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Original Article

Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation

as Mediators of Worldview Beliefs on Attitudes Related to the War on Terror

Published Online:May 15, 2009https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335.40.2.93

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to test an integrative model in which worldview beliefs were treated as antecedents of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), and two sets of attitudes related to the War on Terror: endorsement of restrictions on human rights/civil liberties and support for the US military invasion of Iraq in 2003. Dangerous and competitive world beliefs significantly predicted RWA and SDO, respectively, during structural equation modeling. Whereas both RWA and SDO predicted endorsement of human rights/civil liberties attitudes, only RWA predicted support for military aggression against Iraq. Tests of indirect effects suggested that RWA mediated the effects of dangerous world beliefs on attitudes toward human rights/civil liberties and support for military aggression, whereas SDO mediated the effects of competitive world beliefs on attitudes toward human rights/civil liberties only.

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