Feelings of deprivation push Germans to the right but Americans to the left

A new study suggests that feelings of personal deprivation and an authoritarian personality can combine to predict attraction to far-right politics. However, this psychological dynamic appears to operate differently depending on the national context, pointing toward far-right sympathies in Germany but toward far-left attitudes in the United States. The research was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

The global rise of radical political movements has prompted questions about the psychological factors that motivate individual voters. To better understand this phenomenon, a team of researchers from Trier University, RWTH Aachen University, and the University of Bonn in Germany examined the interplay between life circumstances and personality traits. They focused on two concepts: individual deprivation and right-wing authoritarianism.

Individual deprivation refers to the subjective feeling that one’s fundamental needs are not being met. These needs can be existential, such as financial security and physical safety. They can also relate to identity, involving the desire for self-esteem and a sense of belonging to a valued group. A third category involves control needs, which reflect a person’s desire for a predictable and stable environment.

Right-wing authoritarianism, or RWA, is a personality predisposition studied by psychologists for decades. It is generally characterized by a high degree of submission to established authorities, a strong adherence to social conventions and traditions, and hostility toward people or groups perceived as threats to the social order. The researchers proposed that these two factors might work in concert, with feelings of deprivation having a particularly strong effect on people who already possess an authoritarian worldview.

To investigate this, the research team conducted three separate studies. For their work, they developed a new tool to measure individual deprivation. This tool consisted of two scales: a “generic” scale that assessed general feelings of being left behind or ignored by society, and a “specific” scale that attributed these feelings of deprivation directly to the influence of migrants.

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The first study was exploratory and conducted with a sample of 503 participants in Germany. Participants completed surveys measuring their levels of generic and specific deprivation, their scores on a standard RWA scale, and their sympathies for Germany’s main political parties. This included the far-right party Alternative for Germany, known as the AfD.

The results from this first study showed that both generic deprivation and RWA, when considered independently, were predictors of sympathy for the AfD. When the researchers analyzed the interaction between the two factors, they found it added to the predictive power. Individuals who reported high levels of deprivation and also scored high on the RWA scale showed a particularly pronounced attraction to the far-right party.

For their second study, the researchers shifted their focus to the United States, recruiting a representative sample of 601 participants. They adapted their measurement tools for the American political context and also included measures of far-left political attitudes to see if deprivation was exclusively linked to the right. The outcome of this study was unexpected and presented a stark contrast to the German findings.

In the American sample, feelings of generic deprivation did not predict attraction to the far-right. Instead, a higher sense of deprivation was associated with an attraction to far-left attitudes and politicians. The role of RWA was also different. Rather than amplifying the effect of deprivation, it appeared to act as a buffer. For people experiencing deprivation, having a high RWA score seemed to prevent a turn toward left-wing politics.

To reconcile these differing results, the team conducted a third study, returning to a German sample of 626 people. This study was designed to replicate the first one while also incorporating the measure for far-left attitudes used in the American study. The findings from the third study confirmed the results of the first.

In the German context, the combination of generic deprivation and RWA once again predicted sympathy for the far-right. The researchers did identify a weak positive association between deprivation and far-left attitudes in the German sample. This connection, however, was significantly less pronounced than the relationship between deprivation and far-right attraction. A combined analysis of the American and second German study confirmed that national context significantly altered the relationship between deprivation and political leanings.

The researchers suggest that the different political and social structures in Germany and the United States may explain the divergent findings. They point to the differing roles of the welfare state in the two countries. Germany’s system involves extensive public social benefits, leading citizens to have high expectations of the state’s role in their well-being. When these expectations are unmet, the resulting dissatisfaction may be channeled by far-right parties that blame the political establishment.

In the U.S., by contrast, demands for the government to alleviate social and economic hardships are more traditionally associated with left-wing political platforms. American right-wing ideologies often advocate for a smaller state with less intervention in individual affairs. Consequently, when Americans feel deprived, their appeals for state assistance may align more naturally with left-wing politics.

The authors acknowledge certain limitations in their research. The scale they designed to measure generic deprivation contains items that refer to the government and the political system. This framing may have influenced how participants responded, particularly in the U.S., where attitudes toward government intervention are highly polarized.

Future research could aim to develop measures of deprivation that are entirely independent of expectations placed on the state. Such work would help clarify whether feelings of being left behind lead to support for left-wing or right-wing movements in different sociopolitical environments.

The study, “The joint influence of individual deprivation and right-wing authoritarianism on radical political preferences in Germany and the US,” was authored by Eva Walther, Nona Grozeva, Jared Sonnicksen, Alina Wesser-Saalfrank, and Rainer Banse.