Abstract

Abstract: Right wing authoritarianism (RWA) is a political psychology construct proposed by Duckitt (2009) and refined by Gerber and Jackson (2016), purported to account for a spectacular proportion of variance in punitiveness. We beg to differ. We challenge the validity of punitiveness measures used by existing research and fail to reproduce an effect of RWA on punitive attitudes when using a more robust measure of punitiveness, as measured by a large representative population survey from several Central European countries. Latent variable analysis of responses to a range of sentencing vignettes challenged the idea that there is a single underlying “punitiveness” construct, an assumption that underpins existing RWA research. Latent class analysis, however, revealed patterns in sentencing preferences. RWA in isolation was not predictive of subjects’ sentencing class. Rather, the effect of RWA was suppressed by other political psychology measures. That is, RWA was only significant when other measures were added to the model. We critically discuss the assumptions of the RWA construct in the context of our findings and set new directions for the research into the root causes of punitive sentiments.