Sex/Gender Beliefs are Strongly Related to Either Right-Wing Authoritarian Conventionalism or Left-Wing Authoritarian Anti-Conventionalism

Previous research investigating the correlates of sex/gender beliefs (i.e., "Sex/gender is binary and permanently fixed" vs. "Sex/gender is nonbinary or changeable") focused on right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). In the present research, we aimed at conceptually replicating previous findings on the relationship between sex/gender beliefs and RWA conventionalism. As a novel aspect, we additionally investigated the association between sex/gender beliefs and left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) anti-conventionalism. In two preregistered studies, sociodemographic diverse samples from the USA (N = 1431) and the UK (N = 1390) completed measures of sex/gender beliefs, RWA (and social dominance orientation in Study 2), and LWA. In line with our expectations, in both studies we found that the binary/fixed sex/gender belief was strongly associated with RWA conventionalism while the nonbinary/changeable sex/gender belief was strongly associated with LWA anti-conventionalism. Thus, in both studies, opposing sex/gender beliefs were related to rigid and restrictive authoritarianism, but to different ideological sides. Our results indicate that one-sided arguments about (right-wing) authoritarianism and specific sex/gender beliefs are shortsighted.