Correlation of higher right-wing authoritarianism and lower social dominance orientation with greater subjective well-being in China.

Abstract

Background: The associations between authoritarian personality and subjective well-being remains understudied, especially in China. In addition, as Chinese individuals and Chinese organizations generally attach importance to authority, exploring the matching effect of individual authoritarian personality and organizational culture (OC) can provide information for career selection, talent recruitment and university enrollment. The present study aimed to test associations between authoritarian personality traits (right-wing authoritarian, RWA; social dominance orientation, SDO) and subjective well-being (SWB; including positive affect, PA; negative affect, NA; and life satisfaction, LS) at the general and component-specific levels and the possible moderating role of OC (military or nonmilitary universities) on the associations in Chinese culture for the first time.

Methods: A total of 6,580 Chinese students from military and nonmilitary universities were surveyed using the Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale, Social Dominance Orientation Scale, Campbell Index of Well-being, Patient Health Questionnaire, and Satisfaction with Life Scale.

Results: A higher score on RWA, but lower on SDO, correlated with greater SWB at both the general level and the component-specific levels. The links of RWA/SDO and positive factors (PA/LS) of SWB as well as latent SWB were moderated by the OC (being in military or nonmilitary universities). Specifically, these correlations were stronger for military than for civilian students. Further, although the moderating roles of OC existed in all three subgroups (sex, age, and socioeconomic status [SES] level), the negative link between OC and latent SWB existed in the male, younger, and high-SES individuals, while this link was not significant in female, older, and low-SES ones.

Conclusions: The present study extends the findings of the moderating roles of organizational culture on the positive RWA-SWB relationship and the negative SDO-SWB relationship in oriental cultural contexts.