Abstract:
Early theorists assumed that sociopolitical or ideological attitudes were organized along a single left-right dimension and directly expressed a basic personality dimension. Empirical findings, however, did not support this and suggested that there seem to be 2 distinct ideological attitude dimensions, best captured by the constructs of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation, which express 2 distinct sets of motivational goals or values. We outline a dual-process motivational (DPM) model of how these 2 dimensions originate from particular personality dispositions and socialized worldview beliefs and how and why their different underlying motivational goals or values generate their wide-ranging effects on social outcomes, such as prejudice and politics. We then review new research bearing on the model and conclude by noting promising directions for future research. The idea that personality powerfully influences people’s political and ideological beliefs and behavior has a long history in the social sciences. The first speculative theories emerged in the 1940s as social scientists attempted to explain the rise of fascism and anti-Semitism in Europe. These led to the first major empirical investigation by Adorno and his colleagues (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950), whose theory influenced subsequent thinking for a number of decades.