Political orientation and dominance: Are people on the political right more dominant?

Social dominance orientation and political orientations are strongly correlated, leading to the notion that right-wing individuals possess a dominant personality disposition. Expressing some caveats toward such an assumption, in four studies we tested the link between political orientation and dominant personality. We assessed dominant personality partly by the use of a newly developed measure of domineering, without reference to intergroup relations or political ideals, and partly by the use of an existing clinical measure of domineering (CAT-PD). The results revealed that all measures of dominance including social dominance were significantly intercorrelated and, in line with previous research, related to both personality (agreeableness) and prejudice. Also, the correlation of political orientation with domineering was significantly lower than that with social dominance. More importantly, in all studies, social dominance fully mediated (or confounded) the relations between domineering and political orientation. Together these findings suggest that a dominant personality is reflected in political orientation only if social dominance (support for group based hierarchies) is also adopted by the individual.