Expertise and the Ideological Consequences of the Authoritarian Predisposition

Research on the basis of political ideology indicates that psychological variables influence ideological positions. In particular, the role of authoritarianism is of long-standing interest to political scholars. This article looks at how political expertise conditions the ideological implications of the authoritarian predisposition. Although theories of authoritarianism imply that it is a constraint mechanism for the uninformed, research on the role of expertise in the formation of ideology suggests otherwise. In line with this, examination of the 2000 and 2004 American National Election Studies revealed that the relation between the authoritarian predisposition and conservatism was stronger among experts; that relations between the authoritarian predisposition and two components of conservatism—opposition to equality and support for traditionalism—werealsostrongeramongexperts; and that the tendency for theauthoritarianpredisposition to bemorestronglyrelatedtotraditionalismthanoppositiontoequalitywasstronger among experts as well. These findings suggest that the linkage between authoritarianism and ideology is contingent on one s understanding of politics and indicate the need for a more nuanced understanding of what expertise contributes to democratic citizenship. Research on the micro-foundations of ideological affinity seeks to identify processes by which individuals translate psychological inclinations into political preferences. Much of this work focuses on antecedents of self-placement along the left-right dimension, anchored on the left by preferences for equality and CHRISTOPHER M. FEDERICO is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. EMILY L. FISHER and GRACE DEASON are PhD candidates in the Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. The authors thank William Jacoby, the anonymous reviewers, and the editors for their helpful comments. *Address correspondence to Christopher M. Federico, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA; e-mail: [email protected]. doi: 10.1093/poq/nfr026 Advance Access publication September 13, 2011 The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] at U niersity of M inesota on July 8, 2014 http://poqrdjournals.org/ D ow nladed from openness and on the right by opposition to equality and an orientation toward traditionalism and order (Erikson and Tedin 2003; Jost et al. 2003). In general, this body of research suggests that the formation of a general political outlook involves a matching process whereby citizens gravitate toward the ideology with contents that best fit their underlying psychological characteristics (McClosky 1958; Jost et al. 2003; Jost, Federico, and Napier 2009). Below, we focus on one such characteristic, namely,authoritarianism, whose influence on conservatism is a classic topic of research. We propose that expertise profoundly affects the way in which the predisposition to authoritarianism is translated into political conservatism and its core components, traditionalism and opposition to equality. Authoritarianism and Ideological Affinity One of the most important psychological antecedents of ideological self-placement is authoritarianism, which reflects one s orientation toward conventional authorities and social conformity more generally (Adorno et al. 1950; Altemeyer 1996; Stenner 2005; Hetherington and Weiler 2009). The sizable literature on authoritarianism suggests that a stronger tendency toward conformity or deference toward authorities leads to a greater preference for inequality and traditionalism, and thus to greater conservatism. Interest in the construct began with the publication of The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al. 1950) and the ‘‘F-scale’’ measure of authoritarianism, which demonstrated that a general submissiveness to authority and conventional norms—an ‘‘authoritarian personality’’—could account for both prejudice and political conservatism. Adorno et al. (1950) explained these findings in psychodynamic terms, suggesting that authoritarianism was rooted in the repression of hostility toward idealized authorities (particularly parents) and its projection onto outgroups. Despite being questioned on both theoretical and methodological grounds (Brown 1965), this research was revitalized in the 1980s by Altemeyer (1981, 1996), whose work on right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) relied on a social learning account and boiled the construct down to three facets: authoritarian submission to ingroup authorities; authoritarian aggression toward outgroups and deviants; and conventionalism. Moreover, the scale developed to assess RWA avoids many of the methodological pitfalls of the original F-scale (Altemeyer 1996). Consistent with Adorno et al. s (1950) original expectations, compared to low RWAs, high RWAs are more ethnocentric, intolerant, and conservative, displaying greater opposition to equality and higher levels of traditionalism (Altemeyer 1988, 1996, 1998). Importantly, while RWA predicts both facets of conservatism, it is especially related to traditionalism. In this vein, Duckitt s (2001) dual-process model suggests that RWA is more closely linked to ‘‘social’’ or ‘‘cultural’’ forms of conservatism aimed at preserving tradition and order than to forms of conservatism aimed at preserving economic Expertise and Authoritarianism 687 at U niersity of M inesota on July 8, 2014 http://poqrdjournals.org/ D ow nladed from inequality. Duckitt further suggests that this is because authoritarian sentiment in general is more closely associated with beliefs in a dangerous world, as opposed to beliefs in a competitive world, which are more closely associated with opposition to equality (Duckitt and Sibley 2009). Despite its strengths, Altemeyer s approach has a number of problems. In particular, the RWA scale contains items measuring specific political content that it is meant to predict, such as opinions about minority and dissident groups and what to doabout them.Theseitemsresemblemanyofthemeasuresusedinauthoritarianism research to assess dependent variables related to political ideology and prejudice. Thus, the RWA scale fails to distinguish between the predisposition to authoritarianism and its political consequences (Stenner 2005). Indeed, Duckitt s (2001) aforementioned model conceptualizes RWA not as a basic psychological predisposition, but as a measure of ideologically infused attitudes about social order. So, how does one measure a genuine psychological predisposition to authoritarianism? Along these lines, Feldman and Stenner (1997; Feldman 2003) theorize that authoritarianism is better conceived as a generalized motive for the maintenance of conformity, order, and uniformity, apart from specific political preferences—a conceptualization we adopt in this article. Rather than using a series of items about political attitudes and behaviors toward outgroups, Stenner (2005) measures the authoritarian predisposition using items about childrearing preferences, a simple indicator of one s orientation toward authority and conformity that has validity across a wide range of social contexts (Martin 1964; Kohn and Schooler 1983). Preferences for respectful, mannerly, and well-behaved children (as opposed to independent, curious, and considerate children) are considered to reflect an authoritarian predisposition. Using such measures, Stenner found that respondents who place more emphasis on discipline in parenting express more conservative attitudes; these effects of the authoritarian predisposition remained robust even when a two-stage least squares procedure was used to account for potential feedback effects of conservatism. Moreover, other analyses suggest that, like RWA, the authoritarian predisposition is more strongly related to the traditionalism component of conservatism than to opposition to equality; traditionalism thus may better satisfy the motivational goals and values that are chronically salient to authoritarians (Stenner 2005; Barker and Tinnick 2006; Hetherington and Weiler 2009). In sum, this latest approach to the psychology of authoritarianism has the key benefit of distinguishing a general psychological predisposition to authoritarianism that is prior to politics from the specifically political consequences of authoritarianism. Moderators of the Relation Between Authoritarianism and Ideology Decades of research provide evidence for a direct relation between authoritarianism and conservatism, as well as its component elements of opposition to 688 Federico, Fisher, and Deason at U niersity of M inesota on July 8, 2014 http://poqrdjournals.org/ D ow nladed from equality and support for traditionalism. Further, across measures, authoritarianism shows a stronger relation with the traditionalism component of conservatism. In the present study, we further explore these relations. However, in contrast to earlier theories focus on the direct relation between authoritarianism and political outcomes, the conceptualization of authoritarianism we follow here emphasizes the dynamic processes by which the authoritarian predisposition interacts with key political variables to influence ideology and attitudes. Much of this work focuses on a key question: Under what conditions does the authoritarian predisposition manifest itself politically? Recent research has provided some answers to this question. For example, Feldman and Stenner (1997; Stenner 2005) argue that threats to social conformity ‘‘activate’’ the authoritarian predisposition, pushing authoritarians and nonauthoritarians to opposite extremes. From a different angle, research by Oyamot, Borgida, and Fisher (2006) and Oyamot et al. (forthcoming) shows that authoritarians are more likely than others to bring their political attitudes in line with prevailing social norms. When social norms are unclear, however, authoritarianism does not serve as the primary driver of political attitudes. In the spirit of these findings about moderators of the relation between authoritarianism and conservatism, we suggest that authoritarianism is more strongly related to ideological conservatism among some individuals than among others. Specifically, we propose that authoritarianism is more readily translated into conservatism among those who know more about politics and have a better grasp of abstract political ideas. In this vein, an extensive literature on the social construction of ideological options highlights the importance of political expertise, or factual knowledge of politics, in the formation of political ideology (Zaller 1992; Converse 2000; Sniderman and Bullock 2004). First, it notes that ideologies like liberalism and conservatism are not unmediated products of individual-level psychological processes for most citizens. Rather, the beliefs, values, and attitudes that make up particular ideologies are packaged by an ‘‘elite’’ minority consisting of prominent members of competing political parties and then acquired secondhand by members of the mass public via political communications (McClosky 1964; McClosky and Zaller 1984). Second, the literature on ideology notes that learning, comprehension, and use of ideological constructs vary in the mass public as a function of expertise (Campbell et al. 1960; Converse 1964; Judd and Krosnick 1989; Zaller 1992). Studies have demonstrated that those high in expertise are better able to adopt issue attitudes that are more constrained, i.e., ideologically consistent with one another or with individuals general political orientation (Converse 1964; Zaller 1992; Kinder 2006; Federico and Schneider 2007). These findings raise the question of how expertise might condition the relation between authoritarianism and ideological affinity. Whereas expertise increases general ideological constraint (e.g., Converse 1964), the belief-systems literature historically has not focused too heavily on whether expertise strengthens the relation between ideology and its psychological, pre-political antecedents. Nevertheless, this literature generally implies that individuals who know more about the Expertise and Authoritarianism 689 at U niersity of M inesota on July 8, 2014 http://poqrdjournals.org/ D ow nladed from abstract political concepts and issue content associated with various ideological positions also should have a better understanding of which ideology best matches their underlying psychological needs (Jost et al. 2009). Indeed, there is some recent evidence for expertise effects of this sort with respect to other psychological predictors of ideology, such as the need for cognitive closure (Federico and Goren 2009; Federico, Hunt, and Ergun 2009; Kemmelmeier 2007). Interestingly, despite the fact that it is perhaps the most commonly cited psychological foundation of citizens ideological commitments, research has had little to say about whether expertise might condition the political expression of authoritarianism.Inaneffort tofill thisgap,weoffer severalpredictions.Tobegin, the relation between the authoritarian predisposition and conservatism—and the relation between this predisposition and core conservative preferences like opposition to equality and support for traditionalism—should be stronger among experts. In addition, experts should be better able to detect which core component of conservatism—opposition to equality or traditionalism—best serves their psychological needs. This leads to a final prediction: The relation between the authoritarian predisposition and traditionalism should be stronger than the relation between the authoritarian predisposition and opposition to equality among those high in expertise but not among those low in expertise. Importantly, these hypotheses are somewhat counterintuitive in light of the popular understanding of authoritarianism, and support for them would have important consequences for our understanding about the circumstances under which authoritarianism is politically consequential. In particular, our hypotheses cut against the general assumption that authoritarianism constrains attitudes primarily among the unsophisticated. Broadly speaking, this assumption is consistent with research suggesting that authoritarians are especially prone to common information-processing biases (e.g., inflexible reliance on heuristics; see Kemmelmeier 2009; see also Christie 1954; Altemeyer 1996; Stenner 2005). Several other findings point in this direction as well. For example, with expertise comes a greater awareness of the norm of tolerance prevalent in democratic societies, as well as an improved ability to recognize the logical implications of this norm for other political attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors (Lipset 1960; McClosky and Zaller 1984; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991). Similarly, expertise may serve as a buffer against the sensitivity to perceived threat associated with the authoritarian predisposition (Allport 1954; Christie 1954; Stenner 2005). Specifically, experts greater knowledge and resulting sense of efficacy may leave them more confident in the face of threats associated with perceived uncertainty or instability. Thus, evidence of a stronger relationship between the authoritarian predisposition and ideology among a subset of relatively sophisticated individuals—i.e., experts—may suggest the need for a more nuanced view of the assumed connection between authoritarianism and sophistication. In turn, this psychological finding may have implications of a much broader political nature. Consistent with the perception that it is a characteristic of the unsophisticated, authoritarianism is thought to reside mainly in parts of the body politic that are apathetic, alienated, and disconnected from mainstream political life (Christie 690 Federico, Fisher, and Deasonpolitical concepts and issue content associated with various ideological positions also should have a better understanding of which ideology best matches their underlying psychological needs (Jost et al. 2009). Indeed, there is some recent evidence for expertise effects of this sort with respect to other psychological predictors of ideology, such as the need for cognitive closure (Federico and Goren 2009; Federico, Hunt, and Ergun 2009; Kemmelmeier 2007). Interestingly, despite the fact that it is perhaps the most commonly cited psychological foundation of citizens ideological commitments, research has had little to say about whether expertise might condition the political expression of authoritarianism.Inaneffort tofill thisgap,weoffer severalpredictions.Tobegin, the relation between the authoritarian predisposition and conservatism—and the relation between this predisposition and core conservative preferences like opposition to equality and support for traditionalism—should be stronger among experts. In addition, experts should be better able to detect which core component of conservatism—opposition to equality or traditionalism—best serves their psychological needs. This leads to a final prediction: The relation between the authoritarian predisposition and traditionalism should be stronger than the relation between the authoritarian predisposition and opposition to equality among those high in expertise but not among those low in expertise. Importantly, these hypotheses are somewhat counterintuitive in light of the popular understanding of authoritarianism, and support for them would have important consequences for our understanding about the circumstances under which authoritarianism is politically consequential. In particular, our hypotheses cut against the general assumption that authoritarianism constrains attitudes primarily among the unsophisticated. Broadly speaking, this assumption is consistent with research suggesting that authoritarians are especially prone to common information-processing biases (e.g., inflexible reliance on heuristics; see Kemmelmeier 2009; see also Christie 1954; Altemeyer 1996; Stenner 2005). Several other findings point in this direction as well. For example, with expertise comes a greater awareness of the norm of tolerance prevalent in democratic societies, as well as an improved ability to recognize the logical implications of this norm for other political attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors (Lipset 1960; McClosky and Zaller 1984; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991). Similarly, expertise may serve as a buffer against the sensitivity to perceived threat associated with the authoritarian predisposition (Allport 1954; Christie 1954; Stenner 2005). Specifically, experts greater knowledge and resulting sense of efficacy may leave them more confident in the face of threats associated with perceived uncertainty or instability. Thus, evidence of a stronger relationship between the authoritarian predisposition and ideology among a subset of relatively sophisticated individuals—i.e., experts—may suggest the need for a more nuanced view of the assumed connection between authoritarianism and sophistication. In turn, this psychological finding may have implications of a much broader political nature. Consistent with the perception that it is a characteristic of the unsophisticated, authoritarianism is thought to reside mainly in parts of the body politic that are apathetic, alienated, and disconnected from mainstream political life (Christie 690 Federico, Fisher, and Deason at U niersity of M inesota on July 8, 2014 http://poqrdjournals.org/ D ow nladed from 1954; Lipset 1960; McClosky and Zaller 1984). However, given that experts are more likely to participate in political life (e.g., Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996), findings suggesting that the ideological impact of the authoritarian predisposition is stronger among the well informed would imply that authoritarianism is in a better position to actually influence larger political outcomes. Despite these significant considerations, almost no extant research speaks to our hypotheses. Altemeyer (1988) does find that elected officials of different political parties are more likely to diverge in RWA compared to presumably less-informed party identifiers from the general public. However, Altemeyer s work does not directly measure expertise or conservatism and its component elements of traditionalism and opposition to equality. Moreover, as noted earlier, Altemeyer s RWA measure confounds the psychological aspects of authoritarianism with its political consequences, suggesting that the aforementioned results may simply demonstrate the usual constraining effects of expertise vis-àvis relationships between different political attitudes. Thus, existing work leaves us with many unanswered questions.