Authoritarianism

There are a number of studies which demonstrate a critical link between endorsement of right-wing ideologies and poorer performance on cognitive tasks. This has led researchers to conclude that, broadly, individuals holding right-wing beliefs are less likely to think about...

New research suggests that existential threat brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic can spur the expression of anti-immigrant and nationalist beliefs among authoritarians. The findings were published in Social Psychological and Personality Science. The authoritarian personality is a well-studied psychological...

Across three humor production tasks, including one that involved coming up with funny cartoon captions, people who scored high in right-wing authoritarianism created responses that were rated as much less funny compared to their counterparts. The research was published in...

Psychology is one of the foremost scientific methods for understanding the phenomenon of organized religion and its cognitive, emotional, moral and social dimensions. To explore how these psychological elements map onto and mediate the subjective religious experience, an international team...

A recent French study in the journal Emotion has drawn a new link between right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO) and heart rate variability (HRV). RWA is measured by submissive, uncritical attitudes towards authorities; tendencies to condemn, reject or...

A study published in The Leadership Quarterly sheds new light on why company leaders tend to be disproportionately narcissistic. Among a sample of Italian CEOs, those who were highly narcissistic had advanced to CEO more quickly in their careers than...

A recent study found evidence that ideological views tend to shape a person’s political party support, but that party support can also lead to modest changes in a person’s views. The findings were published in the British Journal of Social...

Masculine insecurity predicts endorsement of aggressive politics and support for Donald Trump, according to research published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. The researchers propose that masculine insecurity can lead men to adopt aggressive politics — like those of...

People in the United States with more authoritarian tendencies are less likely to wear a mask when going out in public, which might be explained by the fact that they also tend to be less concerned about the impact of...

Pathological personality traits are associated with prejudicial views, according to new research published in Personality and Individual Differences. The findings indicate that people with calloused, deceitful, and manipulative interpersonal styles are more likely to endorse right-wing authoritarianism and express hostile...

Dogmatic individuals tend to form less accurate judgements thanks to a generic resistance to seeking out additional information, according to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The findings shed new light on the...