Revisiting the “Lethal Union”: The Role of <scp>RWA</scp> and <scp>SDO</scp> in the Chinese Public's Reactions to the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

Most political psychology theories demonstrate that Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), as two fundamental ideological beliefs, are both positively related to individuals' militant and hostile attitudes. Meanwhile, macro-level political contexts also influence the functions of these ideological beliefs. In this article, we argue that China's state-sanctioned socialist political context-upholding authoritarianism while opposing social dominance-results in opposite functions for RWA and SDO in shaping the political attitudes of ordinary people. Using the 2023 Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a case study, we hypothesised that Chinese netizens' RWA and SDO have opposing effects in predicting their support for the war. We further explored the mediating effects of responsibility attribution to the U.S. as well as outgroup prejudices towards Jews and Muslims. Using a cross-sectional questionnaire with a nationwide online sample (N = 1089), we confirmed the contrasting effects of RWA and SDO on the war support of Chinese netizens. Additionally, the influence of ideological beliefs was mainly mediated by the perceived responsibility of the U.S., with prejudices against Muslims or Jews accounting for only a minor effect. These findings highlight the divergent functions of ideological beliefs outside of the political contexts dominated by the liberal-conservative dichotomy.