title: Age differences in right-wing authoritarianism and their relation to emotion recognition.
abstract: This study examined the correlates of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) in older adults. Participants were given tasks measuring emotion recognition, executive functions and fluid IQ and questionnaires measuring RWA, perceived threat and social dominance orientation. Study 1 established higher age-related RWA across the age span in more than 2,600 New Zealanders. Studies 2 to 4 found that threat, education, social dominance and age all predicted unique variance in older adults' RWA, but the most consistent predictor was emotion recognition, predicting unique variance in older adults' RWA independent of all other variables. We argue that older adults' worse emotion recognition is associated with a more general change in social judgment. Expression of extreme attitudes (right- or left-wing) has the potential to antagonize others, but worse emotion recognition means that subtle signals will not be perceived, making the expression of extreme attitudes more likely. Our findings are consistent with other studies showing that worsening emotion recognition underlies age-related declines in verbosity, understanding of social gaffes, and ability to detect lies. Such results indicate that emotion recognition is a core social insight linked to many aspects of social cognition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Otago.
authors.forename: Ted
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ruffman
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Victoria.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, The University of Queensland.
authors.forename: Julie D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Henry
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Otago.
authors.forename: Abigail
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dawson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Otago.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Otago.
authors.forename: Natalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kladnitski
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Otago.
authors.forename: Ella
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Myftari
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Otago.
authors.forename: Janice
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Otago.
authors.forename: Jamin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Halberstadt
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Otago.
authors.forename: John A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Hunter
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001290:Attitude; D001318:Authoritarianism; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004644:Emotions; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009520:New Zealand; D012930:Social Dominance; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult