Why Do Immigrants Make Us More Authoritarian? The Impact of Direct and Normative Threat to Social Order from Outgroupers on Ingroup Authoritarianism

Abstract

Abstract Inspired by the well-documented relationship between authoritarianism and prejudices, we tested whether a massive influx of immigrants can constitute social threats - direct (crimes, riots, violence) and normative (different norms, customs, values) - that increase ingroup authoritarian attitudes. Across two experimental studies (n 1=251 and n 2=230), we were able to show that both direct and normative threat to social order, originating from immigrants, lead to an increase in ingroup authoritarianism attitudes (Cohen’s d = 0.45–0.57), but do not impact the right-wing authoritarianism and cultural conservatism. The effect of threat on the rise of authoritarian attitudes was only partially and in a small degree mediated by collective security motivation. Implications for the authoritarianism-prejudices relationship and the functions of authoritarianism are discussed.