The relationship between maladaptive personality and right wing ideology

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Abstract

The present research investigates the relationship between right wing ideology and maladaptive personality as measured by the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire (DAPP-BQ) in an adult sample (N=225). Analogous to previous studies, Openness to Experience was significantly related to right wing ideology. Conscientiousness was only modestly related to right wing ideology, but its maladaptive equivalent—Compulsiveness—was significantly related to right wing ideology. A significant relationship was also found for maladaptive Disagreeableness. The other personality traits were only modestly related to political ideology. The implications of the relationship between right-wing ideology and adaptive and maladaptive Openness and Conscientiousness are discussed.

Introduction

According to Wilson (1973, p. 12), the authoritarian personality syndrome was conceived by Adorno et al. as “a kind of pathological syndrome like psychopathy or schizophrenia” (italics in original). Others described adherents of authoritarian ideology as “Misanthropic, non-empathic, dogmatic, intolerant and threatened” in contrast to left-wing extremists who are “tolerant of ambiguity and of others, empathic, unthreatened and trusting” (Knutson, in Stone, 1974, p. 10). However, contrary to this conventional wisdom, efforts to obtain evidence for the hypothesized relationship between authoritarianism and psychopathology have not produced equivocal results. Research comparing clinical and control samples as well as research that tried to establish the relationship between maladaptive personality traits and right-wing beliefs in normal samples often failed to substantiate the hypothesized relationship. As a consequence, research efforts on this topic waned over the years resulting in a small number of recent contributions.

However, during the past few years we have witnessed major advancements in the measurement of personality pathology and disorders. Clark, 1993b, Livesley, 1990 empirically identified clusters of maladaptive behaviour, resulting in the development of comprehensive questionnaires that measures maladaptive trait dimensions. Hence, the question arises whether the maladaptive trait dimensions measured by these newly developed questionnaires are related to right-wing beliefs.

In order to understand the personality of the adherents of the major political ideologies of his time, Jaensh, 1938, Boder, 1942, Brown, 1965 distinguished between the J-type and the S- or Anti-type. “J” stands for integration and represents the type of unified consistent personality, whereas “S” stands for synaesthesia and disintegration. Synaesthesia is defined as the tendency of the individual to experience feelings in different realms of sense perception. For example, one can have colour experiences when listening to music or, one can hear music when looking at flowers.

According to Jaensch—a prominent Nazi psychologist—advocates of liberal ideology could be characterized by “S”. Synaesthesia was interpreted as a symptom of degeneracy and the instabilities in perceptual processes were linked to instabilities in principles of ethics and logic. Synaesthesia was considered a stigma, indicative of violent, intensive morbidity, or a violent destructive tendency toward the world. The extreme S-types would be anti-social, lacking close friends, not capable of incorporating themselves in the whole of the community. Moreover, S-types would be flaccid, weak and effeminate, and would be likely to suffer from tuberculosis and schizophrenia.

Jaensch (1938) certainly deserves the credit to have revived the interest in the relationship between personality variables and political ideology and extremism. This “hunch” was taken up by Adorno et al., 1950, Brown, 1965, Eaves et al., 1989, albeit that certain obvious evaluative changes were made. According to Adorno et al. (1950, p. 746), the fixed relationship between stimuli and perception primarily refers to rigidity and the absence of such fixed relationships has to be interpreted as “… an attitude which is above all, rebellion against stereotypy”.

Adorno et al. (1950) did not find any differences in ethnocentrism between a clinical sample (N=120) and other samples, nor did they find any reliable relationship between ethnocentrism and several dimensions of mental illness as measured by the MMPI in a clinical sample. Neither did Masling (1954) report significant differences between a clinical (N=49) and a non-clinical sample (N=1000) on the Acceptance of Authority Scale. Dworin and Wyant (1957) reported significantly higher F scores in a group of schizophrenics (N=43) than in a control group of 21 volunteer women, whereas Becker, Spielberger, and Parker (1963) did not obtain significant differences between a group of manic-depressives (N=30), neurotic-depressives (N=23), schizophrenics (N=20) and non-psychiatric controls (N=30). Freedman, Webster, and Sanford (1956) administered the F-scale and the MMPI in two large samples of freshmen women (N=441 and 225). Contrary to their expectations, they found a negative correlation between authoritarianism and defensiveness, hysteria and paranoia. Michael (1967) reported that an adapted version of the F-scale was not significantly related to mental health impairment nor to psychopathological personality structure in an urban mental health survey (N=1660). In a recent study, Mehrabian (1996) did not find any relationship between several conservatism scales and psychopathology as measured by trait anxiety, depression, panic, and somatization in a sample recruited by research assistants (N=72).

One would also expect a correlation between authoritarianism and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire dimensions of neuroticism and psychoticism, which Eysenck considered predictors of psychopathology as well as of ideology (see Eysenck, 1954, Eysenck & Coulter, 1972, Eysenck & Eysenck, 1994). However, no significant relationship between neuroticism and conservative ideology was obtained by Kline & Cooper, 1984, Mehryar, 1970, Nias, 1973, Ray, 1972, Wilson & Brazendale, 1973. Heaven, Connors, and Trevethan (1987) also did not obtain a significant correlation between authoritarianism and psychoticism, whereas Kline and Cooper (1984) unexpectedly found a negative association.

In conclusion, despite the fact that many believe that right-wing extremism is associated with psychopathology, attempts to obtain a positive relationship between right-wing ideology on the one hand, and maladjustment and dimensions that relate to dysfunctionality on the other hand, were not entirely successful. However, it may be possible that significant correlations would occur with newly developed comprehensive measures of personality dysfunction.

Recently, much attention has been devoted to the relationship between normal personality traits and personality disorders (e.g. Enns et al., 2002, Jang et al., 1999, Livesley & Jang, 2000). Analysis of the major correlates of the basic dimensions underlying personality disorders, as defined by DSM-III (R) (APA, 1987), revealed that they are related to four of the five major personality dimensions, but that the domain of Openness has no clear maladaptive or pathological counterpart (e.g. Clark, 1993b, Livesley, 1990, Reynolds & Clark, 2001). In particular, meaningful correlations were obtained between maladaptive trait dimensions measured by models such as the Schedule for Non-adaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP, Clark, 1993a) and the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire (DAPP-BQ, Livesley, 1990) on the one hand, and Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Introversion and Disagreeableness on the other hand, but a dimension related to Openness to Experience did not emerge (e.g. Schroeder, Wormworth, & Livesley, 1994).

The finding that Openness did not show meaningful correlations with personality pathology is of particular importance for the study of the relationships between personality pathology and political ideology. That is, previous research on the Five-Factor personality Model revealed that Openness to Experience was the most important correlate of political ideology. For example, it was reported that Openness was negatively related to general conservatism (Riemann et al., 1993, Van Hiel et al., 2000, Van Hiel & Hiel, 1996a, Wilson & Patterson, 1968), the Wilson–Patterson (1968) conservatism scale (Butler, 2000, Trapnell, 1994), Right Wing Authoritarianism (Dollinger et al., 1996, Hodson & Sorrentino, 1999, McCrae, 1996, Peterson et al., 1997, Trapnell, 1994, Lippa & Arrad, 1999, for a non-significant correlation), and preference for right wing political parties (Caprata et al., 1999, Van Hiel et al., 2000). The other personality dimensions of the Five-Factor Model—Agreeableness, Extraversion and Neuroticism—did not relate significantly to political ideology, with the exception of Conscientiousness, which has repeatedly been reported to show a positive relationship with right wing ideology (e.g. Heaven & Bucci, 2001, Riemann et al., 1993, Trapnell, 1994, for non-significant correlations).

Combining these findings on “normal” and maladaptive personality, the aforementioned studies suggest that maladaptive personality generally does not relate to ideology for two reasons. First, maladaptive personality should not be related to political ideology because Openness—an ideology correlate—is only poorly represented in the realm of dysfunctional behaviours. Second, maladaptive traits that correlate with Agreeableness, Extraversion and Neuroticism should not relate to political ideology, because their non-pathological counterparts do not show significant correlations. However, there is some evidence on the relationship between Conscientiousness and ideology, and one should therefore expect a correlation for Compulsiveness.

The present study tried to establish the relationships between right wing ideology on the one hand, and the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire (DAPP-BQ, Livesley, 1990) and the five personality factors measured by the NEO-FFI on the other hand. In order to investigate these relationships, various indicators of right-wing beliefs were administered. In particular, participants filled in the General Conservatism Scale (Van Hiel & Mervielde, 1996a), the Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWA, Altemeyer, 1981; translated by Meloen, 1991), a left/right self-placement scale and various scales measuring political party preferences.

Section snippets

Participants

The present study was part of a larger research project for which undergraduate students recruited two adolescents and one parent of the same family. The overall rate of missing data was low because students were obliged to write a report based on the collected data and they were free to recruit any family they wanted. Ideological variables were only administered in the adult sample (N=225). Only one participant was excluded from further analyses because of too many missing data. The mean age

Results

Principal Component Analysis of the DAPP-BQ Scales (see Table 1) yielded four components that largely replicated previous research (e.g. Schroeder et al., 1994). The first principal component which accounted for 39.5% of the variance was comprised of exactly the same scales as reported by Schroeder et al. (1994): Anxiousness, Affective Lability, Diffidence, Identity Problems, Social Avoidance, Passive Aggressivity, Narcissism and Insecure Attachment. This component was labelled maladaptive

Discussion

Although many scholars advanced the hypothesis that extreme ideologies are related to personality disorders, attempts to show a positive relationship between conservative, right wing ideology on the one hand, and maladjustment and dimensions tapping dysfunctional traits such as neuroticism on the other hand, were not very successful. In line with this, the present study evinces weak correlations for maladaptive personality traits related to Extraversion and Neuroticism. Conversely,

Conclusions

Previous research on the relationship between various measures of psychological dysfunction and right-wing ideology often reported non-significant findings. The present study administered the DAPP-BQ—a comprehensive model of maladaptive personality—showing that pathological traits related to Neuroticism and Introversion were all unrelated to right wing ideology. However, the role of Compulsiveness and Disagreeableness in explaining right-wing ideology was substantiated.

The present study

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