Authoritarianism, Perceived Threat, and Human Rights Attitudes in U.S. Law Students: A Brief Look

Author(s): H. Michael Crowson

DOI: https://doi.org/10.65030/idr.05020

Abstract: Law students (N = 102) at a Southwestern university completed measures of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), human rights attitudes, perceived threat, and self-identified political and religious conservatism. RWA and SDO were each positively correlated with support for restricting human rights and both, when entered simultaneously in a regression model alongside political and religious conservatism and perceived threat, emerged as statistically significant predictors of human rights attitudes. Perceived threat also predicted human rights attitudes after controlling for RWA, SDO, and political and religious conservatism, although it accounted for a small proportion of variation in those attitudes.

Keywords: Right-wing authoritarianism; Social dominance orientation; Human rights attitudes; Political conservatism; Religious conservatism; Perceived threat; Individual differences

Pages: 260-266

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