Description

The Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWAS-22) is a psychometric instrument used to assess authoritarian attitudes and orientations. It focuses on three central dimensions: submission to authority, aggression toward out-groups or individuals perceived as violating established social norms, and support for traditional values and conventions.

The scale provides a quantitative assessment of the extent to which an individual endorses authoritarian attitudes and can be used to examine psychological and social factors associated with conformity, perceptions of social order, and acceptance of strong authority.

Purpose

The main purpose of the RWAS-22 is to provide a systematic method for assessing authoritarian tendencies and examining their associations with other psychological and social phenomena. The source material specifically refers to prejudice, xenophobia, support for authoritarian policies, social conformity, and responses to perceived threats to social order.

The scale may therefore contribute to a better understanding of how attitudes toward authority, tradition, and social stability are related to broader patterns of beliefs and behavior.

Core Dimensions

Authoritarian submission refers to the tendency to accept and comply with individuals or institutions perceived as legitimate and powerful authorities.

Authoritarian aggression refers to support for strict or aggressive attitudes toward individuals or groups perceived as threatening established social values or norms.

Conventionalism refers to strong adherence to traditional social values, norms, and expected patterns of behavior. These three dimensions form the principal conceptual framework represented in the scale.

Research Applications

The RWAS-22 can be used primarily in social and political psychology, as well as in studies examining social attitudes, prejudice, perceptions of authority, conformity, and reactions to social threats.

It can also be used to compare authoritarian attitudes across different demographic or social groups and to investigate relationships between authoritarianism and other psychological or social variables.

Scoring

Responses to the scale items are coded numerically and can be summed to produce an overall authoritarianism score. The source material describes the use of a Likert-type response format, for example ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree.”

The overall score can be used to examine general authoritarian tendencies within a sample and to compare levels across groups. The exact scoring instructions of the specific version should be followed, particularly where reverse-scored items are included.

Psychometric Analysis

In research applications, the scale may be evaluated in terms of internal consistency, the distribution of total scores, and its relationships with theoretically relevant variables. Depending on the study design, researchers may also examine the factor structure of the instrument and differences in scores across demographic or social groups.

References

Altemeyer, B. (1981). Right-Wing Authoritarianism. Winnipeg, Canada: University of Manitoba Press.

Altemeyer, B. (1996). The Authoritarian Spectre. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Altemeyer, B. (1998). The other “authoritarian personality”. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 30, pp. 47–92). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Altemeyer, B. (2003). What happens when authoritarians inherit the earth? A simulation. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 3, 161–169.

Altemeyer, B. (2006). The Authoritarians.