A Comparison of Authoritarianism in the United States, England, and Hungary with Selected Nonrandom Samples

Abstract

It has been suggested that there is no such thing as a left-wing authoritarian, and that authoritarian attitudes do not correlate with authoritarian behaviors. Studies were done in the United States, England, and Hungary in order to obtain cross-cultural empirical data on these questions. An additional goal of the research was to use common measures across samples, which had not occurred in previous studies where comparisons were drawn. Left-wing authoritarians were not found in the United States or England, but were found in Hungary. An authoritarian attitude did not correlate positively with authoritarian behavior in any of the countries.