Social Dominance Theory: Explorations in the Psychology of Oppression

Sidanius, Jim; Cotterill, Sarah; Sheehy‐Skeffington, Jennifer; Kteily, Nour; Carvacho, Héctor

doi:10.1017/9781316161579.008

Cited by 157 publications

(183 citation statements)

References 227 publications

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“…Still, the cross-sectional nature of our data mandates caution in interpreting causal direction. Indeed scores of previous studies demonstrate that SDO both responds to and bolsters group dominance (24,47,48), suggesting that reciprocal causal processes may also operate with respect to macrostructural inequality, reproducing the hegemonic status quo.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Ceteris paribus, SDO correlates with support for a great variety of specific hierarchy-enhancing practices and institutions (e.g., over-policing of subordinate communities by particularly lethal means), restrictive and punitive policies, and ideologies (e.g., laissez-faire liberalism) that sustain and legitimize group domination and inequality. Indeed, SDO robustly predicts the endorsement of hierarchyenhancing and hierarchy-justifying intergroup attitudes such as racism, sexism, and support for harsher criminal sentences for minority offenders and the disapproval of hierarchy-attenuating ideologies and redistributive policies such as social welfare, civil rights, and multiculturalism (24,47,48). The effects of SDO extend across time and contexts (49,50) and deep into psychological processes such as empathy, implicit bias and social categorization, disgust, dehumanization, and persistent psychophysiological fightor-flight responses toward outgroup males that pose the greatest danger of violent dominance conflicts (51)(52)(53)(54)(55)(56).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Preferences for group dominance track and mediate the effects of macro-level social inequality and violence across societies

Kunst

Fischer

Sidanius

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Whether and how societal structures shape individual psychology is a foundational question of the social sciences. Combining insights from evolutionary biology, economy, and the political and psychological sciences, we identify a central psychological process that functions to sustain group-based hierarchies in human societies. In study 1, we demonstrate that macrolevel structural inequality, impaired population outcomes, socio-political instability, and the risk of violence are reflected in the endorsement of group hegemony at the aggregate population level across 27 countries (n = 41,824): The greater the national inequality, the greater is the endorsement of between-group hierarchy within the population. Using multilevel analyses in study 2, we demonstrate that these psychological group-dominance motives mediate the effects of macrolevel functioning on individual-level attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, across 30 US states (n = 4,613), macrolevel inequality and violence were associated with greater individuallevel support of group hegemony. Crucially, this individual-level support, rather than cultural-societal norms, was in turn uniquely associated with greater racism, sexism, welfare opposition, and even willingness to enforce group hegemony violently by participating in ethnic persecution of subordinate out-groups. These findings suggest that societal inequality is reflected in people's minds as dominance motives that underpin ideologies and actions that ultimately sustain group-based hierarchy. social dominance | multi-level mediation | social inequality | racism | ethnic persecution

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Preferences for group dominance track and mediate the effects of macro-level social inequality and violence across societies

Kunst

Fischer

Sidanius

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Consistent with Hypothesis 2, those higher in SDO reported less willingness to engage in collective action to equalize race relations, improve the financial state of the country that included tackling wealth inequality (at the zero‐order level only), or fight climate change. This disinclination exemplifies the preference of those higher in SDO for groups to be organized as a hierarchy (Duckitt, ; Duckitt & Sibley, ; Sidanius & Pratto, ; Sidanius et al, ) and their desire to dominate nature (Dhont et al, ; Milfont et al, ).…”

Section: Collective Actionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Such a relation would indicate opposition to equalizing race relations, a lack of desire to improve the financial standing of people and address wealth inequity, or pushback against fighting climate change. In other words, behavioral intentions consistent with preference for hierarchical intergroup relations and desire to dominate nature among those higher in SDO (Dhont et al, ; Milfont et al, ; Sidanius et al, ). A significant association was not expected in the moral breakdown domain, given that those higher in SDO are relatively unconcerned about social order and stability, or traditionalism.…”

Section: Collective Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Right‐Wing Ideology as a Predictor of Collective Action: A Test Across Four Political Issue Domains

Choma

Hodson

Jagayat

et al. 2019

Political Psychology

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Despite a vast literature documenting motivations for collective action, the role of sociopolitical ideologies, including right‐wing ideologies, in predicting collective action is underresearched. Literature on right‐wing ideological beliefs suggests that those higher in right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) or social dominance orientation (SDO) hold specific attitudes or endorse specific policies, in part, because of factors such as perceived fear‐based threat or empathy. In the present research, structural equation modeling (SEM) was run on pooled data from a diverse Canadian university sample and two American adult samples (total N = 1,469). Participants completed measures of RWA, SDO, fear‐based threat, empathy, and domain‐specific collective action. Results showed that RWA and SDO both related positively to collective action targeting societal moral breakdown but negatively to collective action aimed at equalizing race relations or fighting climate change. Whereas the indirect effects of right‐wing ideologies via fear‐based threat or empathy were significant in all four domains for SDO, the indirect effect of RWA was only significant in the climate change domain. Implications are discussed.

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“…For our first measure of sociopolitical egalitarianism we chose social dominance orientation (SDO; Pratto et al, 1994), a widely-used measure of the extent to which one approves of some social groups maintaining a position of dominance over others. SDO scores are positively correlated with realworld political attitudes such as conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism, and opposition to policies which promote equality (Ho et al, 2015;Pratto et al, 1994;Sibley, Robertson, & Wilson, 2006;Sidanius, Cotterill, Sheehy-Skeffington, Kteily, & Carvacho, 2016). Our second measure of sociopolitical egalitarianism was the support for redistribution scale.…”

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Is sociopolitical egalitarianism related to bodily and facial formidability in men?

Price

Sheehy‐Skeffington

Sidnaius

et al. 2017

Evolution and Human Behavior

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Social bargaining models predict that men should calibrate their egalitarian attitudes to their formidability and/or attractiveness. A simple social bargaining model predicts a direct negative association between formidability/attractiveness and egalitarianism, whereas a more complex model predicts an association moderated by wealth. Our study tested both models with 171 men, using two sociopolitical egalitarianism measures: social dominance orientation and support for redistribution. Predictors included bodily formidability and attractiveness and four facial measures (attractiveness, dominance, masculinity, and width-to-height ratio). We also controlled for time spent lifting weights, and experimentally manipulated self-perceived formidability in an attempt to influence egalitarianism. Both the simple and complex social bargaining models received partial support: sociopolitical egalitarianism was negatively related to bodily formidability, but unrelated to other measures of bodily/facial formidability/attractiveness; and a formidability-wealth interaction did predict variance in support for redistribution, but the nature of this interaction differed somewhat from that reported in previous research. Results of the experimental manipulation suggested that egalitarianism is unaffected by self-perceived formidability in the immediate short-term. In sum, results provided some support for both the simple and complex social bargaining models, but suggested that further research is needed to explain why male formidability/attractiveness and egalitarianism are so often negatively related.

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Social Dominance Theory: Explorations in the Psychology of Oppression

Cited by 157 publications

References 227 publications

Preferences for group dominance track and mediate the effects of macro-level social inequality and violence across societies

Preferences for group dominance track and mediate the effects of macro-level social inequality and violence across societies

Right‐Wing Ideology as a Predictor of Collective Action: A Test Across Four Political Issue Domains

Is sociopolitical egalitarianism related to bodily and facial formidability in men?

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