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Cited by 204Social and Intergroup PsychologyPsychometric Methodologies and TestingCultural Differences and Values

Investigating right wing authoritarianism with a very short authoritarianism scale

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Bizumic, Boris, Duckitt, John·2018·Journal of Social and Political Psychology
DOI 10.5964/jspp.v6i1.835
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Abstract

Authoritarianism has been an important explanatory concept for more than 60 years and a powerful predictor of social, political, and intergroup attitudes and behaviour. An important impediment to research on authoritarianism has been the length of the measures available, particularly with the contemporary emphasis on the need for social research to use larger, more representative samples and measure multiple constructs across multiple domains. We therefore developed a six-item Very Short Authoritarianism (VSA) scale that equally represented the three content subdimensions and two directions of wording of Altemeyer’s widely used Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale. Over four samples (N = 1,601) from three countries the VSA scale showed satisfactory internal consistency and the expected hierarchical factor structure with three primary factors loading on a single higher-order factor. Additionally, the scale predicted variables such as nationalism, ethnocentrism, political orientation, political party/candidate support, attitudes towards ingroups or outgroups and anti-minority bias at moderate to strong levels with effects very close to those obtained for much longer established measures of RWA (including Altemeyer’s scale). The VSA scale also showed clearly better reliability and validity than a short measure of authoritarian parental values that has been used to measure authoritarianism.

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  • In an English-speaking study, Renström and Klysing (2024) showed that higher values in right-wing authoritarianism were related to less frequent use of singular they as a gender-neutral pronoun (in favor of gender specific pronouns).

    “Moreover, in an English-speaking study Renström and Klysing (2024) showed that higher values in right-wing authoritarianism (RWA; Bizumic and Duckitt, 2018) were related to less frequent use of singular they as a gender-neutral pronoun (in favor of gender specific pronouns).”

    From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Bizumic and Duckitt, 2018

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Bizumic, B., & Duckitt, J.
Affiliations
University of Auckland (NZ)
ORCID
Duckitt, John
Venue
Journal of Social and Political Psychology
Publisher
Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID)
Published
2018-04-25
Volume
6
Issue
1
Pages
129-150
ISSN
2195-3325 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.5964/jspp.v6i1.835
OpenAlex
W2800451950
Cited by
204
References
6
Citations by year
2026: 22 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 41 · 2023: 42 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 5
FWCI
21.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Journal of Social and Political Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • PschyOpen (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • ResearchSpace (University of Auckland) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
  • Psychology Archives (cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
Keywords
right-wing authoritarianism, authoritarianism, scale development, factor structure, nationalism, ethnocentrism, political orientation, party support, in-group favoritism

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