Political Psychology

Negative attitudes toward women played a role in outcome of the 2016 presidential election, according to research by experimental psychologists at Oklahoma State University. The study, published in the scientific journal Personality and Individual Differences, found that college students who...

People are more likely to endorse economically conservative ideals when they're angry, according to new psychology research. "As a Canadian living in the United States, I was fascinated by the level of anger being exhibited both before and after the...

I’m sitting on a train when a group of football fans streams on. Fresh from the game – their team has clearly won – they occupy the empty seats around me. One picks up a discarded newspaper and chuckles derisively...

Research suggests that Donald Trump's bombastic communication style was the key to his success during the 2016 Republican primary. The study found that Trump employed speech patterns that are often associated with narcissism. "My psychology lab has focused on the...

New neuroimaging research has uncovered a difference in how the brains of socially conservative and socially liberal individuals in Canada respond to images. The study, which was published in the scientific journal Emotion, provides evidence that our emotional predispositions influence our...

Why do some people consider voting to be an important moral obligation while others brush it off? New research has found evidence that your genes have a large influence on your sense of civic duty. "Voting is one of the...

In a new review article summarizing several cross-cultural studies, an Australian scientist argues that there is a cluster of psychological traits and attitudes that can be defined as a "conservative syndrome." "I was not interested in this particular topic when...

New research from Australia suggests that political liberals and conservatives rely on different cognitive "systems" when making moral judgments. The study was based on what is known as dual process theory, which has been popularized by psychologist Daniel Kahneman. The...

People are less likely to accept new information when it conflicts with the political outcomes they want, according to research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology:General. The study provides some clues as to why the political climate in the...

It appears that narrow-mindedness is a bipartisan trait. New research has found that both liberals and conservatives are equally motivated to avoid exposure to one another's opinions. The study appears in the peer-reviewed Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. "Most people...

A candidate's religious affiliation has been shown to influence American voters. But a new study reveals that a candidate's religiosity -- meaning how dedicated they are to their faith -- also influences voters. The study in the Journal for the...

New research suggests that empathy motivates cosmopolitan behavior. The study found that simply asking Americans to take the perspective of an individual who was suffering in a distant nation increased empathy, which in turn increased their desire to help that...

Concentrated poverty -- neighborhoods where 40 percent of the population or more lives below the federal poverty level -- is back on the rise for all races in the United States, according to Penn State demographers. Growing residential separation and...

When the weather is unseasonably hot or cold, Americans across the political spectrum have even stronger views about whether climate change caused by human activity is a reality or not. Republicans are then less likely to conform to the scientific...