The current study investigated the possible existence of a relationship between authoritarianism and religiousness and the possible strength of this potential relationship. The study involved samples from four cultural environments known to differ substantially in terms of religious salience and content: Slovenia (predominantly Catholic), Serbia (predominantly Eastern Orthodox), Bosnia and Herzegovina (predominantly Muslim), and the United States (predominantly Protestant). Religiousness was assessed by way of religious orientation (including intrinsic and extrinsic orientation) as proposed by Allport (1950), whereas authoritarianism was tapped by a modified Lane scale (1955). Results from zero-order correlations indicated a strong and positive association between authoritarianism and all types of religious orientation, regardless of the sample analyzed. Residualizing the main study constructs by demographic variables did not alter the results. The association changed only when each dimension of religious orientation was controlled for the effect of other dimensions. Results did not lend support to the hypothesis that authoritarianism is more strongly linked to those who are more extrinsically oriented.

目前的研究調查了威權主義和宗教之間可能存在的關系，以及這種潛在關系的可能強度。這項研究涉及四種文化環境的樣本，這四種文化環境在宗教顯著性和內容上存在顯著差異:斯洛文尼亞(主要是天主教)、塞爾維亞(主要是東正教)、波斯尼亞-黑塞哥維那(主要是穆斯林)和美國(主要是新教徒)。如Allport(1950)所提出的，宗教性是通過宗教取向(包括內在和外在取向)來評估的，而威權主義是通過修正的Lane scale(1955)來評估的。零階相關的結果表明，無論分析的樣本是什么，威權主義與所有類型的宗教取向之間都存在很強的正相關關系。用人口統計學變量對主要研究結構進行殘差并沒有改變結果。只有當宗教取向的每個維度都受到其他維度影響的控制時，這種關聯才會發生變化。研究結果并沒有支持這一假設，即威權主義與那些外部價值取向更強的人有著更強的聯系。