Political attitudes and their determinants among the youth

Authoritarianism is one of the most studied phenomena in social and political psychology; however, there is still inconclusive evidence about its impact on some political variables, such as political participation, trust in media or attitudes towards democracy. The aim of this research was to examine the ways in which right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and perception of threat translate into political tolerance, political participation, support for democratic principles, and trust in mainstream and alternative media. We assumed that the effect of RWA and perceived threat on the dependent variables will be negative for most of the dependent variables, except for trust in alternative media, where we assumed positive effect. We also assumed that perceived threat will also act as a mediator for RWA in these relationships. We controlled for the role of possible intervening variables, namely political alienation, political interest and political efficacy. For this research, data from EU-funded Horizon 2020 project CATCH-EyoU (2015-2018) were re-analyzed. Used sample came from the Czech Republic and consisted of 1346 respondents. Preliminary results supported only hypotheses on political tolerance and trust in alternative media. Furthermore, perceived threat was a significant mediator in these relationships, in which RWA and perceived threat showed significant presumed directions of their effects. Overall, the results suggested that RWA and perceived threat are associated with intolerance and trust in alternative media. Furthermore, political interest and political efficacy were significant intervening variables in tested relationships, whereas political alienation was not significant in any cases.