LIMITING SPEECH AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: AUTHORITARIAN BELIEFS AND TENDENCIES

Abstract

This thesis looks at authoritarianism and its effect on public opinion, specifically attitudes towards limiting speech and political correctness on college campuses. This research was conducted through the use of a survey, which was distributed to 201 students at the University of Arizona. The survey tested authoritarian tendencies through child-rearing questions. Each participant received one of three random news articles with either a control, mixed, or conservative threat. While the study tested a few different attitudes, one of the more prominent results is authoritarians who received the conservative article believed that political correctness is becoming a more wider issue. Another is that participants who identified as a Democrat and read the article containing the conservative threat were significantly more likely to suggest limiting speech on college campuses by preventing political rallies and speaking events from right-wing speakers. These findings are relevant to the polarizing political climate we are seeing throughout the United States, and it also is a testament to the types of threats which may trigger authoritarians and non-authoritarians to sway in from their stereotypical tendencies.