A short version of the Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) Scale Anna Maria Manganelli Rattazzi * , Andrea Bobbio, Luigina Canova Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Via Venezia, 8, 35131 Padova, Italy Received 27 September 2006; received in revised form 12 March 2007; accepted 21 March 2007 Available online 23 May 2007 Abstract The paper presents a short version of the Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) Scale. The results of two studies are described. In the first one, conducted on a sample of 363 university students, the short version is developed by means of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, which supported a two dimensions solution. The two dimensions have been labelled as ‘‘authoritarian aggression and submission’’ and ‘‘con- servatism’’. Different issues concerning the factorial structure are tested and discussed. Subsequently, the relationships between authoritarianism, subtle and blatant prejudice towards Islamic immigrants in Italy, and participants’ political orientation are examined. Compared to conservatism the authoritarian aggres- sion and submission dimension is more strongly associated to prejudice and right-wing political orientation. In the second study, carried out on a sample of 201 adults, the validity of the short version is successfully supported. Differences due to gender, age, and level of education are also examined. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Right-wing authoritarianism; Short-version; Construct-validity; Prejudice, Political orientation 1. Introduction The concept of Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) was developed by Altemeyer (1998) whose aim was to start afresh the study of authoritarianism by overcoming theoretical and 0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.03.013 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 049 8276649; fax: +39 049 8276600. E-mail address: annamaria.manganelli@unipd.it (A.M. Manganelli Rattazzi). www.elsevier.com/locate/paid Personality and Individual Differences 43 (2007) 1223–1234