Religion, Prejudice, and Authoritarianism: Is RWA a Boon or Bane to the Psychology of Religion?

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

Volumn 50, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 22-43

  Mavor, Kenneth I ^a   Louis, Winnifred R ^b   Laythe, Brian ^c  

^a AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

^b UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND   (Australia)

^c Ivy Tech Community College   (Australia)

Author keywords

Fundamentalism; Measurement; Prejudice; Religiosity; Right wing authoritarianism

Indexed keywords

EID: 79952203580     PISSN: 00218294     EISSN: 14685906     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5906.2010.01550.x     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. Allport, Gordon W. 1950. The individual and his religion: A psychological interpretation. New York MacMillan.
2. Allport, Gordon W. and J. Michael Ross 1967. Personal religious orientation and prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 5(4):432-43.
3. Altemeyer, Bob. 1981. Right-wing authoritarianism. Winnipeg, Canada University of Manitoba Press.
4. Altemeyer, Bob. 1988. Enemies of freedom: Understanding right-wing authoritarianism. San Francisco, CA Jossey-Bass.
5. Altemeyer, Bob. 1996. The authoritarian specter. Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press.
6. Altemeyer, Bob. 2004. Highly dominating, highly authoritarian personalities. Journal of Social Psychology 144(4):421-47.
7. Altemeyer, Bob. 2007. The authoritarians. University of Manitoba. Available at Accessed March 24, 2007.
8. Altemeyer, Bob and Bruce E. Hunsberger 1992. Authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, quest, and prejudice. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 2(2):113-33.
9. Batson, C. Daniel, Patricia Shoenrade, and W. Larry Ventis 1993. Religion and the individual: A social-psychological perspective. New York Oxford University Press.
10. Blogowska, Joanna and Vassilis Saroglou, 2011. Religious fundamentalism and limited prosociality as a function of the target. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50(1):44-60.
11. Donahue, Michael J. 1985. Intrinsic and extrinsic religiousness: Review and meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 48(2):400-19.
12. Duck, Robert J. and Bruce Hunsberger 1999. Religious orientation and prejudice: The role of religious proscription, right-wing authoritarianism, and social desirability. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 9(3):157-79.
13. Duckitt, John H. 1989. Authoritarianism and group identification: A new view of an old construct. Political Psychology 10(1):63-84.
14. Duckitt, John H. 1992. The social psychology of prejudice. New York Praeger.
15. Duckitt, John H. 2006. Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32(5):684-96.
16. Duckitt, John H., B. Bizumic, S.W. Krauss, and E. Heled 2010. A tripartite approach to right-wing authoritarianism: The authoritarianism-conservatism-traditionalism Model. Political Psychology 31(5):685-715.
17. Duckitt, John H. and Kirstin Fisher 2003. The impact of social threat on worldview and ideological attitudes. Political Psychology 24(1):199-222.
18. Duncan, Lauren E., Bill E. Peterson, and David G. Winter 1997. Authoritarianism and gender roles: Toward a psychological analysis of hegemonic relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23(1):41-49.
19. Fullerton, J. Timothy and Bruce Hunsberger 1982. A unidimensional measure of Christian orthodoxy. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 21(4):317-26.
20. Fulton, Aubyn S., Richard L. Gorsuch, and Elizabeth A. Maynard 1999. Religious orientation, antihomosexual sentiment, and fundamentalism among Christians. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 38(1):14-22.
21. Funke, Friedrich. 2005. The dimensionality of right-wing authoritarianism: Lessons from the dilemma between theory and measurement. Political Psychology 26(2):195-218.
22. Gorsuch, Richard L. 1984. Measurement: The boon and bane of investigating religion. American Psychologist 39(3):228-36.
23. Gorsuch, Richard L.. 1988. Psychology of religion. Annual Review of Psychology 39(1):201-21.
24. Gorsuch, Richard L. and Daniel Aleshire 1974. Christian faith and ethnic prejudice: A review and interpretation of research. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 13(3):281-307.
25. Hall, Deborah L., David C. Matz, and Wendy Wood 2010. Why don't we practice what we preach? A meta-analytic review of religious racism. Personality and Social Psychology Review 14(1):126-39.
26. Haslam, Nick and Sheri R. Levy 2006. Essentialist beliefs about homosexuality: Structure and implications for prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32(4):471-85.
27. Heaven, Patrick C. L. and David S. St. Quinton 2003. Personality factors predict racial prejudice. Personality and Individual Differences 34(4):625-34.
28. Herek, Gregory M. 1987. Religious orientation and prejudice: A comparison of racial and sexual attitudes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 13(1):34-44.
29. Hunsberger, Bruce. 1995. Religion and prejudice: The role of religious fundamentalism, quest, and right-wing authoritarianism. Journal of Social Issues 51(2):113-29.
30. Kirkpatrick, Lee A. 1993. Fundamentalism, Christian orthodoxy, and intrinsic religious orientation as predictors of discriminatory attitudes. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 32(3):256-68.
31. Kirkpatrick, Lee A. and Ralph W. Hood, Jr. 1990. Intrinsic-extrinsic religious orientation: The boon or bane of contemporary psychology of religion Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 29(4):442-62.
32. Kite, Mary E. and Bernard E. Whitley, Jr. 1996. Sex differences in attitudes toward homosexual persons, behaviors, and civil rights: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 22(4):336-53.
33. LaBouff, Jordan P., Wade C. Rowatt, Megan K. Johnson, Michelle Thedford, and Jo-Ann Tsang 2010. Development and initial validation of an implicit measure of religiousness-spirituality. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49(3):439-55.
34. Laythe, Brian, Deborah G. Finkel, Robert G. Bringle, and Lee A. Kirkpatrick 2002. Religious fundamentalism as a predictor of prejudice: A two-component model. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 41(4):623-35.
35. Laythe, Brian, Deborah G. Finkel, and Lee A. Kirkpatrick 2001. Predicting prejudice from religious fundamentalism and right-wing authoritarianism: A multiple regression approach. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 40(1):1-10.
36. Lehmiller, Justin J. and Michael T. Schmitt. 2007. Group domination and inequality in context: Evidence for the unstable meanings of social dominance and authoritarianism. European Journal of Social Psychology 37(4):704-24.
37. Lehmiller, Justin J. and Michael T. Schmitt. 2008. Intergroup attitudes and values in response to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Peace and Conflict 14(3):259-74.
38. Louis, Winnifred R., Kenneth I. Mavor, and Deborah J. Terry 2003. Reflections on the statistical analysis of personality and norms in war, peace, and prejudice: Are deviant minorities the problem Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 3(1):189-98.
39. Maassen, Gerard H. and Arnold B. Bakker 2001. Suppressor variables in path models: Definitions and interpretations. Sociological Methods & Research 30(2):241-70.
40. Mak, Heather K. and Jo-Ann Tsang 2008. Separating the "sinner" from the "sin": Religious orientation and prejudiced behaviour toward Sexual orientation and promiscuous sex. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47(3):379-92.
41. Manganelli Rattazzi, Anna Maria, Andrea Bobbio, and Luigina Canova 2007. A short version of the right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) scale. Personality and Individual Differences 43(5):1223-34.
42. Martin, John L. 2001. The authoritarian personality, 50 years later: What lessons are there for political psychology Political Psychology 22(1):1-26.
43. Mavor, Kenneth I. and Cindy Gallois 2008. Social group and moral orientation factors as mediators of religiosity and multiple attitude targets. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47(3):361-77.
44. Mavor, Kenneth I., Winnifred R. Louis, and Chris G. Sibley 2010. A bias-corrected exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of right-wing authoritarianism: Support for a three-factor structure. Personality and Individual Differences 48(1):28-33.
45. Mavor, Kenneth I., Cari J. Macleod, Miranda J. Boal, and Winnifred R. Louis 2009. Right-wing authoritarianism, fundamentalism and prejudice revisited: Removing suppression and statistical artifact. Personality and Individual Differences 46(5-6):592-97.
46. McFarland, Sam G. 1989. Religious orientations and the targets of discrimination. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28(3):324-36.
47. Peterson, Bill E., Richard M. Doty, and David G. Winter 1993. Authoritarianism and attitudes toward contemporary social issues. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 19(2):174-84.
48. Reynolds, Katherine J., John C. Turner, S. Alexander Haslam, and Michelle K. Ryan 2001. The role of personality and group factors in explaining prejudice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 37(5):427-34.
49. Rowatt, Wade C. and Lewis M. Franklin 2004. Christian orthodoxy, religious fundamentalism, and right-wing authoritarianism as predictors of implicit racial prejudice. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 14(2):125-38.
50. Rowatt, Wade C., Jo-Ann Tsang, Jessica Kelly, Brooke LaMartina, Michelle McCullers, and April McKinley 2006. Associations between religious personality dimensions and implicit homosexual prejudice. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 45(3):397-406.
51. Smith, Allison, G. and David G. Winter 2002. Right-wing authoritarianism, party identification, and attitudes toward feminism in student evaluations of the Clinton-Lewinsky story. Political Psychology 23(2):355-83.
52. Stellmacher, Jost and Thomas Petzel 2005. Authoritarianism as a group phenomenon. Political Psychology 26(2):245-74.
53. Verkuyten, Maykel, and Louk Hagendoorn 1998. Prejudice and self-categorization: The variable role of authoritarianism and in-group stereotypes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(1):99-110.
54. Whitley, Bernard E., Jr. and Sarah E. Lee 2000. The relationship of authoritarianism and related constructs to attitudes toward homosexuality. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 30(1):144-70.
55. Wink, Paul, Michelle Dillon, and Adrienne Prettyman 2007. Religiousness, spiritual seeking, and authoritarianism: Findings from a longitudinal study. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 46(3):321-35.
56. Wylie, Linda and James Forest 1992. Religious fundamentalism, right-wing authoritarianism and prejudice. Psychological Reports 71(3):1291-98.