A meta-analytic integration of research on the relationship between right-wing ideological attitudes and aggressive tendencies

ABSTRACT

Many studies have investigated the relationship between ideological attitudes and aggressive tendencies. The present meta-analytic integration of research on this relationship included data of 177 samples (total N = 47,933 participants). The results revealed that this relationship was substantial, r =.31, 95% CI [.27 to.35], p <.001. Such a relationship emerged for both attitudes towards violence and behavioural indicators, although the former relationship was stronger. Moreover, with respect to the different types of attitudes towards violence, we obtained equally strong relationships for attitudes towards war and military action, intergroup hostility and aggression, punitive attitudes, and intimate violence. Among the behavioural measures, context-specific aggression bore out a stronger effect size than chronic aggressive behaviour. Finally, type of right-wing attitude did not moderate the relationship under study. In the discussion, we argue that the pattern of results indicates that the greater aggressive tendencies among right-wing individuals are manifested both attitudinally and behaviourally.

KEYWORDS:

• Interpersonal aggression
• attitudes towards violence
• right-wing ideological attitudes
• authoritarianism

Supplementary material

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Notes

¹ Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot were communist leaders who have been accountable for millions of deaths. These horrific examples of what might be called “left-wing” aggression, however, are probably more akin to right-wing aggression, in the sense that the persons who supported those regimes most strongly seem to be psychologically similar to right-wing persons living in Western democracies (Altemeyer & Kamenshikov, 1991; McFarland et al., 1996; Van Hiel et al., 2006).

² The ideology and aggression classifications were cross-validated by the third author. We selected 25 samples. Twenty three classifications of the ideology measure were correct (two self-placement scales with “conservative” as an anchor were incorrectly assigned to the conservatism category). All aggression classifications were correct.

³ It should be noted that our results do not reveal significant differences between RWA and SDO in relationship with aggressive tendencies. Such differential relationships have been obtained for some other constructs that broadly fall into the cluster of prosocial versus antiscocial tendencies. For instance, in a meta-analysis conducted by Sibley and Duckitt (2008), SDO was clearly the stronger correlate of the Five-Factor Model dimension Agreeableness, although part of this effect can be attributed to self-presentation (Ludeke et al., 2016). However, in other domains, like in social dilemma research, RWA and SDO have been found to bear relationships of more or less similar magnitude (e.g. Haesevoets et al., 2015).