Classical RWA emphasizes cognitive rather than emotional components, failing to explain why right-wing leaders hold such emotional appeal for people (Dunwoody & Funke, 2016). Alternative approaches, in fact also mentioned but not further elaborated by Altemeyer (1996, pp. 40-41, p. 100), incorporate the role of fear or insecurity with authoritarianism alleviating psychological discomfort, reminiscent of Fromm’s "prosthetic security" (Fromm, 1936) of authoritarianism. But anxiety alone cannot explain right-wing movements, as it neglects the crucial role of aggression (Altemeyer, 1981; Dunwoody & Funke, 2016) which cannot be reduced to the generalized hostility proposed by Oesterreich (e.g., 2005). The framework of TAP exceeds classical RWA by integrating irrational processes of projection, fear of sensitivity, a pessimistic view of humanity and the world, and a focus on strength and power.

In contrast to RWA’s submissive, norm-conforming concept, an inherent characteristic of modern right-wing movements is that they challenge norms and traditional authority (Vehrkamp & Merkel, 2020). Examples include opposition to COVID-19 restrictions, climate change denial, and advocacy of socially unaccepted conspiracy theories (Decker & Brähler, 2020; Amlinger & Nachtwey, 2022). Rather, they practice selective submission to leaders who emphasize strength over diplomacy (Dunwoody & Funke, 2016), such as Putin, Bolsonaro, Xi, or Trump (Rachman, 2022). This pattern is not new, as historical examples like the Weimar Republic show that authoritarian individuals have often rejected established authorities while embracing strong leaders (Wildt, 2012). In Germany, however, current right-wing leaders like Alice Weidel do not seem to be fueling this personality cult. Instead, submission appears to shift toward neoliberal values. Decker (2019) describes a secondary authoritarianism, with Germany’s economic strength replacing traditional authority. In a qualitative approach, Amlinger and Nachtwey (2022), building on Adorno’s typology, identify a libertarian authoritarianism and describe individuals frustrated by unmet neoliberal promises rejecting authorities and submitting to their own freedom. Drawing on these observations, we argue for a broader understanding of authoritarianism, as originally conceptualized in the TAP.

We are not the first to note that TAP holds significant value and appears even more relevant in light of current developments (e.g., Decker & Brähler, 2020; Henkelmann et al., 2020; Jost, 2021; Dilling et al., 2024). In terms of projectivity and superstition, Decker and Brähler (2020) propose a two-factor model in which projectivity, an overarching term for conspiracy mentality and superstition, and RWA together form the authoritarian syndrome. With regard to Anti-Intraception, literature shows correlations of RWA and low emotional competencies (Van Hiel et al., 2019), creativity (Rubinstein, 2003), and openness to experience (Perry & Sibley, 2012). Its association with sexism and rigid gender roles (Duckitt & Sibley, 2017) is reminiscent of the Sex facet. Among contemporary movements, one can observe hypermasculine self-presentation and aggression (Rachman, 2022), reminiscent of Power and Toughness, and a fear of status loss (Walther & Isemann, 2019), group-based misanthropy (Zick et al., 2016), and violent and depressive tendencies (Decker & Brähler, 2020), reminding of Destructiveness and Cynicism.

All measures were assessed on five-point Likert scales ranging from 1 = strongly disagree/no sympathy to 5 = strongly agree/strong sympathy.

Data, codes, additional analyses, and preregistrations can be accessed at OSF: https://osf.io/fkbmy.

The item pool demonstrated excellent internal consistencies (Germany: ω = .97; USA: ω = .96). Following the unidimensional approach indicated by previous findings (Heidemeyer et al., 2025) and exploratory factor analyses (Appendix B.5), items were reduced iteratively based on item analysis, theoretical relevance, and linguistic clarity. We prioritized items with high discriminative powers, high variances, and moderate item difficulties, but we retained some low and high difficulty items to represent the full trait continuum.

In the German study, we first developed a unidimensional 27-item prototype (MCF-27, validation in Appendix B.2), with each of the nine facets represented by three items. To prepare for the U.S. study, this version, along with additional reserve items (totaling 35 items), was translated into English using formal forward-backward translation (OSF) by two native speakers, both researchers with expertise in political science and psychology. Based on data from the U.S. study, the scale was further refined through iterative item analysis, involving a trade-off between psychometric properties, the retention of as many reverse-keyed items as possible, and completeness. Item difficulty and item discrimination are important psychometric indicators in scale construction. Item difficulty refers to how easy or hard an item is for the target population; Item discrimination reflects the correlation between an item's score and the total score of the scale, indicating how well the item differentiates between participants with different levels of the underlying construct. This process resulted in the final 9-item MCF-9 (Table 1) with strong internal consistencies (ω = .87 in Germany; ω = .90 in the U.S.).

Reflecting our recruitment strategy, the German sample showed the AfD as the most popular party (M = 2.44, SD = 1.67), with 32.2% expressing strong sympathy (scores > 3). On a left-right spectrum, 23.9% identified as right-leaning (scores > 3). The majority chose to donate to SOS Children’s Villages (59.1%), followed by Sea-Watch e.V. (22.2%) and the German War Graves Commission (18.8%). The U.S. sample self-positioned center to right (M = 3.02, SD = 1.33), with no clear preference for the Republican (M = 2.71, SD = 1.54) or Democratic (M = 2.72, SD = 1.52) parties. Sanders was the most popular politician (M = 2.87, SD = 1.61), and Greene the least popular (M = 2.21, SD = 1.47). Donations favored the neutral ARC (58.9%), followed by the NAACP (22%) and NRA (19.1%).

The measurement model²2

Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) was conducted as a robustness check (Enders, 2025), but results did not differ from those reported.

Tests for measurement invariance between the two countries using multigroup CFA showed an acceptable fit for the configural model and for the metric model, but not for the scalar model. Overall, these results support the comparability of the scale across both samples, however suggesting that mean comparisons between the countries may be problematic. An approximate invariance test using the alignment method indicated that approximate measurement invariance could be assumed (see Appendix A.8 for details).

Politician preferences (USA) were transformed into a difference score, with higher values indicating a preference for right-wing politicians. Donations were recoded as binary, excluding the neutral organizations (Germany: SOS Children’s Village, n = 277; USA: American Red Cross, n = 185). To simplify, we use the label "Right-Wing Politics" to refer to both: AfD sympathy (Germany) and right-wing politician preferences (USA), and the label “(Anti-)Democratic Attitudes” for attitudes toward democracy (Germany) and far-right attitudes (USA).

Table 3 presents Pearson correlations between the variables. As expected, MCF-9 is strongly positively correlated with the RWA total scores (Germany: r = .72; USA: r = .71), and the dimensions of conventionalism and authoritarian aggression (r = .64 to r = .78). The correlation with submission is lower in Germany (r = .30) and unexpectedly negative in the U.S. (r = -.15). We observe high positive correlations with right-wing, antidemocratic, and outgroup derogatory attitudes (r = .48 to .90), despite a lower correlation with antisemitism in the U.S. (r = .19). MCF-9 correlates negatively with the left-wing scales (Germany: r = -.30; USA: r = -.48), and strongly positive with SDO (r = .75) and conspiracy mentality (r = .76).

We conducted hierarchical multiple regression analyses, introducing the three RWA subscales separately into the analyses considering the unique variance contributed by each facet. Including age and gender as controls did not alter the results (Appendix A.3.1).

MCF-9 was a strong predictor across all dependent variables, accounting for significant amounts of variance in right-wing politics (Germany: 54%, USA: 77%), self-positioning (Germany: 39%, USA: 57%), xenophobia (Germany: 66%, USA: 81%), and (anti-)democratic attitudes (Germany: 29%, USA: 81%). For antisemitism, it explained 23% in Germany and 3% in the USA, with RWA and MCF-9 combined accounting for 17% in the U.S. The scale demonstrated incremental validity, outperforming the KSA and ASC scales (VIF_Germany = 2.09, VIF_USA= 2.00) by accounting for additional variance in right-wing preferences (Germany: 17%, USA: 14%), self-positioning (8%), xenophobia (Germany: 11%, USA: 20%), antisemitism (Germany: 4%, USA: 14%), and (anti-)democratic attitudes (Germany: 10%, USA: 15%). Notably, MCF-9 demonstrated incremental validity even beyond RWA and conspiracy mentality combined (Appendix A.6).

With standardized administration ensuring consistent data collection, and a numerical scoring process minimizing subjective interpretation and enhancing comparability, MCF-9 meets the criteria for implementation, scoring, and interpretational objectivity. In terms of reliability, the very good internal consistency is remarkable for a heterogeneous and short scale like MCF-9. Content validity was assessed through a rational scale construction process and confirmed by a blind expert rating. In terms of construct validity, our scale was associated with a range of criteria closely aligned in the nomological network (e.g., RWA, SDO), and negatively associated with constructs considered distant (e.g., democratic or left-wing attitudes). However, we did find a small, but significant negative association with the submission facet in the U.S., possibly reflecting our efforts to modernize the facet (Appendix A.3) and indicating that our scale captures more rebellious forms of authoritarianism. Furthermore, our results indicate that, like RWA, MCF is specific to the right-wing political spectrum. Regarding factor validity, an unidimensional model was confirmed with reasonable fit indices and substantial factor loadings. Evidence for MCF’s concurrent validity (criterion validity) showed it to be a significant predictor of right-wing, (anti-)democratic, and outgroup derogatory attitudes, with R² values reaching up to .66 in Germany and .81 in the US.

Most importantly, MCF-9 demonstrated substantial incremental validity to two established RWA scales (up to 17%–20%). This result confirms that the MCF-scale is a psychometrically sound and useful measure of authoritarianism.

The inclusion of conservatism within the conventionalist facet may invite criticism. However, rather than interpreting conservatism as an inflation, we argue that it represents an inherent and meaningful aspect of authoritarianism (see Adorno et al., 1950, pp. 658-675). This aligns with Duckitt et al. (2010), who also integrate conservatism into their concept, but we argue, like Dunwoody and Funke (2016), that it relates more to conventionalism than submission.

Reverse-keyed items demonstrated satisfactory discrimination, minimizing the trade-off between reliability and balance. With one-third of the items balanced, the scale addresses a key criticism of the California F Scale (e.g., Christie, 1991). However, it can be criticized that we did not develop psychometric 'twins' or systematically compare reverse and non-reverse items across populations (Altemeyer, 1981; Oesterreich, 1996, 2005).

With regard to the implementation process, we acknowledge that sequence effects cannot be entirely ruled out, as the political attitude questions preceded the donation decision, potentially influencing responses toward consistency with prior attitudes, though we expect this effect to be small. Furthermore, as we aimed to examine relations between variables rather than make statements about populations, our emphasis was not on representative samples but on ensuring sufficient variance in the relevant characteristics for more accurate detection of these relationships. While oversampling mitigated representativeness issues, left-wing organizations and politicians remained popular. For generalizability, MCF-9 should be tested in large-scale, representative studies. As a further limitation, validation using external criteria through correlations and regressions is not corrected for measurement error. To address this limitation, we also conducted structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses, as detailed in Appendix A.7. Our unidimensional approach may also be subject to criticism. Multidimensional scales like the KSA-3 (Beierlein et al., 2014) and the ASC scale (Dunwoody & Funke, 2016) allow for a more targeted assessment. Furthermore, previous research has demonstrated that multidimensional RWA measures provide greater explanatory power than unidimensional ones (e.g., Duckitt et al., 2010; Dunwoody & Funke, 2016). Although our unidimensional MCF-9 might forgo these benefits, its incremental validity over two multidimensional scales suggests that this concern is not critical. Still, future research could try to construct a multidimensional MCF scale with additional items (Appendix B.5), structured either as a second-order or general factor model. We presented an unidimensional factor structure because (1) a multidimensional model lacked conceptual clarity, and (2) it fitted our data well. This aligns with notions that a nine-dimensional solution lacks coherence (Iser, 2006) and Adorno et al.’s concept of an “over-all syndrome” (p. 751). The holistic, unidimensional approach allowed us to create a concise and economical instrument, that is suitable for large-scale surveys due to its brevity, while enabling the measurement of the construct's complexity and breadth.

Future research could address our scale’s relationship to RWA, SDO and Duckitt’s (2001, 2006) DPM. While Duckitt describes RWA and SDO as distinct constructs, Altemeyer (1998) views them as two sides of authoritarianism: authoritarian dominance (SDO) and authoritarian aggression (RWA). The SDO scale mainly reflects the rejection of group equality and endorsement of group dominance (Ho et al., 2015), also captured in Power and Toughness. Given the high correlations observed, MCF-9 may be the broader core underlying RWA and SDO, fitting its equally strong correlations.

Moreover, we expect a nomological proximity between MCF-9 dimensions and contemporary concepts of authoritarianism (Amlinger & Nachtwey, 2022; Decker & Brähler, 2020), requiring further empirical investigation.

A critical goal is also to explore MCF’s variability and malleability over time. Critical Theory is not abstract research, but a social critique of the conditions that foster authoritarian dynamics (Decker et al., 2024). These dynamics can be amplified by the uncertainties in competitive neoliberal societies (Oesterreich, 2005; Decker & Brähler, 2020) and relative deprivation, and may possibly be mitigated through equal conditions and participation (Dilling et al., 2024; Walther et al., 2024).

The Authoritarian Personality was published over 75 years ago. After numerous publications and theoretical approaches, the question about the core, explaining factor (Funke, 2003) of authoritarianism remains unresolved. Theories consistently highlight the role of fear, overwhelm, and threat. A negative view on humanity and the world may foster these feelings, and projection, emphasis on power and toughness, belief in conspiracies and superstitions, as well as anti-intraception may emerge as coping strategies. This study aimed to deepen the understanding of these underlying dynamics, addressing the emotional appeal of right-wing movements (Dunwoody & Funke, 2016), and providing a new measure for future research to encounter them.