Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hartman, Todd K.
• Stocks, Thomas V. A.
• McKay, Ryan
• Gibson-Miller, Jilly
• Levita, Liat
• Martinez, Anton P.
• Mason, Liam
• McBride, Orla
• Murphy, Jamie
• Shevlin, Mark
• Bennett, Kate M.
• Hyland, Philip
• Karatzias, Thanos
• Vallières, Frédérique
• Bentall, Richard P.

Titel

The Authoritarian Dynamic During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Effects on Nationalism and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment

Ist Teil von

• Social psychological & personality science, 2021-09, Vol.12 (7), p.1274-1285

Ort / Verlag

Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Quelle

Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Research has demonstrated that situational factors such as perceived threats to the social order activate latent authoritarianism. The deadly COVID-19 pandemic presents a rare opportunity to test whether existential threat stemming from an indiscriminate virus moderates the relationship between authoritarianism and political attitudes toward the nation and out-groups. Using data from two large nationally representative samples of adults in the United Kingdom (N = 2,025) and Republic of Ireland (N = 1,041) collected during the initial phases of strict lockdown measures in both countries, we find that the associations between right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and (1) nationalism and (2) anti-immigrant attitudes are conditional on levels of perceived threat. As anxiety about the COVID-19 pandemic increases, so too does the effect of RWA on those political outcomes. Thus, it appears that existential threats to humanity from the COVID-19 pandemic moderate expressions of authoritarianism in society.