Social Dominance Orientation, Right-Wing Authoritarianism, And Willingness To Carry Out Three Domains Of Socially Inclusive Behaviors In A Public Campaign

Ideological attitudes supporting group-based dominance (i.e., social dominance orientation, SDO) and in-group authority (i.e., right-wing authoritarianism, RWA) are well-established dual antecedents of prejudice. We extend classic perspectives of prejudice as an attitudinal outcome by testing this dual-antecedent model with prejudice operationalized as inclusive behavioral intentions in a nationally-representative Australian community sample (N = 2,632). An exploratory structural equation model simultaneously derived three domains of behavioral intentions in the data: small, interpersonal gestures (e.g., saying hello to people from other groups), volunteering to help the disadvantaged (e.g., mentoring people from disadvantaged groups), and political action (e.g., organizing a demonstration). There was evidence for a dual-motivational basis of inclusive behavior intentions, with SDO negatively predicting all three categories of behaviors, particularly interpersonal gestures, while RWA showed a small negative relation only with political action. The findings suggest that motivations for group-based dominance are the primary barrier against behavioral intentions toward social inclusion, which can inform the design of public interventions for reducing prejudice and discrimination.