Authoritarianism among border police officers, career soldiers, and airport security guards at the Israeli border

Several personality theories focusing on specific personality variables involved in career choice and job satisfaction are based on the assumption that individuals choose certain career choices because they believe that they may be able to meet their emotional needs (J. L. Holland, 1977). The author of this study investigated the personality traits of border police officers, career soldiers, and airport security guards in Israel. The participants were 160 men--40 border policemen, 40 career soldiers, 40 airport security guards, and 40 control participants--who filled out a demographic questionnaire and a Hebrew version of the right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) shortened scale (B. Altemeyer, personal communication, February 2000). The present hypothesis predicted that the RWA scores of border police officers would be the highest, followed by those of career soldiers, airport security guards, and control participants, in that order. Statistically significant differences in RWA scores occurred between these groups in the predicted order, with the exception of the career soldiers' RWA scores, which did not significantly differ from those of the airport security guards.