Why Do Immigrants Make Us More Authoritarian? The Impact of Direct and Normative Threat to Social Order from Outgroupers on Ingroup Authoritarianism

Inspired by the well-documented relationship between authoritarianism and prejudices, we tested whether a massive influx of immigrants can constitute social threats - direct (crimes, riots, violence) and normative (different norms, customs, values) - that increase ingroup authoritarian attitudes. Across two experimental studies (n1=251 and n2=230), we were able to show that both direct and normative threat to social order, originating from...