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Threat Appraisal and Authoritarianism in Context: Reactions to the E uropean U nion Enlargement in Border Regions
Author(s) -
Rippl Susanne,
Seipel Christian
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00960.x
Subject(s) - authoritarianism , resizing , context (archaeology) , psychology , frontier , social psychology , trait , political science , politics , economics , geography , democracy , archaeology , european union , computer science , law , economic policy , programming language
The present study uses E uropean U nion ( EU ) enlargement as the treatment in a “natural” quasi experiment to analyze the relationship of threat appraisal and authoritarianism. Theoretically it is based on the discussion about the role of contextual variables in the genesis of authoritarianism. Two contradictory perspectives are explicated: the trait model and the situationist model. To test the competing causal hypotheses panel data collected before and after the EU eastern enlargement on perceived threat, authoritarian attitudes, and xenophobia among inhabitants of the G erman external frontier of the EU (at Wave 1) were analyzed. The use of a cross‐lagged panel design demonstrated that the type of relationship between authoritarianism and perceived threat depended on the kind of threat (material or cultural) that was addressed.