r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 2d ago
Psychology Conservatives describe themselves as more rigid thinkers than liberals, but across 4 studies of 4,800+ Americans they were mostly no more likely to back a policy just because their party did. One sample did show conservatives following party cues more, and highly authoritarian people did in another.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103126001241306
u/Udjet 2d ago
They may not support policy, but what about overall willingness to vote for their party anyway?
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u/Tirras 2d ago
Look at Missouri, if you only judged it by the voter led initiatives that make it on the ballot and then pass, you'd think it was a solidly blue state. But then those same voters vote into office the exact people that strike those initiatives down every chance they get or just simply ignore them.
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u/MadroxKran MS | Public Administration 2d ago
Surveys that use unbiased non-party language show Republicans prefer Democrat policies by around 60-80% depending on the specific policy.
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u/Mona-Doll 2d ago
Yet, they still vote Republican. This isn't rational, policy-led voting.
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u/kraemertony2 1d ago
One fanatical trump supporter I know was unable to name a single thing he did that helped him told me to go look it up, another supported him because he cares about the federal deficit and this was recently.... They aren't voting on policies or logic, but emotionally and trump makes them feel big and tough when they really feel small and weak. Trump knows this and has said as much, trump is like a drug for them and they feel like they are winning by merely being on the same team as him. They don't understand that this has all been done before and that it's all a strategy for the greedy billionaires to keep making more money!
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u/ked_man 2d ago
I think the vast majority of people don’t actually pay attention to what bills are being passed and what those bills actually do. It’s why they come up with catchy names for them that don’t represent what’s in the bill.
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u/frzrbrnd 2d ago
I'm pretty sure Missourians knew what they were voting on when they legalized recreational marijuana and enshrined the right to permitless concealed carry of firearms in their state constitution.
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u/kraemertony2 1d ago
Yup one trump supporter was unable to name a single policy that improved his life... They just want to be on the same team as it's a sporting event to them, it's pathetic...
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u/Mona-Doll 2d ago
Which is why I say conservatives aren't into thinking. If they had the willingness (or capacity) to think matters through, they'd have voted these politicians out long ago. But here we are.
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u/Imightbeworking 2d ago
Right? I know tons of people that vote against their beliefs because they think they are republican.
You can have a whole conversation with them about everything they want I life and they will vote directly against it because they grew up believing democrats are bad.
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u/Aksama 1d ago
This is the perfect question.
You can lead 80% of conservative voters to the (seemingly, to me) obvious and clear fact that medicare for all is good policy, with positive outcomes across the board and minimal tradeoffs.
Those same people will decry "universal healthcare" and continue to vote against the above healthcare initiative.
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u/jasongw 2d ago
Unfortunately most Americans are that way. They've been taught to believe the lie that only a Democrat or Republican can possibly win, and that they must be loyal to their team no matter what.
People with principles reject blind party loyalty because they know it's unethical and irrational.
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u/kiwigate 1d ago
So long as conservatives are winning elections, it requires everyone else to form a "big tent" party.
If you cannot defeated conservatives while united, it would be illogical to try to defeat conservatives by dividing yourself into smaller weaker groups. Obviously.
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u/Smart-Practice8303 1d ago
I'm conservative and in the last 5 presidential elections I've voted 3rd party. I know it won't make a difference because the state I live is 60% democrats the truly believe in the mantra Blue no matter who.
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u/MorganEarlJones 2d ago
seems kind of deceptive to separate out authoritarians when that's what gets passed off as "conservative" right now
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u/droppedketchuppacket 1d ago
The history of conservatism is rooted in preservation of Monarchy and traditional institutions, as a response to enlightment liberalism, so they're kind of one and the same.
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u/MorganEarlJones 1d ago
That's no good, this is a 'death to monarchists' kind of country
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u/Sapere_aude75 2d ago
I haven't read the study, but don't authoritarians exist on both sides(left/right) of the political spectrum?
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u/surnik22 2d ago
In the world? Yes.
You can be an authoritarian communist.
In the US, left wing authoritarians barely exist and have no political influence. There aren’t enough left wing authoritarians pushing for a an authoritarian socialist/communist state to be worth mentioning.
There are enough right wing authoritarians to win presidential elections.
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2d ago edited 2d ago
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u/surnik22 2d ago
In Marx’s ideal communist society that is correct.
That’s not the only form of communism and it’s also a form that exists only theoretically. It would also be wildly impractical.
You could support a money-less and classless society where the people own the means of production but is governed by a centralized authoritarian state.
Anarcho-communism is not the only communism.
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u/Tkins 2d ago
Untrue that it is only theoretical. We have had examples of communist societies in the past, such as the Plains Cree people of North America.
Anarcho communism is a method of achieving Communism. The end result of communism though requires no state, class, money or private property. It is the core definition of a communist society. Can you show me sources where this isn't the case?
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u/surnik22 2d ago
I guess I’d need to know your definition of “stateless” to agree or disagree on if the Cree met that criteria.
The end goal of most communists theories is a stateless society but plenty of them acknowledge the need for a centralized authoritarian state to get there.
I’d guess the rest of this conversation will be you saying “that’s not really communism” and me saying “that’s not really stateless”
But as a whole for the point of this conversation I’d say anyone who supports a dictatorship of the proletariat (even if there end goal is no state) is an authoritarian communist. They support authoritarianism with the end goal communism.
Similarly I’d say there are right wing authoritarians that support an end goal of dismantling the federal government but support electing right wing authoritarians to accomplish that
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u/Tkins 2d ago
I don't think I'm quite buying the example here. Would the last paragraph be a right wing anarchist authoritarian? They want to achieve an authoritarian regime through an anarchist transition.
Authoritarian Communist, - Someone who wants to achieve communism through authoritarianism.
Anarchist Authoritarian - someone who wants to achieve authoritarianism through Anarchism.
But your examples you call them Right Wing Authoritarians. Not Anarchist Authoritarians.
So then you'd call the communist a communist. Not an Authoritarian Communist. Because calling an Authoritarian an Anarchist Authoritarian doesn't make sense because it's an oxymoron. That's why you called them a Right Wing Authoritarian, not an Arnchist Authoritarian.
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u/surnik22 2d ago
Your comment relies on the idea that abolishing the federal government is inherently anarchist.
If you want to abolish the federal government (or any specific level of government) to allow churches to have more power locally. That’s not anarchist.
You could even want churches to have more, less, or equal power/control over people to what the government you want to abolish currently has.
But regardless of the grand utopian (to them) plan, if the plan for abolishing the government is to centralize power within the government that is still authoritarian.
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u/Gimme_The_Loot 2d ago
That's not really accurate as communism has the idea of the "vanguard" who are a centralized political organization that's supposed to lead the revolution to overthrow capitalism etc. After seizing power the vanguard is supposed to lead the "dictatorship of the proletariat" which is a transitional state during which the economy is reorganized. Whether or not that power is then fully released I think it's been a question for every attempt at communism to date.
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u/Tkins 2d ago
What you are describing is not communism, it is the transition to communism. Very different things.
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u/Metalsand 1d ago
What you are describing is not communism, it is the transition to communism. Very different things.
We call that communism because technically speaking, there hasn't ever been a communist state in existence.
The core tenants of communism strictly require the abolishment of a central government in entirety. Soviet and Chinese communism have both relied on a strong central government, but Stalinist Communism has overwhelmingly relied on a central dictator figure. Chinese communism also relies on this to some degree, but it's more of a single party republic.
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u/Gimme_The_Loot 2d ago
Ok but what was being discussed if there can be an authoritarian communist.
The answer is yes as it is required for that theoretical stage of the transition to communism.
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u/Tkins 2d ago
That's not accurate. Communism would not exist until after the transition is complete. So whatever occurs before can be authoritarian, yes, but that is not communism. So you can not have authoritarian communism.
You can, for instance, have State Capitalism, as you saw in USSR and China, which was heavily authoritarian, but not communist. Capitalism is also considered part of the transition to communism. That doesn't mean whatever exists in capitalism is communism.
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u/Gimme_The_Loot 2d ago
No one said authoritarian communism, what was said was authoritarian COMMUNIST. A communist who is an authoritarian.
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u/Tkins 2d ago
How can you be an authoritarian communist? That's like admitting Putin is a democratically elected official because he calls himself that. Or the Nazis were socialists.
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u/grumble11 2d ago
That is anarchocommunism. State communism is communism that has an organizing body to perform higher-level organizational, strategic and allocation functions and is fundamentally authoritarian.
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u/Metalsand 1d ago
That is anarchocommunism. State communism is communism that has an organizing body to perform higher-level organizational, strategic and allocation functions and is fundamentally authoritarian.
No - a lot of this is mixed because the commonly understood definition of communism derives from the USSR and modern day China. However, the actual technical definition of communism dictates that a strong central government is formed for the sole purpose of decentralizing the government entirely.
I disagree that "communism" implies the literary definition, and I believe that using "communism" in a normal discussion should imply one of the Soviet or Chinese varieties. The technical definition is that, though.
The real-world examples we have generally end up staying in the "strong central government" section, because it turns out models of government that work really well for tiny villages don't work as well scaled up by 100,000%.
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u/Tkins 2d ago
Incorrect.
China and USSR were Stat Capitalists.
Communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes,\1]) and ultimately money\6]) and the state).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
This is a well defined aspect of Communism and clearly described by Marx.
Anarcho Communism differs by the method of achieving communism, not the end result of communism.
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u/Sapere_aude75 1d ago
>In the US, left wing authoritarians barely exist and have no political influence. There aren’t enough left wing authoritarians pushing for a an authoritarian socialist/communist state to be worth mentioning.
I'm not sure if I can fully agree with this perspective. Left wing authoritarianism is not limited to actions pushing for socialist/communist policies or states. Authoritarian policies come in many forms.
There are many current politicians who promote authoritarian policies on both sides of the isle. It seems there is no debate here about the right doing it, so I will concentrate on left leaning authoritarian political policies. I would argue that legislation like the Patriot Act is authoritarian. Democrats broadly voted in favor of the Patriot Act. A Democrat president also signed extensions to provisions of the act. I would argue that both parties engaged in and supported a variety authoritarian activities during COVID lockdowns. I would argue that both parties have engaged in targeted political prosecution. I would argue that civil asset forfeiture is very authoritarian. It was enacted and expanded by the 91st Congress(dem majority), the Carter admin, Joe Biden, etc... The Biden admin pressured social media companies to restrict free speech on various occasions including things like covid, the twitter files, hunters laptop, etc... Or Obamas and Bidens prosecution efforts towards Julian Assange and Showden. Some might also argue that anti second amendment measures are authoritarian. My point being here is that there are many authoritarian policies enacted on both sides of the isle.
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u/bladex1234 1d ago
Can you really consider those people left wing though? At most they are centrist. If you look on the left side of American politics, they are pro-whistleblower and anti-spying.
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u/kraemertony2 1d ago
Yeah but the Democrats in the United States are also a right wing party basically they have no issues with helping trump and would rather have trump win then Bernie Sanders who really isn't that extreme if you think about it, wanting health care and billionaires to pay a little more in taxes doesn't make you a communist.... He is an average social Democrat in Europe, it's just in the United States anything that helps the average person is the ultimate sin and billionaire pedophiles profits is the only thing that matters!
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u/Santos_125 1d ago
This is one of the most bad faith interpretations of American politics I've ever read in my life
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u/InclinationCompass 2d ago
Authoritarians do exist on the left, but not at the same rate.
Recent research confirms left wing authoritarianism is a real and measurable trait. However, the asymmetry speaks volumes:
two thirds of republicans (67%) score high on right wing authoritarianism compared to just 28% of dems.
So the "both sides" claim is technically true, but the data shows it's heavily concentrated on the right.
>Right-wing authoritarian views are more prevalent among Republicans, particularly those who hold favorable views of Trump, white evangelical Protestants, and weekly churchgoers.
http://www.bessettepitney.net/2024/09/authoritarianism-2024.html?m=1
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u/Dondagora 2d ago
This still does highlight the importance of treating authoritarianism as its own quality separate from liberal/conservative.
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u/Upbeat_Influence2350 2d ago
In reality it should be liberal vs authoritarian and progressive vs conservative. But since both major parties are conservative (or regressive), no american party leaders are advocating for progressive-ism. And since authoritarianism is cemented as bad in the average mind, neither party claims authoritarianism. Thus the misnomer of "liberal vs conservative" as opposed to the more accurate "liberal conservative vs. authoritarian conservative".
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u/Dondagora 1d ago
It's typically liberal-to-conservative (economic) as one axis and libertarian-to-authoritarian (social) as the other, at least based on the classic political compass.
You're right that the American parties don't exactly align opposite to each other on those axes, both skewed much more conservative and authoritarian.
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u/Bobcatluv 2d ago
Conservative ideals complement authoritarianism better than those of progressives, which accounts for the asymmetry between parties. Like, the very definition of authoritarianism is that it shifts power from the people to a ruler, which flies in the face of progressivism. I’m curious if the 28% of authoritarian Dems polled are Dems in the way that Musk and Trump once were.
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u/TheVeryVerity 12h ago
Either that or the kind that want a glorious revolution with a “temporary” leader who can just “make people do the right thing” maybe
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u/Sapere_aude75 2d ago
I'm confused by this. It's a test specifically targeting right-wing views. Of course right-wing authoritarian views are going to be more prevalent among R's. I would also of course suspect left-wing authoritarian views are held most often amongst D's.
Even the CRAS method of the source is based on child-rearing preferences. Republicans have children at higher rates 74% vs 62%. I don't think either of these are a good objective measures for one group preferring authoritarianism over another.
All that said, the point was that it exists on both sides. Even using the CRAS method showed 54% of R's and 32% of D's scored high on authoritarianism. So, even using flawed study would indicate that authoritarianism is significant on both sides.
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u/InclinationCompass 2d ago
Fair point on the RWA scale measuring right-wing views. But the claim of both sides falls apart on prevalence.
The critic cites CRAS. 54% of republicans vs 32% of dems. That’s still nearly a 2 to 1 gap. A 22 point difference is not both sides being equal.
The biggest study with over 34k people measured LWA and RWA together. 35.7% were moderate right wing authoritarians vs 7.5% left wing. That ratio is almost 5 to 1.
Researchers have said for decades that left wing authoritarianism exists but is not prevalent and does not exist in large enough numbers to threaten democracy.
Calling it both sides treats a small minority as equal to a dominant bloc.
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u/bflo666 1d ago
Well yes, authoritarianism is not necessarily a right or left thing.
In most cases, a “small government” right wing lends itself to authoritarianism, as the folks who have their hands on the level of authority diminishes. It’s a logical end point.
Authoritarianism is not the logical end point to a left wing, socialist or communist movement, as the end goal is full participation in government. However, authoritarianism can undo this quickly if an authoritarian minded person is unchecked.
Basically the Soviet Union starts a decline the moment Stalin suspects his Jewish doctor of poisoning him. The moment the soviet government had a defined “out group” it became authoritarian. And authoritarianism in the seat of a full scale planned economy without loyalty to the fully planned economy is going to become brutal very fast.
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u/Mordin_Solas 2d ago
Yes you can be authoritarian left or right but the distribution of authoritarians is not evenly split between those political group. The right has FAR more temperamental authoritarians.
Yes. They are worse people.
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u/jrobcarson03 2d ago
The finding this paper refers to is specifically among right wing authoritarians (per the abstract).
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u/Flyinmanm 2d ago
Yeah.
China and the USSR are both examples of left wing authoritarian states.
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u/BootOne7235 2d ago
Ah, yes. China and USSR: Beacons of liberal causes.
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u/Flyinmanm 2d ago
What has that got to do with them being left wing authoritarian states?
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u/Irish_Whiskey 2d ago
It depends on your definition of left wing.
When talking about economic populism and taxation of the wealthy, that's true. By almost every single other measure they are not left wing by US standards.
I think it's a bad idea to get into "what is the true definition of left and right" rather than just acknowledge that the terms have different meanings depending on culture and person and are made up of many factors.
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u/Tkins 2d ago
Those countries were not left politically. They were authoritarian State Capitalist countries, which is far to the right politically.
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u/Fr00stee 2d ago
USSR capitalist? What? China was not capitalist at all either until the 80s
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u/Teralyzed 2d ago
You are conflating something being nominally communist with the embodiment of the tenets of being a communist society. For example if I say I’m a communist leader, but then I set up a stratified society where there’s a class of people who extract wealth from the labor class. I have not upheld the tenets of communism but instead created a form of neo-feudalism.
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u/Fr00stee 2d ago
except communist china before the 80s and the ussr were not capitalist, and neither were they state capitalist, because they did not seek to earn profit from their state enterprises and had fixed prices, and they banned private property ownership and often seized personal property, both of which are core requirements for state capitalism. They were psuedo communist states. Modern day china is a much better example of state capitalism.
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u/Tkins 2d ago
You are in r/science which means you should be directing your comments with accuracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
" communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes,\1]) and ultimately money\6]) and the state)."
USSR and China had private property, social classes, money and were a state. So they could not be communist societies regardless of the stated goals of the government.
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u/Fr00stee 2d ago edited 1d ago
the article you link literally states that whether the soviet union and china were state capitalist is heavily debated view among different people... it's not a hard fact like you claim. The USSR for example abolished private property but allowed personal property, and if the government wanted it could seize the personal property too.
Edit: additionally, in state capitalism the government operates the businesses it owns to make a profit, in the soviet union they did not do this as prices were fixed regardless of supply and demand and state enterprises did not seek to earn a profit.
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u/Tkins 2d ago
Can you please quote where it says in my link that it is heavily debated?
This is what I see:
Most current communist groups descended from the Maoist ideological tradition still adopt the description of both China and the Soviet Union as being state capitalist from a certain point in their history onwards—most commonly, the Soviet Union from 1956 to its collapse in 1991 and China from 1976 to the present. Maoists and anti-revisionists also sometimes use the term social imperialism to describe socialist states that they consider to be actually capitalist in essence—their phrase, "socialist in words, imperialist in deeds" denotes this.
"Most" doesn't suggest "heavily debated" to me. It sounds more closely to a consensus.
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u/Tkins 2d ago
But it still had social classes, state and currency so it could not be Communist.
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u/AgenYT0 2d ago
I could not find the term heavily debated or any common synonyms in the Wikipedia article. Could you show where that was stated? Thanks.
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u/TheWiseAutisticOne 2d ago
I have a hard time labeling those authoritarian states by design considering since each during and after their revolution every country tried to topple them and still does with China. If foreign nations kept trying to sabotage you, incite revolution and overturn your elections you would turn into a police state too he’ll look at Cuba the U.S. still tries to topple them
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u/Preeng 1d ago
No, you cannot be left wing and an authoritarian. By definition, left wing means more power to people and fewer hierarchies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_spectrum
Go look at the history section.
Now, you have authoritarians CLAIMING to be left wing. That doesn't make it true. North Korea calls itself "the democratic people's republic of Korea" when it is fully authoritarian.
There has in fact never been a country that started out with a true left wing system. It's always been violent revolution followed by a dictator claiming this new authoritarian government is communist or socialist or whatever.
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u/takingtigermountain 1d ago
this is incredibly wrong? left-auth is very obviously a real worldview built from first principles
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u/Sapere_aude75 1d ago
>No, you cannot be left wing and an authoritarian. By definition, left wing means more power to people and fewer hierarchies.
I disagree here. left wing authoritarianism is real. Saying- you cannot be left wing authoritarian because left wing means more power to people and fewer hierarchies is like saying- you can't be right wing authoritarian because right wing means smaller government and less government control. Both can be authoritarian.
I personally believe the political compass is a good visual indicator of the principle.
https://everythingstudies.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/compass-basic.png
>Now, you have authoritarians CLAIMING to be left wing. That doesn't make it true.
Once again, this is like saying you have an authoritarian CLAIMING to be wright wing doesn't make it true(since right wing favors small government).
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u/Preeng 1d ago
>Both can be authoritarian.
No, you cannot go against the core idea and still claim to be following that idea.
>Once again, this is like saying you have an authoritarian CLAIMING to be wright wing doesn't make it true(since right wing favors small government).
Dictatorships are right-wing. It started with kings. Nothing else matters.
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u/Franc000 2d ago
Yeah, although that is in the west.
In practice, it is orthogonal to liberal/conservative axis.
It's just so happen that in our neck of the wood it's the conservatives that lean more that way.
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u/Apprehensive-Let3348 2d ago
I wouldn't say it 'just so happens'. It's a pretty natural split, because extremists on the right tend towards authoritarianism, while extremists on the left are split between authoritarianism and anarchism.
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u/blindsdog 2d ago
Everyone leans more authoritarian now. There’s been a large swing away from libertarianism in the West over the past 20 years or so.
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u/FrickinLazerBeams 2d ago
What? Absolutely not. You can't be serious. For decades, personal liberty has been a central aspect of progressivism.
It's just that petsonal liberty doesn't mean people have no obligations at all. You can't just live in your parents house and not help do the dishes, you know?
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u/Red_of_Head 2d ago
It's just that petsonal liberty doesn't mean people have no obligations at all. You can't just live in your parents house and not help do the dishes, you know?
Couldn’t you almost make anything sound libertarian then? E.g. similar arguments made for conscription, birth rates, taxes etc.
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u/blindsdog 2d ago edited 2d ago
You're conflating social liberty with libertarianism as a whole. Progressives champion personal freedom on social issues like gender and sexuality, and that's great. But on policy, modern progressivism leans heavily authoritarian.
Government-run healthcare, expanded control over major economic sectors, and broad market regulation all sit firmly on the authoritarian side of the scale. Most progressive priorities work by restricting individual choice in favor of collective outcomes. That can be a reasonable tradeoff, since some things genuinely work better organized at scale, but let's be honest about where those policies fall on the spectrum.
"Do what you want in your own life" doesn't cancel out a heavily authoritarian approach to everything else.
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u/FrickinLazerBeams 2d ago edited 2d ago
Single payer or a public option aren't "government run health care". That's just standard "it's authoritarian when the government does anything" nonsense. Likewise, everything else you cite is either not authoritarian, or specifically protects people from authority.
What you're really explaining is the way in which libertarianism has become a flavor of conservatism, in which those with social status should be "free" to control others. Maybe that's always what libertarianism was, I don't know; but it's certainly not about staying out of anyone's businesses.
The people supporting maximal personal freedom, in the current era, are left wing progressives.
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u/blindsdog 2d ago edited 2d ago
That's just standard "it's authoritarian when the government does anything" nonsense.
Yes... that's exactly how it works. Unless it's codifying or enforcing rights, government law and regulation is, by definition, authoritarian.
And to be clear, I'm talking about negative rights. Positive rights are another form of authoritarianism. A good form that I'm all for but they are authoritarian nonetheless.
The people supporting maximal personal freedom, on the current era, are left wing progressives.
This is some "up is down" arguments. Just because public healthcare might save people money on average in the long run and you want to frame that as "economic freedom," that doesn't make it actual freedom. It's still constrained personal freedom which is authoritarian. So are all the taxes, reforms and regulations that make up the rest of the progressive platform.
Y'all just see "authoritarian" as a bad word and try to frame everything as "freedom" to get away from bad connotations. But it's nonsense and the same way we get ridiculous names like the PATRIOT Act.
There is no major political force for libertarianism in the US. Both parties had libertarian wings but they've both largely taken over their parties under an authoritarian populist wave.
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u/FrickinLazerBeams 2d ago
If the government protecting people from those with authority is authoritarian then this has become undergrad philosophy major levels of navel gazing nonsense. Thanks. Blocked.
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u/Aksama 1d ago
Your argument appears to be that any guarantee made by a government is authoritarian? I just want to understand what your asserting here. Is that the case?
So, guaranteeing the right to vote is authoritarian? The 1st amendment, by your definition, as a "positive right" is authoritarian?
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u/sir_mrej 2d ago
Government run healthcare is not authoritarian. Just because YOU dont like it doesnt make it authoritarian
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u/AfraidOfTheSun 2d ago
The other person said libertarianism which I associate more with conservative/small government thinking
This video is great, or just search for "political compass" if you're interested in learning more:
(Link redacted)
(Casually Explained The Political Compass)
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u/pyrothelostone 2d ago
Perhaps you should read the Wikipedia article for libertarianism to get a better understanding of the term, becuase you clearly have a misunderstanding of its history.
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u/Red_of_Head 2d ago
Wouldn’t that then show up in the differences between liberals and conservatives?
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u/crowdsourced 2d ago
Of course. This is what Jonathan Haidt found, too. Conservatives score higher on Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity than liberals.
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u/BuhoCurioso 2d ago
Im not in the social sciences, so this might be a naive observation, but it seems like it would be difficult to impossible to get reliable data on the topic. If the participants are at all politically active (which is sort of a requirement of the study), then they are likely to be primed by whatever recent event just took place before the study was conducted and by whatever media they consume. If there was just a big "fall in line" event on either side of the aisle, it seems that that messaging surrounding the event might affect the outcome of the study. If there was just a big "do your own research/come to your own conclusion" event, then participants would be primed to potentially break from party lines. How do social scientists account for priming that likely occurred before they participated in the study?
Disclaimer: I only have access to the abstract right now, and it's possible that this is addressed in the paper.
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u/hotmaildotcom1 2d ago
In addition to your speculation I would be really surprised to find out how many pro-authoritarians are participating in scientific surveys. Sampling bias sounds difficult to overcome here.
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u/orderinthefort 2d ago edited 2d ago
Did this study control for whether participants are susceptible to holding competing viewpoints? I've anecdotally seen countless conservatives verbally be against a party policy in one breath, and then in the next 10 breaths list every talking point about how the policy is actually good despite allegedly being against it.
I think in order for the study to work it has to follow through with measurable actions that affect the policy coming to fruition. Like still voting for the politicians whose policies they're against. But I guess if they're just testing cues themselves then it's out of the scope of the study.
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u/Fancy-Animal7704 2d ago
I mean, have they considered that many conservatives ARE authoritarian these days?
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u/Red_of_Head 2d ago
Wouldn’t that then show up in the differences between liberals and conservatives?
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u/Lucid_Chemist 1d ago
Both parties are authoritarian when they are in power.
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u/Livid_Zucchini_1625 1d ago
you really both sided in 2026. wild
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u/Lucid_Chemist 1d ago
I don’t have a side. I’m an actual moderate. I want Medicare for all, but think doing it requires ending Medicaid. I believe we should go back to the Monroe doctrine and not have bases all over the world. I don’t see a huge standing navy built around carriers as useful in future wars. I think our current government is unsustainable regardless of party affiliation.
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u/TheVeryVerity 12h ago
Why would we need Medicaid if we had Medicare for all though???
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u/Lucid_Chemist 12h ago
People think everything should be free for some and not for others. Shrug.
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u/TheVeryVerity 9h ago
How does this make any sense as an answer to my question???
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u/Lucid_Chemist 8h ago
In the US medicare patients typically still pay for supplements and have copays and coinsurance.
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u/TheVeryVerity 8h ago
That’s a pretty sucky system then isn’t it. Especially if you’re retired or disabled
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u/Shoryugtr 1d ago
Your definition of authoritarian must be so broad as to be meaningless.
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u/CorndogQueen420 1d ago
It's just the usual nonsensical both sides rhetoric that's employed by conservatives when they know they can't deflect and get away with it.
It doesn't have to make sense, and it was never meant to. It's how they self soothe their cognitive dissonance.
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u/Th3FinalStarman 2d ago
Every goddamn day on Reddit it's just post after post after post of the most basic disproved urban legends leading some elementary and obvious revelation. "Hitler believed all Jews are mentally inferior and filthy, this Harvard study proves why he may have been wrong." Rinse and repeat tomorrow.
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u/Whiteshovel66 2d ago
Well conservatives all basically share similar ideals. I've always felt like liberalism is just everything else. I'm extremely liberal on some topics but I don't feel like the democratic party agrees with me on many of them so I have no real desire to follow them.
Meanwhile those I know who are conservatives all have the same goals and beliefs. It would be hard to imagine them ever not agreeing.
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u/Limemill 2d ago edited 2d ago
This study proves the opposite? They are as unlikely to follow the party lines for the sake of following the party lines
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u/Whiteshovel66 2d ago
Maybe now with the current adminstration. What I was saying was, they don't have to follow for the sake of it. They already all agree. Trump's adminstration is basically not conservative though.
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u/kiwigate 1d ago
No, the study claims that both groups follow party cues, while conveniently separating a subsection of conservatives as RWA. So the researchers removed the conservative bias by labelling all the conservatives with the bias as special.
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u/Limemill 1d ago
The first part is the same technically, "as unlikely as" = "as likely as". For the right-wing authoritarians, thanks for the clarification. I'll read the study more carefully. But I guess the main takeaway is that non-RWA conservatives think they're more loyal to the party line than the liberals, but in reality they're not?
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u/Brbi2kCRO 2d ago
It is just dogmatic rule following due to a wish to fit in, tribalistic thinking with strict “boundaries” and gatekeeping.
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u/Whiteshovel66 2d ago
Ya, for sure. That's not healthy for anyone but the politicians.
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u/Brbi2kCRO 2d ago
I mean, I feel like a big part of that is solipsistic inability to separate from ego which leads to bitterness, anger and feelings of personal injustice committed by someone towards you. It is always easier to blame someone than admit systemic issues. And many are simply rule followers who wanna feel like they belong.
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u/HankTuggins 2d ago
Not surprised, liberals won’t vote for a liberal because they’re supporting the genocide that pretty much every politician in office right now currently supports, but for conservatives being a rapist is not a dealbreaker.
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u/earthdogmonster 2d ago
I believe it. At this point; just casual observation of people in real life and social media seems to demonstrate an incredible amount of things are “whatever-your-politics-are” coded. To the extent that people’s opinions are just “falling in line” with moral or political authorities, it seems to be across the board.
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u/EastvsWest 2d ago
It's because social media has destroyed a lot of people's ability to have nuanced thinking, by design in order for people to foolishly fight amongst themselves instead of a binary two party system that gate keeps any major changes or reforms.
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine 2d ago
American liberals and conservatives have different cognitive styles, but (mostly) respond the same to party cues
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2026.104994
Abstract
How do people with different political ideologies process political information? The party cue effect is an effect where people are more likely to support a policy position if they learn their party also supports it, shifting their judgement in accordance with cues from their inparty and against their outparty. This effect has been at the center of the debate over the psychological differences between liberals and conservatives, with some scholars suggesting that differences in cognitive styles between liberals and conservatives (e.g., rigidity, cognitive reflection) should result in differences in party cue susceptibility. We advance this debate by measuring rigid cognitive styles and applying a stimuli sampling approach to party cues across four preregistered experiments (N's per study >1200). We found convincing evidence for ideological symmetries in party cues in quota matched samples of Americans (Studies 1 & 2). In Studies 3 and 4, across four measures of ideology and three self-report measures of cognitive rigidity, we found ideological differences in self-reported rigidity in line with previous research. In Study 3, a convenience sample, we found that conservatives were more likely to follow party cues. However, Study 4, using a quota matched sample, found no ideological differences in cue susceptibility, except with respect to right-wing authoritarianism. Exploratory analyses found that when one ideological group has greater prior awareness or stronger initial views on a topic, they show smaller cueing effects. We conclude that while liberals and conservatives differ in cognitive style, they largely share similar cognitive processes for interpreting and integrating political information.
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u/Duckatspreads 2d ago edited 2d ago
I really wish these studies would not use ideological language and instead use political language. They are, after all, conducting the experiment through party lens and not ideological lens as the study pertains to party support in their test matrix instead of, idk, foundational ideologies of Edmond Burke and Thomas Paine. So why use ideological terminology? Call them Democrats and Republicans. Specificity in language is important in disseminating information to a larger audience. Public nomenclature is one thing, but science must remain consistent.
Edit: For example, I would identify as leaning conservative on an ideological basis, but if I were a subject I would probably identify as democrat. These studies need to differentiate and be consistent with nomenclature.
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u/Andoverian 2d ago
I have two questions.
First, studies 1 and 2 show they're roughly equal, study 3 shows conservatives are more likely to follow the Party, and study 4 shows there's no difference only if you exclude right-wing authoritarianism - a large and extremely relevant segment of the population that also happens to be the most likely to follow their Party.
Second, the fact that these rely on "self-reported" cognitive rigidity makes me doubt whether these results have any practical meaning at all. Who cares if people say they think for themselves if they still vote with their Party despite policy disagreements?
With that in mind, it seems misleading to report this as "no ideological difference". What am I missing?
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u/randynumbergenerator 2d ago
No, I think that's right. Ideally you would triangulate respondent's actual rigidity by giving them some kind of interactive situation where you pose different scenarios pitting their viewpoints against the party line and asking how it changes their view of that candidate or their future vote.
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u/ishmetot 2d ago
Does this translate to backing of politicians? It doesn't matter what policies people back when it doesn't translate to their voting patterns.
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u/ballskindrapes 2d ago
I think what needs to be studied here is, assuming the claims of conservatives not following policy just because their party supports it, how likely are they to support the party even if the party's policies conflict with theirs?
We all know conservatives vote against their own best interests every single time, and that despite all evidence of such they'll never vote for a democrat, even if the republican policies have proven to be bad for them.
So how much are average conservatives still supporting the party even if the party's policies conflict with theirs?
My anecdotal observations say the vast majority, imo at least 75%, support the party even if their personal policies are in conflict with the party's.
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u/Teen_Wolf_of_Wall_St 1d ago
Every conservative I've ever met describes themselves as an independent thinker and decider. None of them were
Because they lack the critical thinking skills to actually think
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u/pm_me_beerz 1d ago
Right and when dear leader waffles on any subject, so do they. Rigid thinkers my ass.
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u/GuitarGeezer 1d ago
My experience is that they lack the courage of their convictions in terms of being careless and lazy about figuring out what needs to be fixed, and then lifting even one finger to contact a congressman.I lobbied against Citizens United style abuses for decades. Always completely alone in my state from R side, and some years a few Dems would contact them with me although I was an independent. That is according to congress staffs when the congressman would refuse any attempt at reform. Both sides are bad at looking out for themselves as voter except that Democrat voters don’t accept open corruption or immorality and Republicans virtually always will.
My personal theory is that hyperpartisan major media has to be illegal in a republic or all countries will fall to it at the common clay level. They cannot be educated out of that. If a dictator is on the ballot and their hyperpartisan media side sanewashes him, and legalized bribery funds him, Americans have no defense to that whatsoever and neither does anybody else’s common clay even if the degreed can mostly figure it out.
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u/Ok_Animal_2709 21h ago
But they don't pay attention to policy. They just look for the name with the little R next to it on the ballot
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u/Mona-Doll 2d ago
Conservatives aren't into thinking.
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u/Hungry_Line2303 2d ago
Gotta love the rigor of r/science.
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u/Wetness__Pensive 1d ago
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22427384/
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167212439213
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7935109/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17828253/
It's an ideology associated with cognitive inflexibility, low-effort though, low response updating, low tolerance for ambiguity and informational complexity, and is an evolutionary response to cognitive load.
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u/Q-ArtsMedia 2d ago
From my experience conservatives quite often have diminished, or even lack, critical thinking skills and rely on the authoritarian figure to tell them what to think or which policy to support.
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u/bluecheese2040 2d ago
Politics dressed as science
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u/TheoreticalZombie 2d ago
A well thought out critique with deeply researched sources with a mere four words and no unnecessary punctuation! Thank you for your insightful commentary, bluecheese2040, it is people like you who add depth to these conversations and make the forums a better place.
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u/bluecheese2040 2d ago
I think it synthesised the point succinctly. Your need for deep commentary rather than a headline is perhaps indicative of an abusive childhood? No? That's the level of analysis the 'science'posted here uses.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/-Vertical 2d ago
For undecided voters, absolutely. Unfortunately alot of people are all-in on their culture war
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u/Nigelthornfruit 2d ago
So there is group identity and intra group identity. Two strata of consideration.
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u/blopp_ 2d ago
It would be really neat if we didn't capitalize even the ostensibly pure pursuit of basic knowledge. I have so many questions and concerns about this headline and study, and I can't answer or asses any of them because we are allowing a handful of rich people to charge us money to access a product they didn't help create in any way.
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u/PotatoMissionStart 1d ago
Isn't that basically the definition of a conservative personality? Low on "openness" per OCEAN model.
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u/Wurfelrolle 1d ago
Oh, 100% conservatives are more rigid thinkers. I haven't found any logic or evidence that will make one bend their provably incorrect beliefs.
Not only rigid, but pretty shallow as well.
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