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International Society of Political Psychology,
Annual Conference, Lund, Sweden, July 15-18,
2004
Authoritarianism, Social Dominance Orientation,
and Xenophobic Prejudices
Silke Zachariae Wolfgang Frindte Friedrich-Schil
ler-University Jena, Germany Departement of
Psychology silke.zachariae_at_uni-jena.de
wolfgang.frindte_at_rz.uni-jena.de http//www.uni-jen
a.de/svw/compsy/
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Authoritarism, Social Dominance Orientation, and
Xenophobic Prejudices

• Table of Contents
• Theory Shyness and Fragmention of the Field ?
  Methodological Remarks
• Right-Wing-Authoritarianism Social Dominance
  Orientation ? Theoretical Comparison
• Empirical Comparison ? The Study
• Discussion

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Theory Shyness Fragmentation of the Field
Methodological Remarks

• Central Questions
• How affective are our theoretical skills?
• How much attention and effort do we devote to
  theorizing?
• Arie Kruglanski (2001)
• Theory shyness the tendency to invent new
  names for old concepts (p. 871)
• Fragmentation of the field refers to a
  failure to notice commonalities across domains.
  (p. 874)
• greater theoretical activity by social
  psychologists

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Theory Shyness Fragmentation of the Field
Methodological Remarks

• Social psychological theories of prejudice
  research (see Hewstone, Rubin Willis, 2002)
• Social Identity Theory (Tajfel Turner, 1979)
• Optimal Distinctiveness Theory (Brewer, 1991)
• Subjective Uncertainty Reduction Theory (Hogg,
  2000)
• Terror Management Theory (Solomon, Greenberg
  Pyszczynski, 1991)
• Social Dominance Theory (Sidanius Pratto, 1999)
• Theories differ partly seriously in their
  explicit and implicit assumption.
• Demand Concentration on critical comparisons and
  possible compatibilities.

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Research Approach

• Aims
• Combination of theories and critical comparison.
• Search for stable predictors of xenophobia and
  prejudice (see also Frindte, 1995 1999).
• Included concepts
• Right-Wing-Authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996),
• Social Dominance Theory (Sidanius Pratto, 1999)
• Big Five Taxonomy (Costa McCrae, 1989 1992)
• Xenophobic attitudes towards distinct other groups

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Right-Wing-Authoritarianism Social Dominance
Orientation

• Right-Wing-Authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1988
  1996)
• PsycInfo notes more than 4.700 publications about
  authoritarian
• Authoritarian Syndrome
• Authoritarian submission
• Authoritarian aggression
• Conventionalism
• People need more or less situational pressure to
  submit to authorities, to proceed against
  outsiders and to adapt to conventional norms
  (Altemeyer, 1996)

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Right-Wing-Authoritarianism Social Dominance
Orientation

• Social Dominance Theory (Sidanius Pratto, 1999)
• Conflicts and discrimination in a society are
  inevitable consequences of the immanent
  group-based hierarchical structure
• Legitimizing myth determine the stability of
  hierarchies
• Social Dominance Orientation
• Attitude towards social hierarchical systems and
  towards group dominance
• Tendency to judge people according to their group
  status
• men, Whites, and heterosexuals had higher SDO
  levels than women, Blacks, Hispanics, gays,
  lesbian, and bisexuals (Sidanius Pratto, 1999,
  S. 77)

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Right-Wing-Authoritarianism Social Dominance
Orientation

• RWA SDO
• Congruent divergent aspects
• Correlations ? non-existent to quite significant
  

(see Stellmacher, 2003)
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• RWA SDO
• Explanation of political attitudes, xenophobia,
  prejudice and ethnocentrism
• Divergent validity in conjunction with
  demographic data, personality variables, and
  general attitudinal measures (see also Altemeyer,
  1998)

(see Stellmacher, 2003)
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Right-Wing-Authoritarianism Social Dominance
Orientation

• Right-Wing-Authoritarianism Social Dominance
  Orientation
• Correlation between RWA SDO ? non-existent to
  quite significant
• Explanation of political attitudes, xenophobia,
  prejudice and ethnocentrism
• Discriminant validity ? demographic data,
  personality variables, and general attitudinal
  measures (see also Altemeyer, 1998)
• Discriminant aspects ? the BIG FIVE Personality
  Factors
• Different explanations for discrimination against
  minority groups
• Different explanatory value ? discrimination
  against diverse minorities

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Research Questions

• Research question I
• Empirical comparison of RWA and SDO against the
  background of the big five personality factors
  neuroticism, extraversion, openness to
  experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness
• Research question II
• RWA and SDO with respect to their explanation
  value of attitudes towards distinct other groups
  Foreigners, homosexual and handicapped people

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Sample Measuring Instruments

• Sample
• 162 women, 73 men at the age of 15 to 72.
• Measuring Instruments
• Right-Wing-Authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996)
• RWA-Scale (Funke, 2002) Alpha .78
• Social Dominance Orientation (Sidanius Pratto,
  1993, 1999)
• SDO-Scale (German Version Six et al., 2001)
  Alpha .89
• Five Factor Inventory (Costa McCrae, 1989)
• Neo-FFI (German Version Borkenau Ostendorf,
  1993)
• Xenophobia towards foreigners, homosexual and
  handicapped people
• Jena Scale (Frindte Zachariae, 2004) Alpha
  .72 bis .91

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Results I Right-Wing-Authoritarianism, Social
Dominance Orientation BigFive

• Openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and
  extraversion have significant regression weights
  on authoritarianism.
• Agreeableness has significant regression weights
  on social dominance.

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Results II Right-Wing-Authoritarianism,Social
Dominance Orientation Xenophobic Attitudes

• No correlation between authoritarianism and
  social dominance orientation.
• Authoritarianism and social dominance orientation
  have significant regression weights on
  xenophobia.
• But While xenophobic attitudes towards
  foreigners and homosexuals are mainly impacted by
  authoritarianism, the attitudes towards
  handicapped people are primarily influenced by
  SDO.

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Summary Discussion

• Summary results

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Summary Discussion

• Authoritarian Xenopobia
• Directed against people that
• threaten important norms and values held by
  society
• are rejected by other German people or within the
  German society in general
• appears to be supported by authorities
• Social Dominant Xenophobia
• Directed against subordinate groups
• to perpetuate the idea of hierarchical systems as
  basic modules of society
• to legitimize the own superordinate position

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Summary Discussion

• Is Social Dominance Orientation a new form of
  discrimination?