Does extreme political ideology predict conspiracy beliefs, economic evaluations and political trust? Evidence from Sweden

Abstract

A large volume of academic research has demonstrated that individuals who profess radical political ideology, both left-and right-wing, tend to share similar underlying psychological patterns. By utilizing data collected through a voting advice application in Sweden, this study aims to assess whether extreme leftists and rightists share similarities in the psychological and political understanding of how society functions. We propose three hypotheses to test this pattern: Extreme left and right individuals are more inclined to believe in conspiracy theories than moderates; they are more likely to have negative economic evaluations; and they are less politically and interpersonally trustful. By means of hierarchical regression analyses, we reveal a quadratic relationship between extreme political ideology and conspiracy beliefs. Moreover, we find a similar linkage between ideology and economic evaluations. However, the empirical analyses fail to provide evidence that extreme ideology is related to lower political and interpersonal trust.Keywords: political ideology, economic evaluations, trust, conspiracy belief, extremism Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2017, Vol. 5(2), 435-462, doi:10.5964/jspp.v5i2.745 Received: 2016-12-08. Accepted: 2017-09-10. Published (VoR): 2017-10-28.Handling Editor: Małgorzata Kossowska, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland *Corresponding author at: Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 334 2 1012 RW Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: andre.krouwel@vu.nl This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Throughout the 20 th century, radical political ideologies served as the propeller of tragic events that have left a deep mark in human history (Baumeister, 1997;Midlarsky, 2011). Movements of the radical right, such as Fascism and Nazism, were ideologically driven to commit unimaginable crimes against humanity which resulted in the death of millions. On the left, communist regimes in the former Soviet Union and its satellite states, as well as in numerous Asian countries were responsible for comparable atrocities. Even though there are substantial differences between these ideologies, political psychologists have noted that extreme left-and right-wing ideologies may share a similar underlying psychological pattern (Greenberg & Jonas, 2003). In order to assess whether rigid devotion to extreme political ideology on both the left and the right corresponds to a similar psychological under- jspp.psychopen.eu | 2195-3325 standing of the world, it is necessary to compare radical individuals and test if their comprehension of the functioning of society is identical. Journal of Social and Political PsychologyAlthough extremist regimes of the past are in many ways hard to compare to political actors that are considered relatively extreme in the current politi...

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“…They found a quadratic effect—that is a “U‐shaped” function— in both the United States and the Netherlands suggesting that conspiracy theorizing is strongest at the far left and right, although stronger on the right. Similar effects have been found in Sweden (Krouwel, Kutiyski, van Prooijen, Martinsson, & Markstedt, ). Although it is unknown whether conspiracy theorizing may be a result of political ideology, or vice versa, or both, this research suggests that extremist attitudes may be a consequence of conspiracy belief.…”

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