondents are much more likely to rate themselves highly on personality questionnaire items with high social desirability (SD) than on items with low SD. However, conflicting explanations have been offered for this phenomenon. In the present study, 286 participants were randomly assigned to four groups that rated 119 items from two well-known personality questionnaires. One group of participants rated themselves, a second group rated their family and friends, a third rated “people in general,” and a fourth rated the items’ SD. It was found that mean SD ratings of personality items were highly correlated with mean self-ratings and with mean ratings of family and friends for the same items (all rs > .800), but not with mean ratings of “people in general.” In other words, participants strongly tended to rate themselves, their family, and their friends as high on socially desirable qualities, but this tendency did not extend to ratings of people in general. These results support the conclusion that respondents’ personality ratings of themselves, their family and friends, but not of people in general, are influenced by the form of self-serving bias known as the “better than average effect.”     

Beyond politics: authoritarianism and the pursuit of leisure

Psychologists know a lot about the political and ideological correlates of people scoring high on authoritarianism. However, psychologists have less knowledge about such people's everyday pursuits. In the present study, the authors examined authoritarian interest in film, live events, music, and reading. A predictable pattern of correlates emerged. For example, authoritarians enjoyed activities in which physical conflict was prominent, whereas authoritarians tended not to like entertainment that offered introspection. In general, the present results were consistent across 2 samples (N = 120, N = 90). Although men and women had significantly different preferences on over 0.5 of the leisure pursuits (e.g., men enjoyed action films more than did women), there were no significant gender differences in the magnitudes of correlates with authoritarianism. In general, leisure interests appeared to be partly manifestations or expressions of authoritarian tendencies.