> The article makes exactly the same mistake. It takes a lot of views and unfairly labels them “authoritarian.”

And as I said in my original post:

"I think it's wrong to construe one measure of "right-wing" (explicitly not "conservative") authoritarianism with "authoritarianism" generally, as the title of this piece does. But there's nothing wrong with designing assessments that are intended to work only in one particular culture."

> The survey takes the beliefs of a group (conservative Christians) and simply labels them “authoritarian."

No, it doesn't, and I think that's an unfair characterization of conservative Christians.

1. I only count 11 items that say anything at all about conservative Christian beliefs. The other 9 are totally orthogonal. Even if we score those items -4 (which most conservative Christians wouldn't; see item 2) and the other items +4, we end up in the low 100s. And more realistic answers typical of non-authoritarian conservative Christians in the midwest end up with scores in the 90s (again, see item 2).

2. of those 11 items that make reference to "Christian/family/traditional values", many would not elicit a "strong" score from all or even most conservative Christians following the survey's instructions.

Example 1: "Everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences, even if it makes them different from everyone else."

Most conservative Christians will strong-disagree with "sexual preferences".

But what about "lifestyle" and "religious beliefs"? Many conservative Christians support different lifestyles; e.g., homeschooling. And a STRONG majority support religious freedom.

According to the survey's instructions, which tell use to average the -4 re: homosexuality with +N for the other two items, this question would elicit a weak disagree or maybe even a weak agree from many conservative Christians.

Example 2: "God's laws about abortion, pornography and marriage must be strictly followed before it is too late, and those who break them must be strongly punished."

Many conservative Christians believe that divorce should be legal and pornography, though damaging, should not be outlawed. So using the survey's averaging rule, this might even end up as a "weak disagree".

And there are many questions that ask for moral comparisons between "traditional" and "non-traditional" people, but the bible is very clear on exactly this question: we are not justified by our acts.

It is true that there is a certain brand of conservative Christian who believe we should have a "strong leader" who uses the state to forcibly impose their personal conservative values on the rest of society. Those people would score highly on this test. But that set of people is definitely not the same as the set of "conservative Christians", because many "conservative Christians" have non-authoritarian values (and many right-wing authoritarians are not Christian.)

> As to your point about right-wing versus left-wing authoritarianism: you’re missing the point. Imagine a counter-part to this test that labeled support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as “left-wing authoritarianism.”

Exactly zero questions in this survey mention a piece of legislation, and not a single question on this test automatically labels RWA for agreeing with a given piece of legislation. There are multiple types of questions for a reason.

There exist left-wing authoritarian tests. And yes, they do ask questions about typical left-wing issues. And yes, they should. Because measuring LEFT-WING authoritarianism without even bothering to ask if someone's beliefs are consistently left-wing would be silly and would miss the point...

Maybe DeMorgan can help. A low (L or R)WA score just means:

NOT (LR-wing AND authoritarian) == NOT LR-wing OR NOT authoritarian.

A below-average score could mean (LR-wing AND NOT authoritarian).

A below-average score could mean (NOT LR-wing AND authoritarian).

A below-average score could mean (NOT LR-wing AND NOT authoritarian).

A low LR-WA score does not imply "not authoritarian". It implies "not authoritarian in this particular way". A very high score indicates "authoritarian in this particular way". Borderline scores could mean "authoritarian but not in this way" or "this way but not authoritarian".

Survey design is difficult, and interpreting survey results is also difficult. A survey designed to measure the intersection of two properties will give higher scores to people who have one of those properties than people who have zero of those properties. That does not mean the survey is flawed; it means that the results have to be used with this effect in mind.