Age differences in right-wing authoritarianism and their relation to emotion recognition

This study examined the correlates of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) in older adults. Participants were given tasks measuring emotion recognition, executive functions and fluid IQ and questionnaires measuring RWA, perceived threat and social dominance orientation. Study 1 established higher age-related RWA across the age span in more than 2,600 New Zealanders. Studies 2 to 4 found that threat, education, social dominance and age all predicted unique variance in older adults' RWA, but the most consistent predictor was emotion recognition, predicting unique variance in older adults' RWA independent of all other variables. We argue that older adults' worse emotion recognition is associated with a more general change in social judgment. Expression of extreme attitudes (right- or left-wing) has the potential to antagonize others, but worse emotion recognition means that subtle signals will not be perceived, making the expression of extreme attitudes more likely. Our findings are consistent with other studies showing that worsening emotion recognition underlies age-related declines in verbosity, understanding of social gaffes, and ability to detect lies. Such results indicate that emotion recognition is a core social insight linked to many aspects of social cognition.