When Authoritarians Confront Prejudice. Differential Effects of SDO and RWA on Support for Hate‐Speech Prohibition

Abstract

Two nationwide representative studies (N = 653 adolescents; N = 1007 adults) investigated the psychological correlates of the intention to penalize public expressions of prejudice in the form of support for hate‐speech prohibition. We presented participants with preselected examples of hate speech from the Internet and other mass media and assessed their willingness to support the prohibition of public expressions of such remarks. Both studies found that social dominance orientation and right‐wing authoritarianism are positively correlated with outgroup prejudice, but they have differential effects on hate‐speech prohibition. Social dominance orientation was positively related to the acceptance of hate speech, whereas right‐wing authoritarianism was positively related to hate‐speech prohibition. In discussing this counterintuitive finding, we suggest that right‐wing authoritarians are particularly vigilant toward norm violations—and this makes them more punitive toward counternormative expressions of prejudice, such as hate speech.

Exposure to hate speech increases prejudice through desensitization

“…Potential personality variables that could be held responsible for the observed effect are social dominance orientation and rightwing authoritarianism (see, e.g., Bilewicz et al, 2017;Sidanius et al, 2013), thus, future studies should include such variables in the experimental procedure. The finding that desensitization increases outgroup prejudice holds as long as we assume the non-existence of unobservable important pretreatment covariates of both the level of desensitization and outgroup prejudice.…”

“…The finding that desensitization increases outgroup prejudice holds as long as we assume the non-existence of unobservable important pretreatment covariates of both the level of desensitization and outgroup prejudice. Potential personality variables that could be held responsible for the observed effect are social dominance orientation and rightwing authoritarianism (see, e.g., Bilewicz et al, 2017;Sidanius et al, 2013), thus, future studies should include such variables in the experimental procedure. Another limitation is that our studies focused solely on the reactions to hate speech among majority members.…”

“…In 2012, the Council of Europe started a campaign aimed at reducing the presence of hate speech in public spaces. In that respect, most people-particularly normocentric ones-oppose public expressions of hate speech (Bilewicz, Soral, Marchlewska, & Winiewski, 2017;Crandall, Eshleman, & O'Brien, 2002). Indeed, previous studies found that public expressions of hate speech affect psychological well-being and the suicide rate among minorities (Mullen & Smyth, 2004), the exclusion of minorities from the society (Mullen & Rice, 2003), the devaluation of minority members (Greenberg & Pyszczynski, 1985), and the discriminatory distribution of public resources (Fasoli, Maass, & Carnaghi, 2014).…”

“…Hate speech violates social norms and as such it poses a threat to social order, similar to other forms of intergroup violence. In that respect, most people-particularly normocentric ones-oppose public expressions of hate speech (Bilewicz, Soral, Marchlewska, & Winiewski, 2017;Crandall, Eshleman, & O'Brien, 2002). In this article, we analyze how the mere presence of hate speech can affect individuals' beliefs and opinions regardless of people's initial opposition to it.…”

The role of right‐wing authoritarianism and political sophistication in shaping attitudes toward redistribution

“…While some authors question the existence of leftwing authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996(Altemeyer, , 1998Jost, Blount, et al, 2003;Jost, Glaser, et al, 2003), others show that authoritarian tendencies can be observed among extreme left-wing activists but not the general public (Van Hiel, Duriez, & Kossowska, 2006), while still others argue that using proper measurements authoritarianism exists to similar degrees on both sides of the political spectrum (Conway, Houck, Gornick, & Repke, 2017). Soral, Marchlewska, & Winiewski, 2017) or environmental attitudes (Reese, 2012). In fact, associations of authoritarianism with leftist views have also been demonstrated in domains other than economic attitudes, such as prohibition of hate speech against minorities (Bilewicz,6 The following parties are or were represented in the Austrian Parliament in the last two national elections: the Christian-conservative Austrian People's Party ( € OVP), the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SP € O), the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FP € O), the left-ecologist Greens, the libertarian New Austria and Liberal Forum (NEOS), and more recently the left-wing List Pilz.…”