Is the Myth of Left-wing Authoritarianism Itself a Myth?

Conway, Lucian G., III, Alivia Zubrod, Linus Chan, James McFarland, and Evert Van de Vliert. 2020. “Is the Myth of Left-wing Authoritarianism Itself a Myth?.” PsyArXiv. December 18. doi:10.31234/osf.io/frcks

Abstract: Is left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) closer to a myth or a reality? Twelve studies test the empirical existence and theoretical relevance of LWA. Study 1 reveals that both conservative and liberal Americans identify a large number of left-wing authoritarians in their lives. In Study 2, participants explicitly rate items from a recently-developed LWA measure as valid measurements of authoritarianism. Studies 3-11 show that persons who score high on this same LWA scale possess the traits associated with models of authoritarianism (while controlling for political ideology): LWA is positively related to threat sensitivity across multiple areas, including general ecological threats (Study 3), COVID disease threat (Study 4), Belief in a Dangerous World (Study 5), and Trump threat (Study 6). Further, controlling for ideology, high-LWA persons show more support for restrictive political correctness norms (Study 7), rate African-Americans and Jews more negatively (Studies 8-9), and show more domain-specific dogmatism and attitude strength (Study 10). Study 11 reveals that the majority of the effects from Studies 3-10 hold when looking only within liberals, thus revealing these effects are about liberal authoritarianism. Study 12 uses the World Values Survey to provide evidence of Left-Wing Authoritarianism around the globe. Taken in total, this large array of triangulating evidence from 12 studies comprised of over 8,000 participants from the U.S. and over 66,000 participants world-wide strongly suggests that left-wing authoritarianism is much closer to a reality than a myth.