2024/10/31 by Nour S. Kteily, Nour Kteily, Mark J. Brandt · 20 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Authoritarianism #Cognition #Democracy #Empathy #Ideology #Interpersonal communication #Perception #Personality #Politics #Prejudice (legal term) #Psychology #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Social psychology
paper · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-020124-115253
published in Annual Review of Psychology 76(1), 501-529 (Annual Reviews)
openalex publication_date 2024/10/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
A key debate in the psychology of ideology is whether leftists and rightists are psychologically similar or different. A long-standing view holds that left-wing and right-wing people are meaningfully different from one another across a whole host of basic personality and cognitive features. Scholars have recently pushed back, suggesting that left-wing and right-wing people are more psychologically similar than distinct. We review evidence regarding the psychological profiles of left-wing and right-wing people across a wide variety of domains, including their dispositions (values, personality, cognitive rigidity, threat-sensitivity, and authoritarianism), information processing (motivated reasoning and susceptibility to misinformation), and their interpersonal perceptions and behaviors (empathy, prejudice, stereotyping, and violence). Our review paints a nuanced picture: People across the ideological divide are much more similar than scholars sometimes appreciate. And yet, they differ-to varying degrees-in their personality, values, and (perhaps most importantly) in the groups and causes they prioritize, with important implications for downstream attitudes and behavior in the world.