title: Is political conservatism synonymous with authoritarianism?
abstract: The authors performed 2 studies that tested the distinction between conservative political ideology and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). Across these studies, moderate relationships emerged between RWA and our measures of cognitive rigidity, whereas the relationship between rigidity and mainstream conservative ideology was not as strong. The authors used partial-correlation and path analyses to assess the possibility that RWA mediates the relationship between (a) cognitive rigidity and (b) mainstream conservative attitudes and self-identified conservatism. The results indicated that conservatism is not synonymous with RWA. Additionally, RWA appeared to partially mediate the relationship between cognitive rigidity and mainstream conservatism.
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Oklahoma, 820 Van Vleet Oval, Rm. 321, Norman, OK 73019-2041, USA. mcrowson@ou.edu
authors.forename: H Michael
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Crowson
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Thoma
authors.forename: Nita
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hestevold
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D001318:Authoritarianism; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D011057:Politics; D011593:Psychology, Social; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D012933:Social Identification; D015144:Southeastern United States