Right-wing authoritarianism, big five, and perceived threat to safety

Using structural equations modeling, we performed a secondary analysis of the data collected by the Italian Observatory of the North West (Italian national sample, N = 976) to investigate the direct, mediated, and moderated relations connecting the Big Five personality factors and perceived personal and societal threat to safety with right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). Openness, Conscientiousness, and perceived societal threat to safety exerted additive effects on RWA; the relation between Openness and RWA was partially mediated by societal threat to safety and that between societal threat to safety and RWA was moderated by Openness. Limitations and possible developments of this research are discussed.