Societal threat, authoritarianism, conservatism, and U.S. state death penalty sentencing (1977-2004).

Full Abstract

On the basis of K. Stenner's (2005) authoritarian dynamic theory, it was hypothesized that the number of death sentences and executions would be higher in more threatened conservative states than in less threatened conservative states, and would be lower in more threatened liberal states than in less threatened liberal states. Threat was based on state homicide rate, violent crime rate, and non-White percentage of population. Conservatism was based on state voter ideological identification, Democratic and Republican Party elite liberalism-conservatism, policy liberalism-conservatism, religious fundamentalism, degree of economic freedom, and 2004 presidential election results. For 1977-2004, with controls for state population and years with a death penalty provision, the interactive hypothesis received consistent support using the state conservatism composite and voter ideological identification alone. As well, state conservatism was related to death penalties and executions, but state threat was not. The temporal stability of the findings was demonstrated with a split-half internal replication using the periods 1977-1990 and 1991-2004. The interactive hypothesis and the results also are discussed in the context of other threat-authoritarianism theories and terror management theory.(c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved

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Author information

Author/s: McCann, Stewart J H (SJ);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Cape Breton University, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada. stewart_mccann@cbu.ca

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of personality and social psychology (J Pers Soc Psychol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-May; vol 94 (issue 5) : pp 913-23

Dates: Created 2008/04/30; Completed 2008/08/11;

PMID: 18444747, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adaptation, Psychological
Authoritarianism
Capital Punishment - legislation & jurisprudence; statistics & numerical data
Cross-Sectional Studies
Cultural Diversity
Fear
Homicide
Humans
Internal-External Control

Politics
Public Policy
Regression Analysis
Social Conformity
Social Environment
Social Identification
Social Values
United States
Violence - legislation & jurisprudence; psychology; statistics & numerical data

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