Individuals who strongly endorse right-wing authoritarianism are more likely to view minority groups as a threat, according to new research published in the British Journal of Social Psychology. This tendency was evident across various countries and cultures, but it was more pronounced in countries that were less religious or had lower levels of social marginalization. The study sheds new light on how right-wing authoritarianism interacts with sociocultural factors to shape perceptions of threat from refugees and other outgroups.
Right-wing authoritarianism refers to a belief system that emphasizes adherence to traditional values and authorities while supporting punishment for those perceived as challenging social cohesion. Previous research has established a consistent link between right-wing authoritarianism and negative attitudes toward minoritized groups, such as refugees and religious minorities. However, little was known about how broader sociocultural factors shape or moderate this relationship.
The researchers sought to address this gap by investigating whether and how right-wing authoritarianism, religiosity, and perceived societal marginalization contribute to perceptions that minoritized groups pose a threat. They also examined whether these factors interact at both individual and country levels. Given the rise of right-wing movements and increasing global displacement due to conflict and economic instability, understanding these dynamics has important implications for social cohesion and public policy.
“There is a long tradition of associating right-wing authoritarianism with negative perceptions of minoritized groups,” said study author Fahima Farkhari, a research associate at the University of Münster and member of Professor Mitja Back’s lab. “Negative perceptions include perceptions that minoritized groups, such as refugees and immigrants, pose a threat. Few studies have explored variations of the authoritarianism-threat link across countries and the related questions whether and how individual- and country-level sociocultural factors add to and moderate the influence of right-wing authoritarianism on such threat perceptions.”
The research consisted of three large-scale studies that examined how right-wing authoritarianism, religiosity, and perceived societal marginalization contribute to perceptions that minoritized groups pose a threat. The studies varied in scope, ranging from national and regional surveys to a global study that included both cross-sectional and longitudinal daily assessments.
Study 1 was conducted in Germany and comprised two separate samples collected from online survey panels, totaling 1,896 participants. After excluding respondents who were not Christian or did not have German citizenship, the final sample included 923 participants in the first wave and 973 in the second. This study measured perceived threat from refugees using a scale that assessed three dimensions of threat: symbolic (e.g., perceived incompatibility of values), realistic (e.g., economic competition), and safety (e.g., concerns about public security).
Right-wing authoritarianism was measured using a validated scale that captures adherence to traditional authority and social conformity. Religiosity was assessed with a single item asking respondents to rate their level of religious belief on a seven-point scale. Perceived societal marginalization, which refers to individuals’ perceptions that people like them are economically, culturally, and politically marginalized, was measured using a 15-item scale.
Study 2 extended the investigation to a broader European context, collecting data from 3,227 participants in Germany, France, Poland, and Sweden. The study employed computer-assisted telephone interviews to gather responses from a nationally representative sample in each country. Unlike Study 1, this study assessed perceived threat from both refugees and Muslims, given that political and media discourse often frames these groups differently.
The measure of perceived threat included six items for Muslims and three for refugees, which were later combined due to their strong correlation. Right-wing authoritarianism was again measured using a three-item subset of the previously validated scale. Religiosity and perceived societal marginalization were measured similarly to Study 1, though the perceived societal marginalization scale was shortened to six items to fit the telephone survey format.
Study 3 adopted a global perspective, drawing from 3,154 participants across 41 countries, with a total of more than 52,000 daily assessments of threat perceptions. This study utilized data from the “Coping with Corona” project, which collected responses via an online survey platform. Participants first completed a presurvey assessing their ideological beliefs, religiosity, and perceptions of marginalization. Following this, they participated in a four-week daily diary study in which they reported their perceived threat from minoritized groups each day. This allowed researchers to examine whether the cross-sectional associations observed in the first two studies held at a more immediate, day-to-day level.
Country-level religiosity was assessed using an index that measured the proportion of people in each country who reported that religion was important in their daily lives. Country-level marginalization was estimated using economic, cultural, and political indicators, including income inequality (Gini index), civil liberties ratings, and measures of political participation.
Across all three studies, the researchers found a consistent and strong positive relationship between right-wing authoritarianism and perceptions that minority groups are threatening. In other words, individuals who scored higher on right-wing authoritarianism were significantly more likely to perceive minority groups as a threat. This finding held true whether the minority group in question was refugees, Muslims, or other ethnic, religious, or national groups.
The researchers also explored the roles of religiosity and perceived societal marginalization in shaping threat perceptions. They found that individuals who felt more marginalized in society – economically, culturally, or politically – were also more likely to perceive minority groups as threatening. This suggests that a sense of being left behind or excluded can contribute to negative attitudes toward minority groups.
The relationship between religiosity and threat perceptions was less clear-cut. While there was some evidence that more religious individuals were slightly more likely to perceive threats, this relationship was not consistent across all samples.
“Right-wing authoritarian individuals tend to perceive minoritized groups (i.e., individuals of an ethnic, religious, or national minority) as a threat,” Farkhari told PsyPost. “In our studies, this tendency has been found to be strong across several countries. This relationship also holds when additionally considering the individuals’ religiosity and their feeling of being marginalized. That is, those threat perceptions can be explained by right-wing authoritarianism over and above religiosity and feelings of societal depreciation.”
One of the main goals of the study was to see if individual levels of religiosity and perceived societal marginalization might alter the relationship between right-wing authoritarianism and threat perceptions. The results here were mixed. There was limited evidence that individuals who were both highly religious and highly authoritarian were more likely to see minority groups as threatening. Similarly, in a few cases, individuals who were both highly marginalized and highly authoritarian showed an increased tendency to perceive threats. However, these effects were small and not consistent across all the studies.
“Whereas our data leave no doubt that individual-level right-wing authoritarianism is a strong overall predictor of majority groups’ perceptions of threat from minoritized groups, the effect sizes still varied considerably across the individual samples,” Farkhari noted
At the country level, the researchers found more consistent patterns. The positive relationship between right-wing authoritarianism and perceived threat was weaker in countries with higher levels of religiosity or marginalization. In other words, in countries where religion played a larger role in daily life or where there were higher levels of social inequality, the connection between authoritarian attitudes and threat perceptions was less pronounced. This suggests that broader cultural and social factors can indeed shape how individual attitudes translate into perceptions of threat.
“The question why the authoritarianism-threat link is stronger in some countries than in others requires further exploration,” Farkhari said.
The researchers also compared the results from the one-time survey responses to those from the daily diary entries. They found that right-wing authoritarianism was a stronger predictor of threat perceptions in the one-time surveys than in the daily reports. This indicates that while right-wing authoritarianism is linked to general perceptions of threat, it may be less predictive of day-to-day feelings of threat.
As with all research, there are caveats to consider. The study did not examine the specific situational factors that might trigger increases in threat perception. Future studies could use experience sampling methods to investigate whether real-world events, such as media coverage of immigration or political rhetoric, contribute to fluctuations in perceived threat.
“Our global study ran for a time frame of approximately 1 year, with individual participation taking place within a time span of a few weeks at some point during this year,” Farkhari said. “That is, different individuals participated in the study during different time periods. Consequently, the contexts in which the participants were embedded varied.”
“While the country-level indicators chosen for the present work are not subject to extreme short-term fluctuations (e.g. country-level religiosity does not increase or drop dramatically within months), it is known that perceived disruptions of order, for example, due to terrorist attacks, may activate right-wing authoritarianism and its downstream attitudinal consequences.”
Additionally, the samples were still predominantly from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) countries, which may limit the generalizability of the findings. Future research should aim to replicate these findings with larger and more diverse samples from a wider range of countries.
“This research is part of my PhD,” Farkhari said. “It is embedded within a series of other research questions related to correlates and consequences of right-wing authoritarian attitudes. In a previously published article (Farkhari et al., 2022), for instance, we investigated the relationship between right-wing authoritarianism and conspiracy mentality.”
The study, “Right-wing authoritarianism and perceptions that minoritized groups pose a threat: The moderating roles of individual- and country-level religiosity and marginalization,” was authored by Fahima Farkhari, Julian Scharbert, Lara Kroencke, Christin Schwarzer, Jonas F. Koch, Maarten H. W. van Zalk, Bernd Schlipphak, and Mitja D. Back.
