What makes authoritarian and socially dominant people more positive to using torture in the war on terrorism?

Both right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and the dominance facet of social dominance orientation (SDO-D) are related to positive attitudes towards torture in a war context We investigated whether dehumanization of Muslims and identification with Swedes as an in-group served as mediators of these relationships. Employing a student and a military sample we found that the relationship between RWA, SDO-D and torture was completely mediated by dehumanization. In-group identification added to the model by partially mediating RWA and the equalization facet of social dominance orientation (SDO-E). The relationship between SDO-D and torture was weaker in the military sample, which also scored higher than the student sample on all variables. It is argued that the mediating effect of dehumanization on RWA and SDO-D might be understood as authoritarians and social dominators feeling lower empathy towards dehumanized out-groups and that research on the relationship between RWA, SDO and abuse in a war context should preferably be conducted on relevant groups (such as soldiers). (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.