Krauss SW, Streib H, Keller B, Silver CF. The distinction between authoritarianism and fundamentalism in three cultures: factor analysis and personality correlates. Archive for the Psychology of Religion. 2006;28:341-348.The goals of the study were to examine whether fundamentalism and authoritarianism could be distinguished by the Big Five factors of personality in American, Romanian and German samples, and to determine whether fundamentalism and authoritarianism could be distinguished by factor analysis in any of the three cultures. The results in all three cultures indicate that fundamentalism and authoritarianism have virtually identical personality correlates. In all three cultures, the two constructs were indistinguishable via exploratory factor analysis and could only be distinguished via confirmatory factor analysis, although direction-of-wording effects dwarfed the differences between fundamentalism and authoritarianism. The findings suggest that researchers should view fundamentalism as religious authoritarianism, and should therefore be cautious when making inferences about religiosity from research on fundamentalism

Keller, Barbara 

Krauss, Stephen W.

Silver, Christopher F.

Streib, Heinz 

English

Krauss SW, Streib H, Keller B, Silver CF. The distinction between authoritarianism and fundamentalism in three cultures: factor analysis and personality correlates. Archive for the Psychology of Religion. 2006;28(1):341-348.The goals of the study were to examine whether fundamentalism and authoritarianism could be distinguished by the Big Five factors of personality in American, Romanian and German samples, and to determine whether fundamentalism and authoritarianism could be distinguished by factor analysis in any of the three cultures. The results in all three cultures indicate that fundamentalism and authoritarianism have virtually identical personality correlates. In all three cultures, the two constructs were indistinguishable via exploratory factor analysis and could only be distinguished via confirmatory factor analysis, although direction-of-wording effects dwarfed the differences between fundamentalism and authoritarianism. The findings suggest that researchers should view fundamentalism as religious authoritarianism, and should therefore be cautious when making inferences about religiosity from research on fundamentalism

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THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN AUTHORITARIANISM ANDFUNDAMENTALISM IN THREE CULTURES: FACTOR ANALYSIS AND PERSONALITY CORRELATESStephen W. Krauss, Heinz Streib, Barbara Keller & Christopher Silver*ABSTRACT The goals of the study were to examine whether fundamentalism andauthoritarianism could be distinguished by the Big Five factors of per-sonality in American, Romanian and German samples, and to determinewhether fundamentalism and authoritarianism could be distinguishedby factor analysis in any of the three cultures. The results in all threecultures indicate that fundamentalism and authoritarianism have virtuallyidentical personality correlates. In all three cultures, the two constructswere indistinguishable via exploratory factor analysis and could onlybe distinguished via confirmatory factor analysis, although direction-of-wording effects dwarfed the differences between fundamentalism andauthoritarianism. The findings suggest that researchers should view fun-damentalism as religious authoritarianism, and should therefore becautious when making inferences about religiosity from research onfundamentalism.Research on individual difference in religion has grown remarkablyin the last ten years (Emmons & Paloutzian, 2003). Special issuesfocusing on religion have appeared in such major personality jour-nals as the Journal of Personality and Personality and Social PsychologicalReview. In addition, numerous articles dealing with religion haveappeared in top journals (e.g., Burris & Tarpley, 1998; Hart, McAdams,Hirsh & Bauer, 2001; Saucier, 2000). Several issues of general inter-est to personality researchers remain unanswered. Specifically, it isunclear whether many of the religious constructs, such as funda-mentalism, are empirically separable across cultures from generalindividual difference variables, such as authoritarianism. As such, thecurrent article will explore the distinction between authoritarianismand fundamentalism in three cultures through factor analysis andtheir relationships to the Big Five personality factors.* The authors would like to thank Dan Cervone, Ramona Krauss, and LindaSkitka for their comments on previous drafts of this paper.Archiv für Religionspsychologie/Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 28 (2006) 341–348belzen_f17_338-348  6/14/06  5:08 PM  Page 341342 stephen w. krauss, et al.Hunsberger and Altemeyer’s (1992) Fundamentalism scale hasrecently been attracting a great deal of attention. The Fundamentalismscale sprang from Altemeyer’s work on authoritarianism and wasdesigned to measure:the belief that there is one set of religious teaching that clearly con-tains the fundamental, basic, intrinsic, essential, inerrant truth abouthumanity and deity; that is this essential truth is fundamentally opposedby forces of evil which must be vigorously fought; that this truth mustbe followed today according to the fundamental, unchangeable practicesof the past; and that those who believe and follow these fundamentalteachings have a special relationship with the deity (Hunsberger &Altemeyer, 1992; p. 118).Further clarifying the meaning of fundamentalism, Altemeyer (1996)stated that “fundamentalism can usually be viewed as a religious manifestationof right-wing authoritarianism . . . It is the way authoritarians react to thereligious impulse” (p. 161, emphasis in the original). In other words,the fundamentalism scale was designed to measure religious authoritaria-nism, which is a mixture of authoritarianism and religious orthodoxy(Altemeyer, 1996; Laythe, Finkel, Bringle & Kirkpatrick, 2002).Measures of authoritarianism, such as Altemeyer’s (1988, 1996) Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale, are conceived as measuring a moregeneral type of authoritarianism that is a mixture of aggression againstsanctioned targets, submission to authority, and conventionality(Altemeyer, 1996; Hunsberger, 1995).As one might expect, the Fundamentalism scale has consistentlyshown strong correlations with authoritarianism, with correlationsbetween the two measures tending to be about .70 (Altemeyer, 1996;Hunsberger, 1995). Though correlations of this magnitude are veryhigh, they are expected given that the Fundamentalism scale isdesigned to be a measure of religious authoritarianism (Altemeyer,1996) and therefore uses conceptually overlapping items.The distinction between authoritarianism and fundamentalism hasreceived some attention in regards to their relationships to prejudicereligion (e.g., Hunsberger & Altemeyer, 1992; Hunsberger, Alisat,Pancer, & Pratt, 1996), and complexity of thought (Hunsberger, Pratt,& Pancer, 1994). However, virtually all of these studies examinedkey differences that conceptually distinguish the constructs. Namely,that fundamentalists are more religious and authoritarians are moreprejudiced. Yet, very little research (though see Hunsberger et al.,1994) has examined the discriminant validity of the Right-Wingbelzen_f17_338-348  6/14/06  5:08 PM  Page 342authoritarianism and fundamentalism 343Authoritarianism (RWA) and Fundamentalism scales by general indi-vidual difference variables, such as the Big Five personality factors.In addition, previous research has not examined whether funda-mentalism and RWA are distinct from one another using factoranalysis. Understanding the degree of conceptual overlap betweenfundamentalism and RWA is important because otherwise researchersmay draw incorrect or biased conclusions about extreme religiouscommitment and religious conservatism (cf., Smedslund, 2002).Another limitation of the past research is that it has almost exclu-sively used North American, student samples. Thus, it is unclearwhether fundamentalism can be distinguished from authoritarianismoutside of North America.In an effort to address some of these issues, the current study wasconducted. The current study had three goals. The first goal was toexamine the distinction between RWA and fundamentalism in regardsto their correlations with the Big Five personality factors. The sec-ond goal was to examine whether RWA and fundamentalism canbe distinguished via exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis.The third goal was to examine the distinction between RWA andfundamentalism in North American and non-North American samples,and this goal was met by using samples drawn from the U.S.,Germany, and Romania.MethodParticipants and ProcedureThe 297 (100 male and 195 female) U.S. participants completed thequestionnaire in return for partial course credit in an introductorypsychology course at a middle-sized, state university in the southeasternUnited States. The U.S. participants were 20 years old on average,and 66 percent of these participants reported that they were white.The 200 (90 male and 110 female) German participants wereUniversity students and completed the questionnaire as volunteers.The German participants were 24 years old on average, and 94percent of these participants reported that they were white.The 235 (126 male and 108 female) Romanian participants wereresidents of student housing in Bucharest that had agreed to voluntarilyfill out the questionnaire when approached by a student administra-tor. The Romanian participants were 22 years old on average, andbelzen_f17_338-348  6/14/06  5:08 PM  Page 343344 stephen w. krauss, et al.98 percent of these participants reported that they were ethnicallyRomanian.MeasuresTo measure authoritarianism, all participants completed Altemeyerand Hunsberger’s (1992) 1990 Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scaleon a five-point format (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree).To measure religious fundamentalism, all participants completedAltemeyer and Hunsberger’s (1992) Religious Fundamentalism Scaleon a five-point format (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree).To measure personality, all participants completed Goldberg’s (1999)100-item Big-Five Factor Markers from his International PersonalityItem Pool. This measure was used because it has been shown to beat least as valid as the more established measures in the U.S. (Goldberg,in press) and no established measures of the Romanian Big-Five exist.The Romanian and German participants completed native lan-guage versions of each scale that were made using the process ofbacktranslation. No translation difficulties were encountered. All par-ticipants completed all the items in an identical order.ResultsTable 1 reports the descriptive statistics of the measures completedby all three samples. As can be seen, all of the measures consistentlyshowed good reliability.Table 2 shows the personality correlates of fundamentalism andauthoritarianism (RWA). As can be seen, fundamentalism and RWAwere strongly correlated in all three cultures, with r’s ranging from.73 to .76. Fundamentalism and RWA also had virtually identicalpersonality correlates. Fundamentalism and RWA both tended to bepositively related to conscientiousness and slightly negatively relatedto intellect. In addition, neither scale was related to emotional stability.However, fundamentalism and RWA’s correlates with extraversionand agreeableness appeared to be culturally dependent. In Germany,but not in the U.S. or Romania, both measures were negativelyrelated to extraversion. In the U.S. and Romania, but not in Germany,both measures tended to be positively related with agreeableness.belzen_f17_338-348  6/14/06  5:08 PM  Page 344authoritarianism and fundamentalism 345Table 1 Descriptive StatisticsU.S. German RomanianAlpha Mean SD Alpha Mean SD Alpha Mean SDFundamentalism .88 3.09 .73 .92 2.19 .71 .88 3.36 .57Authoritarianism .88 3.06 .57 .92 2.28 .59 .85 3.27 .50Extraversion .88 3.26 .67 .87 3.46 .54 .85 3.23 .58Agreeableness .90 3.82 .61 .84 3.85 .48 .83 3.60 .50Conscientiousness .89 3.43 .62 .87 3.41 .61 .86 3.51 .58Emotional Stability .86 3.08 .68 .87 3.15 .52 .87 2.93 .61Intellect .89 3.53 .55 .88 3.55 .49 .82 3.51 .48Table 2 The Personality Correlates of Fundamentalism and AuthoritarianismFundamentalism AuthoritarianismU.S. Germany Romania U.S. Germany RomaniaAuthoritarianism .74** .76** .73**Extraversion .06 –.23** .02 –.01 –.21** –.03Agreeableness .14* –.01 .17** .11 –.04 .19**Conscientiousness .19** .20** .12 .19** .26** .21**Emotional Stability .07 .02 .01 .03 .07 .02Intellect –.11 –.16* –.14* –.19** –.19** –.09* p < .05. ** p < .01.Factor AnalysisTo examine whether the fundamentalism and RWA scales are dis-tinct, a principle components analysis with orthogonal (varimax) rota-tion was conducted on all the RWA and Fundamentalism items.The scree plot revealed the clear presence of 2 factors in all threesamples. In all three samples, the first factor was composed almostexclusively of the con-trait items of both scales. In all three samples,the second factor was composed exclusively of the pro-trait items ofboth scales. This suggests that in all three cultures, the fundamentalismscale was not distinguishable from RWA via exploratory factoranalysis, but that the pro-trait items were distinguishable from thecon-trait items. This interpretation was further explored using confir-matory factor analysis.Unlike exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis canexamine whether the two scales are distinguishable after directionbelzen_f17_338-348  6/14/06  5:08 PM  Page 345346 stephen w. krauss, et al.of wording effects are controlled. To determine whether fundamen-talism is separable from RWA, five different factor structures werecompared separately in each of the three samples. The most basicmodel, the One-Factor Model, assumes that the fundamentalism scaleis not distinguishable from RWA, while the Two-Factor Modelassumes that they are distinguishable. In addition, because theexploratory results only showed the presence of two direction ofwording factors and no RWA or fundamentalism factors, this TwoDirection-of-Wording Factor Model was also examined. Last, theOne- and Two-Factor models were also examined once direction-of-wording effects were controlled. These two models will be termedthe One- and Two-Factor with Method Effects models.The goodness-of-fit statistics for each of these models is shown inTable 3. As can be seen, in all three samples, the Two-Factor Modelwas significantly better than the One-Factor Model, but was significantlyworse than the Two Direction-of-Wording Factor Model. However,the One- and Two-Factor with Method Effects models had betterfit than all of the previous models in all three samples, with theTwo-Factor with Method Effects models having a slightly better fitthan the One-Factor with Method Effects model.Overall, both the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyticresults suggests that, in all three cultures, the pro-trait items of eachscale were more similar to the pro-trait items of the other scale thanthey were to the con-trait items of their own scale, and vice versa.However, once these method effects were controlled, the two scaleswere distinguishable, which is somewhat supportive of the scales’validity. However, controlling for the method effects resulted in excel-lent fit in all three cultures without assuming the two scales couldbe distinguished. Thus, controlling for the direction-of-wording effectsdid the lion’s share of the fit improvement, and accounting for theconceptual distinctions between fundamentalism and authoritarian-ism did relatively little extra.DiscussionThe major goals of the study were to examine whether fundamen-talism and RWA could be distinguished using individual differencevariables of general importance, namely the Big Five factors of per-sonality, and to determine whether fundamentalism and RWA couldbelzen_f17_338-348  6/14/06  5:08 PM  Page 346authoritarianism and fundamentalism 347be distinguished by factor analysis. In general, the personality cor-relates of authoritarianism and fundamentalism were virtually thesame in all three cultures. Thus, it appears that fundamentalism can-not be distinguished from authoritarianism based on their personal-ity correlates. As Saucier (2000) has found, fundamentalism andauthoritarianism’s correlations with personality are very small, whichsuggests that they are largely independent of personality.In contrast fundamentalism’s and RWA’s personality correlates,the factor analytic results in all three cultures suggest that there isa very subtle distinction between the two constructs. In fact, the dis-tinction between fundamentalism and RWA is so subtle that it ismasked by direction-of wording method effects in exploratory factoranalysis, and can only be seen by confirmatory factor analysis.Overall, the results suggest that fundamentalism and authoritari-anism are very closely related constructs. Thus, the current resultsseem to give some support to Altemeyer’s (1996) interpretation offundamentalism as religious authoritarianism. As such, the currentresults seem to suggest that researchers should view the fundamen-talism literature as an outgrowth of the authoritarianism literature,as Altemeyer and Hunsberger (1992) originally did, and not as some-Table 3 Goodness of Fit Statistics for Five Confirmatory Models ofFundamentalism and AuthoritarianismGoodnessof Fit Sample Statistics ModelsOne-Factor Two-Factor Two Direction-of- with withOne-Factor Two-Factor Wording Factor Method MethodEffects Effectsdf 1175 1173 1174 1172 1175Chi-Square 2914 2747 2591 2320 2200U.S. CFI .919 .927 .934 .947 .952RMSEA .086 .082 .078 .070 .066Chi-Square 2914 2747 2591 2320 2200Germany CFI .951 .953 .958 .968 .97RMSEA .069 .067 .064 .056 .054Chi-Square 3573 3495 3028 2875 2792Romania CFI .924 .926 .942 .946 .949RMSEA .093 .092 .082 .079 .077belzen_f17_338-348  6/14/06  5:08 PM  Page 347thing completely separate. Researchers ignoring the high degree ofconceptual overlap between fundamentalism and authoritarianismrisk designing potentially biased studies and potentially making incor-rect conclusions based on their data (Smedslund, 2002). The currentstudy also suggests that distinctions between fundamentalism andauthoritarianism are small and differences may only be found in keydomains that conceptually distinguish the constructs, such as preju-dice and religiosity. Future research should try to find other domainsthat distinguish fundamentalism from authoritarianism.ReferencesAltemeyer, B. (1988). Enemies of freedom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.——— (1996). The authoritarian specter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.——— & Hunsberger, B. (1992). Authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, quest,and prejudice. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 2, 113–133.Burris, C. T. & Tarpley, W. R. (1998). Religion as being: Preliminary validationof the Immanence scale. Journal of Research in Personality, 32, 55–79.Emmons, R. A., & Paloutzian, R. F. (2003). The psychology of religion. AnnualReview of Psychology, 54, 377–402.Hart, H. M. McAdams, D. P., Hirsch, B. J., Bauer, J. J. (2001). Generativity andsocial involvement among African Americans and White adults. Journal of Researchin Personality, 35, 208–230.Hunsberger, B. (1995). Religion and prejudice: The role of religious fundamental-ism, quest and right-wing authoritarianism. Journal of Social Issues, 51, 113–129.——— (1996). Religious fundamentalism, right-wing authoritarianism, and hostilitytoward homosexuals in non-Christian religious groups. The International Journalfor the Psychology of Religion, 6, 39–49.———, Alisat, S., Pancer, S. M., & Pratt, M. (1996). Religious fundamentalismand religious doubts: Context, connections, and complexity of thinking. TheInternational Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 6, 2001–220.———, Pratt, M., Pancer, S. M. (1994). Religious fundamentalism and integrativecomplexity of thought: A relationship for existential content only? Journal forthe Scientific Study of Religion, 33, 335–346.Goldberg, L. R. (1999). A broad-bandwidth, public-domain, personality inventorymeasuring the lower-level facets of several five-factor models. In I. Mervielde, I.Deary, F. De Fruyt, & F. Ostendorf (Eds.), Personality Psychology in Europe, Vol. 7(pp. 7–28). Tilburg, The Netherlands: Tilburg University Press.——— (in press). The comparative validity of adult personality inventories: Applicationsof a consumer-testing framework. In S. R. Briggs, J. M. Cheek, & E. M.Donahue (Eds.), Handbook of Adult Personality Inventories.Laythe, B., Finkel, D., Bringle, R., & Kirkpatrick, L. (2002). Religious Fundamentalismas a predictor of prejudice: A two-component model. Journal for the ScientificStudy of Religion, 41, 623–635.Saucier, G. (2000). Isms and the structure of social attitudes. Journal of Personalityand Social Psychology, 78, 366–385.Smedslund, J. (2002). From hypothesis-testing psychology to procedure-testing psy-chology. Review of General Psychology, 6, 51–72.348 stephen w. krauss, et al.belzen_f17_338-348  6/14/06  5:08 PM  Page 348

A broad-bandwidth, public-domain, personality inventory measuring the lower-level facets of several ﬁve-factor models. In

Authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, quest, and prejudice.

Enemies of freedom.

From hypothesis-testing psychology to procedure-testing psychology.

Generativity and social involvement among African Americans and White adults.

Isms and the structure of social attitudes.

Religion and prejudice: The role of religious fundamentalism, quest and right-wing authoritarianism.

Religion as being: Preliminary validation of the Immanence scale.

Religious fundamentalism and integrative complexity of thought: A relationship for existential content only?

Religious fundamentalism and religious doubts: Context, connections, and complexity of thinking.

Religious Fundamentalism as a predictor of prejudice: A two-component model.

Religious fundamentalism, right-wing authoritarianism, and hostility toward homosexuals in non-Christian religious groups.

The psychology of religion.

The distinction between authoritarianism and fundamentalism in three cultures: factor analysis and personality correlates

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The distinction between authoritarianism and fundamentalism in three cultures: factor analysis and personality correlates

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