New research published in the Journal of Research in Personality provides evidence that belief in determinism plays an important role in right-wing authoritarianism.
A link between determinism and authoritarianism was proposed by the German psychologist Erich Fromm in 1941 and several other political thinkers have made the connection as well. The authors of the new study were interested in empirically testing the idea.
“I’ve been interested in whether and to what extent individual differences in psychological features are related to philosophical beliefs since my undergraduate years at Binghamton University, where I ended up double majoring in philosophy and psychology,” explained study author Tom Costello, a graduate student at Emory University.
“More recently, a major focus of my research has been authoritarianism, so it was wonderful to have a chance to explore the interrelations among beliefs in determinism and authoritarianism in our paper. As we note in the article, philosophers such as Karl Popper, Ayn Rand, and Theodor Adorno have made note of the conceptual links between determinism and authoritarianism. We wanted to (a) scientifically test these conceptual links and (b) explore any psychological links, as well.”
In three studies, with 20,929 participants in total, the researchers found that people who believed their future had already been predetermined by fate tended to score higher on measures of right-wing authoritarianism, social conservatism, and social dominance orientation.
Right-wing authoritarianism is a personality trait that describes the tendency to submit to political authority and be hostile towards other groups, while social dominance orientation is a measure of a person’s preference for inequality among social groups.
The researchers found that these fatalistic beliefs were also associated with having aversions to ambiguity and a preference for concrete information.
People who believed that one’s genetic makeup determined their future also tended to score higher on measures of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation — but not economic or social conservatism.
In addition, deterministic beliefs were linked to heightened dogmatism and political intolerance, as well as reduced openness to experience and agreeableness.
“People’s psychological traits and worldviews tend to be interrelated,” Costello told PsyPost.
“We found that all sorts of measures of authoritarianism, on the one hand, and both genetic determinism (i.e., the belief that actions and events are attributable to material causes outside of the self) and fatalistic determinism (i.e., beliefs that actions and events are attributable to ‘destiny’ or ‘fate’), on the other hand, were positively correlated across three studies. Past research has found that both authoritarianism and determinism beliefs foster a sense of certainty, so individual differences in need for certainty may explain this correlation.”
But the study — like all research — includes some limitations.
“It is worth noting that authoritarianism is an extremely heterogeneous psychological construct,” Costello explained.
“For instance, we primarily relied on measures of authoritarianism that are highly correlated with political conservatism; one important future test of authoritarianism-determinism links will be to see if measures of authoritarianism that are correlated with left-wing political ideology (e.g., https://psyarxiv.com/3nprq) also manifest positive correlations with determinism beliefs.”
The study, ““Escape from Freedom”: Authoritarianism-related traits, political ideology, personality, and belief in free will/determinism“, was authored by Thomas H. Costello, Shauna M. Bowes, and Scott O. Lilienfeld.