Political correctness and the alt-right: The development of extreme political attitudes

Abstract

Recent studies have documented a shift from moderate political attitudes to more extreme attitudes at the ends of the political spectrum. This can be seen in Political Correctness (PC) on the left, and white identitarian (WI) attitudes on the 'Alt-Right' (AR). While highly covered in mainstream media, limited academic research has investigated their possible antecedents and psychological correlates. The current study investigated the prevalence and psychological predictors of these attitudes. Utilising a quota-based sample of 512 U.S. participants, we found that extreme political attitudes were associated with various personality traits, social media use, and upbringing. PC attitudes were associated with agreeableness, black-white thinking, social-media use, and perceived overprotective parenting. WI attitudes were associated with low agreeableness and openness, and high black-white thinking. Our results show that extreme left and right attitudes are separated by individual differences, and that authoritarianism can be seen on both the left and the right.

Making Sense of Stigmatized Organizations: Labelling Contests and Power Dynamics in Social Evaluation Processes

“…While using symbols and labels, by construction, seeks to influence the societal perception of targeted organizations (see above), veering towards extremes will incidentally, but unavoidably, promote a destructive social climate. Our analysis thereby links to a large literature on the relation between moral absolutism-defined as the "tendency to engage in rigid, 'black-and-white' moral thinking in terms of others' behavior" (Moss & O'Connor, 2020, p. 7)-and support for extreme interventions such as violence or castigating opponents as morally decrepit (e.g., Giner-Sorolla et al, 2011;Moss & O'Connor, 2020). From a business ethics perspective, this connection raises important questions on whether-and, if so, when-it can be acceptable to take on extreme inclusionary/exclusionary stances (Bayer, 2008;Pozner, 2008;Warren, 2007).…”

Hierarchies of Motivation Predict Individuals’ Attitudes and Values: A Neuropsychological Operationalization of the Five Factor Model

“…Using a simple decision-making battery programmed in accordance with the trade-off framework, traits as diverse as political affiliation, communication skills, gender identity, spirituality, and social preferences-traits that serve as real-world manifestations of personality differences across individuals-were all predicted at levels statistically significant at p-values less than .00001. To the knowledge of the author, the machine-learning-generated linear regressions between the features of the FFM trade-off framework and self-reported attitudes and beliefs are state-of-the-art; despite performing a fairly exhaustive literature review, no existing research could be found that claimed to uncover correlations between personality and political, social, professional, academic, and personal attitudes that approach the magnitude of those described in the linear regression experiments in Table 4 (e.g., Rosenfeld, 2018;Forrester and Tashchian, 2010;Chirumbolo and Leone, 2010;Lowicki, 2019;Erceg et al, 2018;Birkeland and Buch, 2015;Sutin et al, 2012;Moss and O'Connor, 2020). By simply inputting a numerical representation of an individual's hierarchy of motivations into the machine learning models generated by this research, the correct half of each of the attitudinal spectra upon which the individual self-identified (e.g., more liberal, or more conservative?)…”

Developing and Validating a Japanese Version of the Multidimensional Attitude toward Ambiguity Scale (MAAS)

“…Therefore, it is possible that MA and NFC were not as highly correlated as expected. Other scholars have suggested that MA is related to prejudice and political attitudes (Forsberg et al, 2019;Lauriola et al, 2016;Moss & O'Connor, 2020), therefore, we expect it to be explored in the future and that its validity will be tested with other scales.…”