#public-opinion — Public Fediverse posts

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/40680/ Your guide to voting in the 2026 general election in Mass. #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/40600/ New York Midterm Elections 2026: Key Races, Candidates and Past Results #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/?p=40520 Do Missouri ballot issue results suggest a blue state tilt? #Election2026 #featuredhomepage #featuredkc #featuredmo #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/40438/ New poll shows Ga. governor candidates in tight race #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/40356/ Religious Groups Differ Widely in Their 2026 Midterm Preferences #Polls #PublicOpinion

Mississippi Today: Advocates: Even in Mississippi, data center opposition spans political spectrum. But are politicians listening?. “Even though communities across the state are resoundingly rejecting data centers, very few officials are responsive to the concerns of these communities. Who even asked for these data centers, anyway? What regular citizen wants these data centers in their […]

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/40274/ Voter sentiment: Australians and those across the world feel like they’re experiencing one letdown after another #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/40192/ KFF Health Tracking Poll: MAHA and the Midterms #FoodAndDrugAdministration(FDA) #Politics #Polls #PrescriptionDrugs #PublicOpinion #Voting

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/40110/ Republicans retreat from battleground districts as lines shift in House races #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/40028/ Trump Claims Husted, Ramaswamy Are Ahead: What Polls Show #DonaldTrump #MidtermElections #MidtermGuides2026 #midterms #Ohio #polling #Polls #PublicOpinion #VivekRamaswamy

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/39946/ No clear frontrunner in South Carolina #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/39866/ How popular is Donald Trump in Europe? July 2026 #Polls #PublicOpinion

Early voting begins Monday | Government / Politics https://www.byteseu.com/2452254/ #accountability #Ballot #Democracy #EarlyVoting #election #Elections #EvaluationMethods #Florida #Government #GroupDecisionMaking #MonroeCounty #OrganizedEvents #ParliamentaryProcedure #PlantationKey #PoliticalCorruption #PoliticalEvents #PoliticalLaw #Politics #Polling #psephology #PublicOpinion #SocialScienceIndices #SocialStatistics #StateCrime #voting

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/39786/ South Texas Latino voters shift ahead of 2026 midterm election #BreakingNews:Politics #BusinessNews #DonaldJTrump #DonaldTrump #Elections #GovernmentAndPolitics #Hispanics #immigration #JoeBiden #KamalaHarris #Latinos #MidTermElections #Politics #Polls #PublicOpinion #SocialIssues #texas #USDemocraticParty #USRepublicanParty #Voting

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/39704/ The Salt Shaker Test: Stetson’s October poll needs a lot more salt #2026Election #AngieNixon #AshleyMoody #ByronDonalds #CenterForPublicOpinionResearch #DavidJolly #GenericBallot #Governor'sRace #LikelyVoters #Poll #PollingMethodology #Polls #PublicOpinion #Qualtrics #SaltShakerTest #StetsonUniversity #SteveVancore #survey #VoterFile #VoterTurnout

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/39622/ October 2026 Election Poll | PCPSR #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/39540/ Donald Trump’s Approval Rating Falls Below 30% For First Time Ever #BreakingNews #DonaldTrump #Economy #midterms #Polls #PublicOpinion #TrumpAdministration #voters

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/39458/ Election 2026: Early voting for Tennessee’s November 3 general election is underway #Democrat #Democrats #election #GOP #governor #local #Nashville #News #Polls #primary #PublicOpinion #race #Republican #Republicans

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/39376/ Term Limits Breaking News: 14% Congressional Approval Rating, this is Considered Good News? #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/39296/ KAAL/SurveyUSA Poll: A look at where voters stand regarding key political figures heading into the midterm election – ABC 6 News #Poll #Polls #PublicOpinion #SurveyUSA

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/39214/ New Poll: Four in Five Voters Fear Their Rights Are Being Taken Away. They’re Also Determined to Vote. #2026Elections #Polls #PublicOpinion #USImmigrationAndCustomsEnforcement #VotingRights

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/39138/ President Donald Trump (R) and the 119th Congress saw their lowest approval ratings of Trump’s second term in November #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/39056/ [Deep dive] Lee’s core supporters can only take him so far #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/38974/ U.S. Montana Rep. Troy Downing is the favorite in Montana’s Eastern Congressional District #2026ElectionGuide #BrianMiller #FederalGovernment #MichaelEisenhauer #MontanaInsights #Polls #PublicOpinion #TroyDowning

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/38892/ Midterm polls have good news, great news, and bad news for Democrats. Wait, what? #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/38812/ Texas 2026 Poll: Paxton and Talarico Deadlocked in U.S. Senate Race; Abbott Leads Hinojosa by Four Points  #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/38730/ KFF Health Tracking Poll: Public Views on Foreign Aid and Global Health Spending #FederalBudget #GlobalHealthAidCuts #GlobalHealthProgramImpact #Polls #PublicOpinion #USGovernmentPrograms

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/38652/ ELECTION 2026 | Judge denies request to reinstate 92 Tarrant County election polling sites #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/38570/ Trump’s Pre-Midterm Approval Rating Compared to Biden, Obama and Bush #ApprovalRating #BarackObama #DonaldTrump #Elections #GeorgeWBush #JoeBiden #midterms #Polls #PublicOpinion

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/38488/ Trump went all the way to Alaska in a sign of how close its US Senate race may be #2026USMidtermElections #AlaskaSenateElection #DonaldTrump #Polls #PublicOpinion #USMidtermElections #USSenate

DATE: October 13, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: How partisan hatred shapes American views of the Black Lives Matter protests and January 6

URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-partisan-hatred-shapes-american-views-of-the-black-lives-matter-protests-and/

Americans interpret major political events through a deeply polarized lens, where hostility toward the opposing political party shapes whether they view protests as legitimate or dangerous. A new study published in Political Research Quarterly reveals that this divide is driven not just by party labels, but by intense dislike of political opponents, loyalty to specific party factions, and differing beliefs about what threatens democracy.

The research was conducted by Rongbo Jin at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Spencer Lindsay at the University of Arizona. They set out to investigate how preexisting political attitudes structure the way Americans evaluate two highly contentious events in recent history. Specifically, they looked at the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol.

The researchers emphasize that comparing public reactions to these two events does not mean the events are morally or qualitatively equivalent. One was a decentralized protest movement seeking racial equality, while the other was a violent attempt to halt the certification of a presidential election. Instead, the comparison serves to illustrate how the American public cognitively processes moments of intense political conflict.

In modern American politics, identifying with a political party is a deeply held social identity. This dynamic has led to a rise in affective polarization, a term describing the phenomenon where Democrats and Republicans not only disagree on policy but actively distrust and dislike each other.

People rarely analyze political information like objective scientists. Instead, they rely on mental shortcuts called heuristics to quickly judge new information. This reliance feeds into motivated reasoning, a psychological process where people readily accept information that flatters their political group while finding reasons to reject facts that make their side look bad.

These cognitive shortcuts are heavily influenced by a person’s core values. The researchers point out that Republicans often prioritize social order and conformity, meaning they might view protests that disrupt the social order as inherently threatening. Democrats, on the other hand, tend to place a higher value on individual rights and inclusion, meaning they are more likely to view protests by marginalized groups as a necessary democratic function.

To understand how these psychological forces shaped views of the recent protests and riots, the researchers first analyzed an original survey of 1,000 adult participants. Conducted in late 2023, the survey asked respondents to evaluate the Black Lives Matter protests and the January 6 event on several dimensions, such as whether they were legal, empowering, or dangerous.

The researchers measured affective polarization by asking respondents to rate their feelings toward both major political parties on a scale from zero to one hundred, with zero being the coldest possible feeling. They also asked participants to place themselves within party factions, such as identifying as a MAGA Republican or a progressive Democrat.

The survey results demonstrated severe partisan splits, with Democrats viewing the Black Lives Matter protests favorably and January 6 negatively, while Republicans exhibited the opposite pattern. Affective polarization amplified these views, as participants who expressed the coldest feelings toward the opposing party held the most extreme evaluations of both events.

The researchers even looked at pure independents, individuals who do not formally align with either party. They found that independents who simply expressed warmer feelings toward the Democratic Party still viewed the Black Lives Matter protests more favorably. This suggests that emotional attachments shape political views even in the absence of a strict party label.

Differences also emerged within the parties themselves. Progressive Democrats evaluated the Black Lives Matter protests much more positively than establishment Democrats. On the political right, MAGA Republicans viewed January 6 much more positively and the Black Lives Matter protests much more negatively than establishment Republicans.

The survey also asked whether participants believed American democracy was currently under threat. Both Democrats and Republicans who perceived a high threat to democracy held more polarized views of these events, but they did so in opposite directions.

For Democrats, believing democracy was threatened was linked to supporting the Black Lives Matter protests and condemning January 6. For Republicans, perceiving a threat to democracy was linked to condemning the Black Lives Matter protests and viewing January 6 more favorably.

The researchers describe this as a “saving democracy” frame. When citizens believe the political system is in danger, they use that belief to justify their evaluations of controversial political actions. Depending on a person’s preexisting political loyalties, the exact same event can be interpreted as either a defense of democracy or a direct attack on it.

Next, the researchers examined data from the American National Election Studies, looking at large surveys from 2016, 2020, and 2024. This included panel data, which tracks the exact same individuals over several years to see how their attitudes shift over time. Because this secondary data set did not include questions about January 6, the researchers focused solely on evaluations of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The panel data revealed that as Republicans grew warmer toward the Democratic Party between 2016 and 2020, they also developed warmer feelings toward the Black Lives Matter movement. Conversely, when Democrats grew warmer toward Republicans, they tended to view the movement less favorably.

The researchers suggest this indicates a shift toward more moderate political positions. When individuals soften their stance toward political opponents, they may also moderate their views on highly polarizing social movements associated with the political left.

The authors note that the study relies on observational data, meaning it can only identify associations rather than establish direct cause and effect. It is possible that evaluating these historical events in a certain way actually causes people to dislike the opposing party more, rather than the other way around.

Additionally, participants were asked in 2023 to evaluate events that took place in 2020 and 2021. Their memories and interpretations may have been shaped by years of political messaging and media coverage in the interim.

Future studies might use experimental designs to better understand the exact sequence of how political identity shapes the immediate processing of breaking news. Tracking public reactions in real time could help researchers map how competing narratives take hold before partisan lines fully solidify.

The study, “Inhabiting Different Worlds: How Partisan Attitudes Shape Americans’ Evaluation of the Black Lives Matter Protests and the January 6th Insurrection,” was authored by Rongbo Jin and Spencer Lindsay.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-partisan-hatred-shapes-american-views-of-the-black-lives-matter-protests-and/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PartisanAttitudes #AffectivePolarization #BLMProtests #January6 #PoliticalPsychology #PublicOpinion #DemocracyThreatPerception #PoliticalBias #OpinionFormation #CognitiveHeuristics

'Lake America' [Ontario] Change Fuels Surge In Google Maps Alternatives
--
https://www.audacy.com/national/news/lake-america-change-fuels-surge-in-google-maps-alternatives <-- shared media article
--
https://www.fastcompany.com/91599041/mapquest-not-renaming-lake-ontario-despite-trumps-executive-order <-- shared technical media article
--
[Map Quest ~ 50 times its ‘regular usage’, #1 free app on the Apple store (ahead of ChatGPT); I actually can see Apple & Google’s POV - although they should have had backbones IMHO – as a LOT of Federal contracts were on the line (especially when petty vindictiveness comes into it) if they did not follow the executive-order-dictated Board of Geographic Names naming]
“MapQuest - the site where ancient (a.k.a. early 2000s) travelers would find directions to print out - and other map apps have seen a recent resurgence in popularity since President Donald Trump decided to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America.
Within two days of [the] Aug. 27 executive order to change the name of the lake, Google announced that its popular Google Maps app would change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America and noted that the name had changed in the government’s Geographic Names Information System. Apple changed the name in its map app shortly after.
Meanwhile, polls showed that the name change was deeply unpopular with the public. The Economist/YouGov polling of 1,592 U.S. adults from Aug. 28 through Aug. 31 [https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_yVe1kKt.pdf] found that just 17% of participants approved of re-naming the lake [https://www.audacy.com/national/news/poll-lake-america-even-less-popular-than-tariffs]. Reuters/Ipsos poll results released Sept. 1 [https://www.reuters.com/world/us/majority-americans-oppose-trumps-new-canada-tariffs-renaming-lake-ontario-2026-09-01/] found that just 14% of respondents approved of the name change.
According to the Associated Press, Google and Apple’s decisions to re-label Lake Ontario “sparked a backlash among some users, already unhappy with the companies’ decisions to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on their maps following a previous Trump edict.” Users also have concerns about digital privacy and have started looking for map app alternatives.
Google Maps is the ‘dominant player’ in the digital map space with about 80% of the market, according to estimates cited by the AP. After Apple Maps, Waze was listed as the third most popular navigation app in an article from PC World published in August, before the Lake Ontario name change. However, Waze is also owned by Google and displays the Lake America name.
That’s where other alternatives – such as… MapQuest [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mapquest.android.ace | https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mapquest-gps-navigation-maps/id316126557] – come in to play. Of course, users don’t have to print out instructions anymore. MapQuest is now owned by a California-based company called System1…”
#GIS #spatial #mapping #TomTom #MapQuest #Citymapper #OrganicMaps #OpenStreetMap #geographicnames #names #cartography #LakeOntario #mappingapps #publicopinion
@System1 | @MapQuest | @OrganicMaps | @Citymapper

A quotation from Orwell

The relative freedom which we enjoy depends on public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.

George Orwell (1903–1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1945-12-07), “Freedom of the Park,” Tribune newspaper

More about this quote: wist.info/orwell-george/3041/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #orwell #georgeorwell #breakingthelaw #freespeech #freedom #freedomofspeech #law #legalsystem #publicinterest #publicopinion

Salt Lake Tribune: Most Utahns oppose building more data centers. Here’s what they want done about them.. “As the number of planned data center projects seemingly explodes across Utah, most residents aren’t happy with how their elected leaders have handled them, according to a new survey. A vast majority of Utahns – 86% – also don’t feel the cost of data centers, including their water […]

New York Times: Musicians Versus the A.I. Machine. Why Bother Writing Songs Anymore?. “I’m Matt Richtel, a New York Times reporter, occasional songwriter and the ringleader of this experiment. The idea was straightforward: Four top-shelf, lifelong musicians and I would spend a weekend in a recording studio to write and record several songs nearly from scratch. We wanted to see whether we […]

Reuters: Dutch eyewear chain Hans Anders halts sale of Meta glasses, citing privacy concerns. “One of the largest Dutch eyewear retail chains said on Friday it had suspended sales of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses in the Netherlands ​and Belgium amid growing privacy concerns, in one of the first such ‌moves by a retailer.”

Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): Across the Globe, People Increasingly Say Social Media Is Harming Democracy. “A new 37-nation Pew Research Center survey finds that in most countries where trend data is available, the share of the public who believes social media is bad for democracy has increased significantly from 2022 or 2023 to now.”

American Alliance of Museums: Inclusive Content in Uncertain Times: A 2026 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Story. “Last year, we asked whether all that political pressure on DEAI reflects a shift in public opinion. The short answer is still no. The majority of US adults, and the majority of museum-goers, support and want museums to share inclusive content. This has not changed. What has […]

DATE: October 4, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Psychologists identify “collective anti-mattering” as a key driver of modern political grievances

URL: https://www.psypost.org/psychologists-identify-collective-anti-mattering-as-a-key-driver-of-modern-political-grievances/

New research suggests that when people believe their social group is treated as unimportant by others, they tend to report more anger about their group’s treatment and more anxiety about its future. These feelings were in turn linked to involvement in collective action, support for strong leadership, and, among White Americans, support for punitive policies. The findings were published in European Journal of Social Psychology.

The research examines a psychological concept known as collective anti-mattering. This is the belief that one’s specific social group does not count, is ignored, or is viewed as disposable by other groups or by society at large. It expands on the idea of personal anti-mattering, which describes the painful experience of feeling personally unnoticed or unvalued by other people. Research into personal feelings of unimportance, such as a 2021 study of adolescents and young adults, indicated that feeling like one does not matter to others is a unique form of distress that predicts loneliness and depression.

“The idea grew out of research on mattering, the basic psychological need to feel that we are noticed, valued, and significant to other people,” Nassim Tabri, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Carleton University, told PsyPost. “More recent work has examined anti-mattering, which is the belief that other people actively regard you as unimportant or insignificant.”

“We examined whether people can experience something analogous at the group level: not simply ‘I don’t matter,’ but ‘people like us don’t matter,'” he explained. “Historically marginalized groups may feel that their concerns or suffering are ignored by more advantaged groups or institutions, whereas members of historically advantaged groups may sometimes feel that their group is increasingly being overlooked or displaced.”

Tabri and colleagues proposed that this same feeling can occur at the group level and influence political life. When groups feel that they are morally invisible, they may experience two distinct emotional responses: group-based anger and collective angst. Group-based anger is a reaction to perceived unfairness in the present moment. It is the feeling that one’s group is being illegitimately devalued, which often motivates people to confront the source of the injustice.

Collective angst, on the other hand, is an anxiety focused on the future. It occurs when people fear that their group’s vitality, culture, or very existence might be in jeopardy. Previous work on group dynamics, such as a 2021 set of experiments, indicated that White people reminded of demographic changes, particularly those who saw race relations as zero-sum, felt more anxiety about their group’s future, which was linked to less support for progressive social movements and more anti-immigrant sentiment.

By studying collective anti-mattering, the authors sought to understand how feeling disregarded acts as a starting point for both anger and angst. They theorized that this single feeling could push marginalized groups to demand recognition and push advantaged groups to defend their status.

To test these ideas, the researchers conducted three separate studies using data from online panels, meaning the samples were not nationally representative. In the first study, they recruited 368 Black American adults who completed questionnaires measuring their sense of collective anti-mattering, individual anti-mattering, perceived injustice toward their group, group-based anger toward White Americans, and collective angst. Finally, participants reported how often they take part in collective action on behalf of Black Americans, such as demonstrations, and how much they agreed that their group needs a strong leader who will do whatever it takes to get things done for it.

The researchers found that collective anti-mattering was distinct from personal anti-mattering and strongly predicted both group-based anger and collective angst. It was also strongly correlated with perceived injustice, but statistical analyses showed the two were separate concepts.

The two emotions, however, predicted different outcomes. Higher levels of collective angst were associated with more frequent involvement in collective action, while anger did not predict collective action. Both collective angst and group-based anger predicted greater support for a strong leader, though the items measured broad support rather than specific authoritarian actions. Across the three studies, the statistical models explained only 6% to 12% of the differences in collective action, compared to 13% to 55% for strong-leader support.

For the second study, the researchers surveyed 552 Black British citizens living in the United Kingdom to see if the patterns would hold true in a different national context. The participants completed similar measures, focusing on their perceptions of how Black British people are viewed by White British people. They also answered questions about whether they felt White British people tried to control their group’s identity, a concept known as collective autonomy restriction.

The results of the second study showed that collective anti-mattering on its own was essentially unrelated to collective action, but it was again linked to both group-based anger and collective angst. Just as with the American participants, collective angst was the emotion linked to collective action. Both anger and angst were associated with support for strong leadership. The study also showed that feeling collectively disregarded is a separate experience from feeling that one’s group is being explicitly controlled or treated as less than human.

The third study shifted focus to a historically advantaged majority group. The researchers surveyed 399 White American adults, balancing the sample between Democrats and Republicans. This time, the collective anti-mattering questions asked participants how much they felt White Americans were disregarded by other Americans or by society in general. Along with measuring anger, angst, collective action, and strong-leader support, the researchers asked participants about their political attitudes, including their support for government bans on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, as well as their support for persecuting undocumented immigrants, measured with statements ranging from praising the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to supporting the use of physical force and even executions.

Believing that White Americans no longer matter to society predicted higher levels of both group-based anger and collective angst, although average levels of collective anti-mattering were much lower among White Americans (about 2.1 on a 1-to-7 scale) than among Black Americans (about 4.0) or Black British participants (about 3.5). Collective angst was again linked to more involvement in collective action and stronger support for a strong leader. Unlike in the first two studies, anger was not linked to strong-leader support.

Group-based anger, however, was linked to different outcomes. Higher levels of anger were associated with stronger support for banning diversity initiatives and a greater willingness to support punitive measures against undocumented immigrants, while collective angst was not. These effects remained consistent even when the researchers adjusted their statistical models to account for whether the participant was a Democrat or a Republican. This differs from the 2021 experiments described earlier, in which anxiety about the group’s future, rather than anger, was linked to anti-immigrant sentiment.

“What struck me most was the consistency of the basic psychological pattern across groups who occupy very different structural positions in society,” Tabri said. “I was also struck by what we found when we expanded the range of political outcomes examined among White Americans. In this group, anger associated with perceived disregard was, in turn, associated with greater support for punitive and exclusionary political responses, including opposition to DEI initiatives and support for punitive treatment of undocumented immigrants. This suggests that the consequences of believing that one’s group does not matter may depend on the emotion involved and the broader social and political context.”

“I would characterize the findings as meaningful but not deterministic,” he added. “Collective anti-mattering showed moderate-to-large associations with the emotional processes we examined, particularly group-based anger and collective angst, but political attitudes and behavior obviously have many causes. The practical significance, in my view, comes less from any single effect size than from the consistency of the pattern across three samples and two countries. Perceiving that one’s group is disregarded appears to capture a psychologically meaningful form of group grievance.”

There are a few things to keep in mind when interpreting these findings. All three studies relied on cross-sectional survey data, meaning the researchers measured all variables at a single point in time. Because of this, it is not possible to establish a strict chain of cause and effect between feelings of disregard, specific emotions, and political behaviors.

“We found that collective anti-mattering was associated with particular emotions and political responses in theoretically meaningful ways, but we cannot conclude from these studies alone that making people feel that their group does not matter will cause those responses,” Tabri noted. “I would also caution against interpreting the findings as equating the experiences of advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Black Americans and Black British people may perceive disregard in the context of longstanding discrimination and structural inequality, whereas perceptions of disregard among White Americans can arise despite their group’s continued structural advantage.”

The researchers also emphasized how to view the study’s leadership questions. “Support for a ‘strong leader’ in our measures should not automatically be interpreted as support for authoritarianism,” Tabri said. “A strong leader can be understood as someone who protects or advances the group’s interests without necessarily rejecting democratic norms. This is one reason we distinguish strong-leader support from the more explicitly punitive and exclusionary outcomes we examined among White Americans.”

Additionally, the focus of the collective anti-mattering questions varied between the studies. In the first two studies, participants were asked about disregard from a specific majority group, while the third study asked about disregard from society more broadly. Future research could investigate whether feeling ignored by a specific group produces different political reactions than feeling ignored by social institutions as a whole.

Looking ahead, Tabri outlined plans to further investigate these dynamics. “An important next step is to establish whether collective anti-mattering actually has a causal influence on group-based emotions and behavior,” he said. “Experimental studies that manipulate perceptions of collective disregard, along with longitudinal studies that follow these processes over time, will help establish whether changes in collective anti-mattering precede changes in anger, anxiety about the group’s future, and political behavior.”

“One aspect of the concept that I think is especially important is the distinction between being treated unfairly and feeling that your group simply does not count,” Tabri said. “Injustice is about what is being done to a group; collective anti-mattering is about what people believe their group means to others—whether its concerns, welfare, and future are regarded as consequential. That distinction may help us understand some contemporary political grievances that are difficult to capture solely in terms of material interests or explicit discrimination. People and groups want not only fair outcomes but recognition that they matter.”

The study, “Collective Anti-Mattering: Belief That One’s Group Is Being Disregarded Fuels Collective Action and Authoritarian Leadership Support Among Both Advantaged and Disadvantaged Groups,” was authored by Nassim Tabri, Isabelle Boutros, and Michael J. A. Wohl.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/psychologists-identify-collective-anti-mattering-as-a-key-driver-of-modern-political-grievances/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #CollectiveAntiMattering #GroupAnger #CollectiveAngst #SocialPsychology #PoliticalGrievances #StrongLeadership #DemocracyAndLeadership #GroupIdentity #InclusionDebate #PublicOpinion

New York Times: Librarians on Libraries. “We spoke with dozens of librarians at the A.L.A. conference this summer in Chicago. They came from rural towns and major cities, elementary schools and universities, local branches and big government agencies. These librarians want you to know that they don’t sit around reading all day. They want you to know about book bans and budget cuts, but also […]

Ars Technica: Protests against OpenAI get increasingly creative. “Two artists from a Bay Area studio unveiled What Iceberg?, a table-sized installation placed at the public entrance to an OpenAI developer event in San Francisco on Tuesday. According to a description of the piece, the 5-foot-tall sculpture ‘shows OpenAI’s leaders and investors escaping a sinking ship with unimaginable wealth, […]

DATE: October 3, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Americans often fail to notice when Democrats and Republicans are moving in the same direction

URL: https://www.psypost.org/americans-often-fail-to-notice-when-democrats-and-republicans-are-moving-in-the-same-direction/

Informing people about how the political attitudes of opposing parties are moving in the same direction over time might help reduce partisan hostility. New research published in Political Psychology suggests that people frequently fail to notice how much support for certain social issues has grown within both parties. When people read about these shared trajectories of opinion change without being reminded of the current gap between parties, they tend to expect more future common ground and report slightly warmer feelings toward their political opponents.

To understand how political divides operate, psychologists often look at descriptive social norms, which are individuals’ perceptions of what other people believe or do. In politics, perceptions of these norms are frequently distorted. For instance, a study covered by PsyPost in 2021 indicated that both Democrats and Republicans overestimate how much the opposing party dislikes them. When people assume their political opponents hold extreme or hostile views, it often drives further polarization.

Researchers often try to correct these false assumptions by presenting static norms, which describe the current level of support for a specific issue within a group. However, static norms only capture a single moment in time. Dynamic norms, on the other hand, describe how a group’s beliefs or behaviors are changing over time. A 2017 study found that showing people a trend is growing in popularity can persuade them to adopt new behaviors, even if current support is relatively low.

Applying this idea to politics requires overcoming another layer of misperception. A 2022 study indicated that Americans often misjudge how public opinion has shifted over decades, usually overestimating how much attitudes have changed, especially in a liberal direction. The authors of the new study set out to test whether correcting misperceptions about these trends could soften partisan hostility. How such a message is framed may matter: a 2021 paper argued that describing partisan divisions can make division seem like the norm and inadvertently deepen polarization.

The research was led by Trystan Loustau, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Boston College. “A lot of research shows that Democrats and Republicans have distorted perceptions of one another, and that these misperceptions can make political divisions seem larger than they really are,” Loustau told PsyPost. “But most of that work focuses on a snapshot of the present: what Democrats or Republicans believe right now. We were interested in whether people also misperceive change: even when members of both parties are moving in the same direction on an issue, do people recognize that convergence?”

“That seemed especially important because the direction people think society is moving may shape how they imagine its future,” Loustau explained. “If you believe the two parties are becoming increasingly divided, you might respond very differently to political opponents than if you believe there are areas where they are gradually finding more common ground.”

In the first study, 368 Democrats and Republicans estimated current support and changes in support for 12 social issues on which support had actually risen in both parties. The researchers found that participants systematically underestimated attitude change. Only about half of the estimates accurately recognized that support for these issues was increasing. They also underestimated current levels of support by about 12 points for Democrats and 20 points for Republicans.

Misperceptions were especially pronounced when evaluating Republicans. Only about 25 percent of Democrats’ estimates and 44 percent of Republicans’ estimates regarding Republican attitude changes were accurate, compared to 77 percent and 66 percent accuracy for Democratic attitude changes. This finding is in tension with the 2022 study: here, participants often missed real increases in support for progressive positions, especially among Republicans. The authors suggest people may expect Democrats, but not Republicans, to move left.

In addition, the researchers found a correlation between recognizing these trends and intergroup attitudes. For every additional 10 percent of estimates that correctly identified change in the opposing party, participants felt about 3 points warmer toward that party on a 0-to-100 scale. This association held after accounting for accuracy about current support, which itself was unrelated to warmth.

“Political disagreement is real, but our perceptions of it are not always accurate,” Loustau pointed out. “We may be particularly bad at noticing when attitudes are changing.”

To see if correcting these misperceptions could help, the researchers randomly assigned 1,187 partisans to a dynamic norm condition, a static norm condition, or a control condition featuring apolitical topics. The dynamic norm message provided both the past and current levels of partisan support alongside the percentage-point increases over time. The static norm message only provided current support levels.

The results indicated that the dynamic norm group expected more future common ground between parties than the control group. Combining the current support levels with the trend data did not produce broader positive changes in attitudes toward the outparty, meaning the opposing party, such as warmth or expectations of belonging. The authors suggest that presenting the current levels of support alongside the trend may have inadvertently reminded participants of the existing gaps between the parties.

For the third study, the team refined the intervention using a new sample of 1,154 participants. This time, the dynamic norm condition isolated the trend information by completely removing references to current levels of partisan support. The message focused solely on how support had grown within each party over time. Participants were randomly assigned to read the refined message, the original combined message from the second study, the static message, or the control material.

The refined message increased expected common ground and expected future feelings of belonging with the outparty. People who read it reported outparty warmth of about 32.5 on a 100-point scale, compared to 25.9 in the control group, and also rated members of the other party more positively. The researchers noted that a recent review of 77 depolarization interventions found an average gain of about 5.4 points in outparty warmth, making the refined message’s 6.6-point difference comparable to that average.

The refined message was the only one to outperform the control condition on all four of these measures. On warmth and positive evaluations, however, it did not statistically outperform the original combined message or the static message, and the static message also raised warmth relative to control. No version of the message changed how much people saw the other party as overlapping with themselves.

“What surprised me most was how much the way we presented the same information mattered,” Loustau said. “It was a useful reminder that more information is not necessarily better: emphasizing how far apart the parties remain may overshadow evidence that they are moving in the same direction.”

He added, “The broader takeaway is that focusing exclusively on today’s partisan divisions can obscure meaningful ways in which public opinion is changing.”

The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2024, which found that showing partisans how much their core personal values overlap increased perceived similarity, strengthened beliefs that compromise is possible, and made people more hopeful. That study focused on present-day overlap in values, whereas the new study focused on how opinions on specific issues have shifted over time.

As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The sample was an online group of participants rather than a nationally representative one, and outcomes were measured right after reading the messages, with no follow-up.

The study also relied on real statistics for issues that were primarily progressive in nature, so it is not known whether these effects would hold for conservative policies or in different political contexts. Using real polling data also meant the researchers could not test larger shifts in opinion, and many of the real changes they presented were modest.

“The effects on attitudes toward the opposing party were small, and I think it is important to be clear about that,” Loustau noted. “A brief informational message is not going to eliminate partisan polarization. At the same time, polarization is a large, persistent social problem, so even small changes produced by a relatively minimal intervention can be informative, particularly because the intervention consisted simply of changing which accurate information about public opinion people saw.”

“I would view the findings less as evidence for a single solution to polarization and more as evidence that people’s expectations about where political groups are headed can influence how they think about those groups in the present,” he observed.

It is also possible that emphasizing negative trajectories could have the opposite effect. Messages highlighting increasing disagreement or polarization might inadvertently increase hostility. Future research could explore whether this kind of dynamic messaging works for other intergroup conflicts, such as those involving race or religion, and whether the observed changes in attitude persist over longer periods of time.

“Long term, I’m interested in what happens when we encourage people to think about political differences in a more future-oriented way,” Loustau said. “Rather than focusing only on how different we are right now, I want to understand what changes when people recognize both their own and others’ capacity to change. That shared capacity may itself be a form of common ground, opening space to imagine not just what society currently looks like, but what we want our relationships and world to look like in the future.”

The study, “Partisans misperceive and are influenced by dynamic norms,” was authored by Trystan Loustau, Ashley Fabrizio, Liane Young, Jordan Wylie, and Stylianos Syropoulos.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/americans-often-fail-to-notice-when-democrats-and-republicans-are-moving-in-the-same-direction/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DynamicNorms #PoliticalPolarization #CrossPartisanHope #SharedTrajectory #PublicOpinion #PoliticalPsychology #BelongingRatherThanDivision #Misperceptions #InterpartyWarmth #CivicsCommunication

💣As a musician, you live and die by popularity. Up-and-coming artists, do you believe this? #Music #artist #PublicOpinion #Thoughts #Reaction

https://youtu.be/aimBUXcL8uc?is=a9swSY_IJqlSmTbQ

DATE: October 1, 2026 at 04:30PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Americans’ support for political violence fell in 2026, but MAGA supporters remain the most likely to justify it

URL: https://www.psypost.org/support-for-political-violence-drops-across-the-board-though-maga-supporters-remain-the-most-likely-to-justify-it/

A recent nationally representative survey suggests that American public support for political violence decreased heading into the 2026 midterm elections, contrary to popular fears. The findings indicate that while partisan tensions remain high, about three-quarters of U.S. adults say political violence is never justified in general, and very few say they would be willing to commit it. The research was published as a preprint on SocArXiv, meaning it has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Political violence involves the use of physical force to advance a political agenda. This can range from damaging property to threatening, injuring, or killing individuals for ideological reasons. Aside from the immediate physical harm, political violence has long-term effects on public mental health and social stability. As the 2026 midterm elections approached, many political observers and citizens alike expressed concern that a highly polarized environment might lead to a spike in violent behavior.

These fears are sometimes amplified by public opinion polls, but survey design can play a large role in how these attitudes are measured. A 2022 study suggested that poorly designed polling questions often inflate apparent support for partisan violence, pointing out that Americans’ actual willingness to commit physical harm is much narrower than some surveys imply.

To accurately track these attitudes over time, a research team led by Garen J. Wintemute, a distinguished professor of emergency medicine, the Baker-Teret Chair in Violence Prevention, and director of the Centers for Violence Prevention at the University of California, Davis, launched an annual, nationally representative survey project in 2022.

“Political violence poses a serious threat to the United States,” Wintemute told PsyPost. “We are seeking to understand factors associated with justification for and willingness to commit political violence.”

As part of this ongoing monitoring effort, a study covered by PsyPost in 2025 found that individuals who identify as “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) Republicans were more likely to view political violence as justified compared to other Americans, though they were not necessarily more willing to personally carry out such acts. With the 2026 midterms looming and several recent high-profile incidents of government-initiated violence in the news, chiefly in connection with mass deportation efforts, the researchers anticipated that public appetite for political violence might increase.

This expectation was bolstered by the fact that their 2025 survey had found an increase in justification for violence compared to 2024. They conducted the mid-2026 wave of their survey to test whether this sentiment continued to rise.

The researchers analyzed data from the fifth wave of their annual survey, which was administered online between May 15 and June 15, 2026. The sample included 7,752 adult participants drawn from the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, a probability-based panel designed to reflect the demographic makeup of the noninstitutionalized U.S. population.

The survey measured three main concepts: respondents’ beliefs about the potential for future civil war, their justification for using political violence, and their personal willingness to engage in it. For these questions, the survey explicitly defined violence as physical force strong enough that it could cause pain or injury to a person.

Respondents first indicated whether they felt violence was ever justified in general or to achieve any of 21 specific political goals. These goals included preserving a certain American way of life, stopping police violence, preventing voter fraud, or stopping illegal immigration. A new question in the 2026 survey asked those who said violence was “never justified” in general and for all 21 objectives to clarify their stance, checking to see if their rejection of violence was unconditional.

The subset of respondents who said violence was at least sometimes justified for at least one objective (about three-quarters of the sample) were then asked how willing they would be to personally damage property, threaten people, injure someone, or kill someone to advance a political objective. They were also asked about their willingness to target specific populations, such as elected officials, police officers, election workers, or members of an opposing political party. Finally, all participants were asked how likely they were to use a firearm in a situation where they felt political violence was justified.

The results point to a broad decline in support for political violence. Out of 53 survey items measuring anticipation of, justification for, and willingness to commit political violence, 51 showed small average decreases between mid-2025 and mid-2026, and 35 of these decreases were statistically significant.

“The general perception is that political violence is common and increasing,” Wintemute noted. “Neither of those things is true. And in our survey respondents, support for political violence fell from 2025 to 2026, across the political spectrum.”

In 2026, the share who said violence was usually or always justified for any single objective never exceeded 13 percent. But 35.8 percent said it was justified for at least one of the 21 objectives, down significantly from 38.7 percent in 2025. Additionally, among the nearly one-quarter of respondents who said violence was never justified for any of the listed objectives, over 91 percent clarified that their rejection was absolute and unconditional.

When it came to personal willingness to carry out violence, the numbers were even lower. Among the respondents who felt political violence was at least sometimes justified, only about 2 percent said they were “very or completely willing” to damage property, threaten, injure, or kill another person. Willingness to act in a group or as a lone actor also declined from the previous year.

When asked about firearms, 6.7 percent said it was very or extremely likely they would be armed in a situation where they felt political violence was justified, down from 9.1 percent. Only 1.5 percent said it was very or extremely likely they would shoot someone, and 1.1 percent said it was very or extremely likely they would threaten someone with a gun. All four firearm measures declined significantly from the previous year.

Only two measures rose: expectation of a civil war, which increased significantly (from 7.1 to 8.0 percent strongly agreeing), and the belief that one was needed to “set things right,” which edged up from 3.3 to 3.9 percent, a change that was not statistically significant.

The researchers also examined differences among political groups. MAGA Republicans and MAGA supporters who do not identify as Republicans tended to report higher levels of justification for political violence compared to Democrats and non-MAGA Republicans. For instance, 50.5 percent of MAGA Republicans and 52.5 percent of non-Republican MAGA supporters considered violence usually or always justified to advance at least one objective, compared with 35.8 percent overall. However, strong Democrats were the most supportive of violence “to remove Donald Trump from the presidency this year.”

Among respondents who considered violence justified, non-Republican MAGA supporters were more willing than others to commit violence against 12 of 14 target populations, ranking second behind strong Democrats for members of private armed militias and federal immigration agents. Declines in support occurred across the political spectrum overall, though changes within individual groups were mostly small. MAGA Republicans moved slightly in the other direction on several items about the potential need for violence and civil war.

“We found, as others have, that support for political violence is generally stronger on the political right than on the political left,” Wintemute explained. Noting that most respondents reject political violence in general, he added, “Willingness to commit political violence is another matter; it is rare across the board. The vast majority of respondents in our surveys reject political violence altogether, and most of those who consider it acceptable are not willing to become involved in it themselves.”

This dynamic mirrors the team’s earlier findings. In a separate study recently published in PLOS One, the researchers analyzed baseline data collected from the same survey project in 2022. They found that Republicans and conservatives were much more likely than Democrats and liberals to view political violence as justified for specific objectives.

James Druckman, a professor of political science at the University of Rochester who was not involved in the research, noted that this differs from much earlier work. “This contrasts with prior work that typically does not find differences across parties,” he told PsyPost. “The focus on various objectives also is novel.”

The 2022 data also revealed that this partisan gap disappeared when respondents were asked about their own violent intentions. Just as in the mid-2026 survey, fewer than 3 percent of people in 2022 were willing to threaten, injure, or kill someone for political purposes, with no meaningful differences between party affiliations. While strong Republicans in 2022 were more likely to anticipate being armed during a hypothetical political conflict, the actual willingness to use a weapon against another person remained exceptionally low across the board.

“They differentiate justification from willingness which is important, and show that very few people are willing to actually engage in violence,” Druckman noted. He added that the design of the 2022 study bolstered his confidence in the results: “I appreciate the high quality sample and inclusion of items on non-political violence prior to the political violence items.”

That survey asked about violence in nonpolitical situations, such as self-defense, before turning to political violence. “I also appreciate looking at self-defensive violence, showing it is more justifiable,” Druckman said.

These findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2024, which found a similar nationwide decrease in support for political violence and belief in an imminent civil war between 2022 and 2023. Together, the data suggest declining support for political violence, even during periods of intense political stress.

In a statement accompanying the research, the study authors emphasized the power of public norms. “These findings are clear,” they wrote. “Entrapment in a spiral of escalating political violence is not inevitable in the United States. Those who promote political violence should recognize that they do not have the public’s support and that promoting violence may exact a political cost.”

“We who reject political violence must make our rejection known to our families, friends, and larger social networks,” the researchers added. “A public climate of non-acceptance for violence can help reduce the likelihood of it occurring.”

As for the 2022 data, Druckman cautioned that public opinion is deeply tied to the specific moment it is measured. “It is important to contextualize this to 2022 and that Democrats held power and it was during the pandemic still and major economic downturns and a gun-buying spike,” he explained. “One has to think carefully about generalizing (as would be the case at any point in time). The objectives also leaned more in the directions of items Republicans may have stronger beliefs about.”

This raises “an interesting question,” Druckman added: “If this is all a function of the timing in context or psychological predispositions or some mix?”

There are also a few things to keep in mind when interpreting the mid-2026 findings. First, survey responses about hypothetical willingness to commit violence do not perfectly predict how people will behave in real life. Some respondents might overstate their willingness to fight for a cause, while others might underreport their aggressive intentions because they know violence is socially unacceptable.

Also, the survey only asked about willingness to commit violence to the subset of people who first agreed that violence could be justified. Because different political groups passed this initial filter at different rates, the follow-up comparisons about personal willingness are based on varied sample proportions.

Finally, the survey was fielded over a single month in mid-2026, a period that included a mass shooting at a San Diego mosque, the president’s proposal to compensate supporters who had committed political violence, and ongoing international conflicts. The authors also note that small overall changes in the data could potentially mask larger individual shifts that cancel each other out.

Moving forward, the research team hopes to translate these findings into proactive solutions. “Next year we hope to launch a randomized trial of an intervention to prevent political violence,” Wintemute said.

The study, “Decreased Support for Political Violence in the United States in Mid-2026: Findings from a Nationally Representative Survey,” was authored by Garen J. Wintemute, Sonia L. Robinson, Daniel J. Tancredi, Krista Neumann, Shaina Sta. Cruz, Aaron B. Shev, Elizabeth A. Tomsich, Bradley Velasquez, Mona A. Wright, and Veronica A. Pear.

(Note: The article has been updated with quotes from James Druckman)

URL: https://www.psypost.org/support-for-political-violence-drops-across-the-board-though-maga-supporters-remain-the-most-likely-to-justify-it/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PoliticalViolence #Midterms2026 #PublicOpinion #MAGA #PoliticalViolenceWhenJustified #ViolencePrevention #SurveyResearch #IpsosKnowledgePanel #PublicNorms #CivilDiscourse

Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): How Pew Research Center is – and is not – using AI in our work. “As public-facing social scientists committed to innovation, we’re exploring what AI might add to our toolkit. As public opinion researchers, we’re studying and explaining how people are reacting to the advance of AI technologies. And as information providers whose fundamental values include […]

DATE: September 29, 2026 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: As America shifted left under Trump, emotional hostility widened the partisan gap

URL: https://www.psypost.org/as-america-shifted-left-under-trump-emotional-hostility-widened-the-partisan-gap/

Over the course of Donald Trump’s first presidential term, American public opinion generally shifted in a more liberal direction, driven primarily by left-leaning and independent voters changing their minds on specific issues. At the same time, emotional animosity between the two major political parties intensified, a shift that appears connected to the widening gap in policy preferences. These findings were recently published in American Politics Research.

Political scientists often track changes in public opinion using a concept known as the public mood. This mood tends to operate like a thermostat. When a conservative administration is in power, the public typically reacts by moving to the left, and when a liberal administration takes over, the public usually shifts to the right.

Beneath these broad swings, there is also a phenomenon called partisan divergence. This refers to the growing gap between Democrats and Republicans on specific policy issues, such as health care, taxation, and immigration. Over the past few decades, the two parties have moved further apart on these topics.

This policy divide has been accompanied by a rise in affective partisanship, which is the emotional dislike or hostility that voters feel toward the opposing party. Theoretical models help explain how these factors interact. For instance, a 2024 study covered by PsyPost demonstrated that a stronger connection between political disagreement and personal dislike tends to drive people into two opposing ideological camps.

Understanding how public opinion shifts requires looking at individual voters. The authors of the new study note that a study covered by PsyPost in 2023 found that party identification remained remarkably stable between 2011 and 2020. This indicates that when the public mood changes, it is often because people who already identify with a party are changing their minds on issues, rather than simply switching their party allegiance.

The research was conducted by Alan Yang, a senior lecturer at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and Robert Y. Shapiro, a professor in Columbia’s Department of Political Science and School of International and Public Affairs. “We were interested in whether the election of an ‘untraditional’ Republican president in 2016 may have upended or accelerated past patterns of opinion change, partisan divergence, and ‘affective partisanship,'” the researchers told PsyPost.

Because Donald Trump’s platform did not always align with traditional conservatism, it was an open question whether the expected liberal reaction would occur. The authors wanted to see if partisan gaps continued to widen, and whether the emotional animosity of the era played a role in how individuals changed their minds on policy issues.

To explore these questions, the researchers analyzed data from the 2016-2020 American National Election Study (ANES) and the 2016-2020 General Social Survey (GSS). Both datasets are uniquely useful because they use panel designs, meaning they surveyed the exact same individuals at multiple points in time. This setup allows researchers to track whether an individual actually changed their answer from one election year to the next.

The team examined 32 specific policy questions from the ANES and 40 questions from the GSS. These questions covered a wide range of topics, including government spending, racial equality, immigration, foreign affairs, and social issues like abortion and gay rights. The researchers tracked how responses changed between 2016 and 2020 across the entire sample and within specific political groups.

To measure affective partisanship, the surveys used a feeling thermometer scale. Respondents were asked to rate their feelings toward Democrats and Republicans on a scale from 0 to 100 degrees, with higher numbers indicating warmer, more positive feelings.

The analysis indicates a noticeable overall shift in a liberal direction between 2016 and 2020 across many policy areas. For example, support for keeping or increasing welfare spending, providing more government services, and expanding immigration levels grew substantially. “We found an (expected) liberal rebound in aggregate opinion after the election of a Republican president, which was an open question given that Donald Trump was not a mainstream conservative Republican,” the researchers noted.

However, this overall shift masked a growing divide between the political parties. The partisan divergence continued to expand, and it did so asymmetrically. The liberal shift in the broader public mood was driven almost entirely by Democrats and Independents adopting more progressive positions on issues like government spending and racial equality.

In contrast, Republican opinions generally remained stable on these issues, or moved slightly to the right on specific topics like scientific research and alternative energy. The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2026, which found that widening issue divisions were largely driven by the left shifting in a more progressive direction. It is worth noting a slight measurement difference, as the previous study clustered respondents purely by their policy beliefs, whereas the new study measured divergence between self-identified partisans.

The emotional temperature of the country also shifted notably. Overall affective partisanship increased, but the most dramatic changes occurred among Republicans. Between 2016 and 2020, Democratic panelists maintained a steady level of warmth toward their own party and cooled by roughly four degrees toward Republicans.

Republican panelists, on the other hand, grew over 10 degrees warmer toward their fellow Republicans and cooled by about eight degrees toward Democrats. The gap between how much Republicans liked their own party versus the opposing party grew by nearly 19 degrees, which was a much larger jump than the three-degree increase observed among Democrats.

When the researchers looked at individual changes, they found that these short-term increases in emotional polarization predicted changes in actual policy preferences. For both Democrats and Republicans, individuals whose partisan animosity intensified were more likely to change their minds on specific high-profile issues. At the individual level, the researchers found that an “increased affective partisanship level was associated with Republican partisans moving rightward and Democratic partisans moving leftward across a number of highly salient policy preferences during the period of the first Trump presidency.”

For example, voters who developed stronger negative feelings toward the opposing party were more likely to adopt their own party’s typical stance on issues like immigration, the environment, and racial justice.

As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study looks at a relatively short four-year window that was dominated by a highly unusual political environment and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is hard to know whether the specific dynamics of the Trump presidency will continue into future election cycles.

The relationship between emotional animosity and policy opinions is also highly complex. The data shows an association between the two, but untangling which one causes the other is a challenge. People might develop stronger negative feelings toward the opposing party because they disagree on policy, or they might change their policy views because they want to distance themselves from a party they dislike. Both processes likely happen at the same time.

To see if these dynamics persisted after Trump left office, the authors plan to expand their timeline. “We see as a next step for us and others to extend this analysis to 2020 to 2024 using the available panel data for this period,” Yang and Shapiro said.

The study, “Individuals and Public Opinion Change: The Liberal Rebound, Continued Partisan Divergence and Affective Partisanship 2016–2020,” was authored by Alan Yang and Robert Y. Shapiro.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/as-america-shifted-left-under-trump-emotional-hostility-widened-the-partisan-gap/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PublicOpinion #PoliticalPolarization #AffectivePartisanship #PartisanDivergence #LiberalRebound #TrumpEra #PublicMood #PolicyChange #ANES #GSS

Futurism: Wealthy Tech Guys Can’t Get Dates Because They’re So Widely Hated That Not Even Money Is Making Women Grimace and Deal With Them. “Dating is tough when you’re a tech bro with more money than you know what to do with. That, at any rate, is according to the said loaded tech workers who spilled their guts to Wired. One 23-year-old complained that his attempts at getting laid would […]

Financial Times: Maga base recoils as Donald Trump goes all-in on AI. “On January 6 2021, Amy Kremer stood near the White House, urging Maga supporters to ‘Stop the Steal’ of the election from Donald Trump. Now she is again rallying the president’s fans — this time to join a revolt against his pro-AI agenda. ‘I’m not a sheep, I don’t just blindly follow,’ Kremer, a former Tea Party […]

DATE: September 27, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Study reveals which values actually stop voters from supporting antidemocratic politicians

URL: https://www.psypost.org/study-reveals-which-values-actually-stop-voters-from-supporting-antidemocratic-politicians/

New research suggests that an individual’s personal commitment to the institutions of liberal democracy can act as a buffer against voting for politicians who threaten democratic rules. The findings indicate that while political party loyalty heavily influences voter choices, a deep-seated support for democratic principles helps people resist candidates who might otherwise erode democratic norms. The study was published in Public Opinion Quarterly.

Democratic backsliding is an ongoing concern in many modern nations. This process occurs when elected officials gradually dismantle democratic institutions, such as free elections, independent courts, and a free press. A major factor driving this decline is the willingness of ordinary citizens to vote for candidates who violate democratic rules.

Past studies show that voters generally dislike antidemocratic behavior in theory. Yet they often end up supporting politicians who break democratic rules if those politicians belong to their preferred political party or share their policy views. This creates a tension between a voter’s abstract democratic values and their practical political loyalties.

The research was led by Christopher Claassen, a professor of political behavior at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow. The study aimed to understand whether specific aspects of a country’s political culture might help prevent this trend.

“A growing body of research shows that voters frequently support politicians who threaten democratic institutions, particularly when those politicians belong to their preferred party or agree with them on important issues,” Claassen told PsyPost. “But we know much less about whether people’s underlying attitudes toward democracy help them resist those pressures.”

“I wanted to connect that recent work on democratic backsliding with the much older political-culture literature, which argues that citizens’ orientations toward democracy can help sustain democratic government,” he explained.

To test this, the researcher analyzed data from 5,951 participants across three democracies currently facing backsliding pressures. The sample included 1,983 people in the United States, 1,967 in Poland, and 2,001 in South Korea. The participants took part in a candidate-choice experiment, which is a type of survey design that simulates an election. Participants were shown pairs of hypothetical political candidates and asked to choose who they would vote for, completing twelve different matchups in total.

The candidates varied randomly in age, gender, occupational background, political party, and policy positions on taxes and gender equality. The central feature of the experiment was that each matchup pitted one prodemocratic candidate against one antidemocratic candidate. The antidemocratic candidates proposed actions like cutting polling stations in opposition areas, ignoring court rulings, or prosecuting journalists. The prodemocratic candidates took the opposite stances, promising to respect these institutions.

Before the simulated elections, the survey measured six dimensions of political culture for each participant. These included preferences for democracy over autocracy, support for liberal democratic institutions, and trust in political institutions. The survey also measured political tolerance, which is the willingness to allow political opponents to have civil rights. Finally, the survey assessed emancipative values, which prioritize individual autonomy and equality, alongside authoritarian values, which prioritize obedience and conformity.

Across the three countries, support for liberal democracy was the most consistent predictor of a willingness to vote for the prodemocratic candidate. This specific measure captures a person’s backing of core institutions like free speech, equal voting rights, and the rule of law. People who scored high on this measure were consistently less likely to reward candidates who threatened these democratic pillars.

“One broader implication is that democratic culture is not a single thing its multidimensional,” Claassen noted. “I examined several kinds of orientations that political scientists have linked to democracy, and they behaved quite differently.”

“Support for liberal-democratic institutions was the most consistent predictor of pro-democratic choice, which suggests that the particular democratic commitments citizens hold may matter more than simply possessing a generally ‘democratic’ political culture,” he added.

The author looked closely at difficult scenarios known as cross-pressured choices. These are situations where a voter must choose between a prodemocratic candidate from an opposing party and an antidemocratic candidate from their own party. Even in these demanding situations, support for liberal democracy made a noticeable difference. It helped voters resist the temptation to blindly support their own political side.

Specifically, a one-standard-deviation increase in a person’s support for liberal democracy was associated with a 2 to 12 percentage point increase in the probability of choosing the prodemocratic candidate across party lines. This shift depended on the specific country and the statistical model used. While this increase might seem modest, it represents a meaningful shift in competitive elections.

“The effects are meaningful but not enormous,” the researcher said. “That can matter in a close election, but the results also show how powerful partisan loyalties remain.”

Other aspects of political culture showed mixed or weak associations. For instance, having a general preference for democracy over autocracy and holding emancipative values sometimes predicted prodemocratic choices. However, these factors did not predict voting choices consistently across all countries and policy scenarios. Interestingly, trust in political institutions showed almost no relationship with resisting antidemocratic candidates.

“Two findings surprised me,” Claassen explained. “First, political trust had virtually no consistent relationship with choosing the pro-democratic candidate, despite a long tradition of treating trust in institutions as important for democracy. Trust may matter for democracy in other ways, but our results suggest that it does not necessarily make people more willing to defend democratic institutions at the ballot box.”

Claassen was also struck by the weak results for authoritarian values. “There is an obvious theoretical connection between authoritarian values and authoritarian political systems they even share the same name but those values were not strong predictors of candidate choice in my study,” he noted. “It may be that these underlying social values are simply too distant from concrete decisions about electoral choices.”

The statistical models controlled for various factors to isolate the role of political culture. These controls included age, gender, education, income, and geographic region. The models also accounted for political interest, preferred party, and the participants’ actual positions on redistribution and gender equality.

As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The voting choices were made in a simulated survey environment rather than a real election. In actual elections, voters face intense campaign messaging and social pressures that might alter how they weigh democratic violations against party loyalty. The hypothetical nature of the survey means we cannot be certain these exact percentage shifts would appear at a real ballot box.

The findings are also observational regarding political culture. Because a person’s values and beliefs cannot be randomly assigned in an experiment, the results show an association rather than a direct cause-and-effect relationship. We can see that strong democratic beliefs predict certain voting patterns, but we cannot isolate those beliefs from other lifelong personal traits that might influence a voter’s decisions.

“The candidate attributes were experimentally randomized, but respondents’ democratic orientations were measured rather than manipulated,” Claassen noted, reinforcing that the relationship should be understood as an association rather than a causal effect.

Finally, the pull of partisanship remains incredibly strong. In the Polish and South Korean samples, the predicted support for prodemocratic candidates from an opposing party often remained below 50 percent, even among citizens with high democratic commitments. This suggests that while strong democratic values help people resist backsliding, they do not always create a majority willing to cross party lines to punish bad actors.

“I would avoid interpreting the findings as showing that strong democratic attitudes will necessarily defeat anti-democratic politicians,” Claassen cautioned.

“The main takeaway is that what ordinary citizens think about democracy does matter,” the researcher summarized. “People who more strongly support liberal-democratic institutions were more likely to choose the pro-democratic candidate, including in situations where their partisan identity or ideological position pulled them in the opposite direction.”

“So democratic resilience is not something entirely outside citizens’ hands,” he added. “At the same time, public support is only one part of the story: what political leaders, parties, and institutions do matters enormously for whether democracy survives.”

Looking ahead, the researcher plans to refine how these attitudes are studied. “One next step is to develop more fine-grained measures of democratic orientations,” Claassen noted. “Most research focuses either on support for democratic institutions or democracy itself, and I think there is room to measure underlying democratic values more carefully and systematically.”

“I’m also interested in why people sometimes bring their democratic attitudes to bear on a voting decision and sometimes do not,” he said. “In particular, I’m looking at factors such as attitude importance and accessibility: whether democracy is something people care deeply about and whether those considerations are readily available in their minds when they actually make a political choice.”

The study, “Voting for Democracy? Testing Political-Cultural Constraints on Democratic Backsliding,” was authored by Christopher Claassen.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/study-reveals-which-values-actually-stop-voters-from-supporting-antidemocratic-politicians/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DemocraticBacksliding #LiberalDemocracy #DemocracySupport #VotingBehavior #DemocraticInstitutions #PoliticalCulture #PublicOpinion #DemocraticResilience #ElectionReality #ProDemocracy

Search Engine Journal: Research Shows Google AI Mode Sends Less Clicks & Is A Poor User Experience. “New research published in August confirms that Google’s AI Search reduces clicks to publisher websites and presents a user experience that is so bad it makes them seek out alternative search engines like Duck, Duck, Go, Bing, and Yahoo. The findings directly contradict Google’s assertions […]

DATE: September 24, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Personal hardship and online isolation predict support for white nationalism

URL: https://www.psypost.org/personal-hardship-and-online-isolation-predict-support-for-white-nationalism/

About 5 percent of white American adults express support for the core ideas of the white nationalist movement, with rates rising to over 13 percent among young white men. The research indicates that personal hardships and isolated online social lives predict this support, rather than changing local racial demographics. The findings were published in Nature.

White nationalism is an ideology based on the belief that white people are under threat in the United States and that the white race must ensure its survival. According to this worldview, white people should hold more political and economic power than other groups, maintain a demographic majority, and treat white culture as superior to all other cultures. The movement operates through informal online networks, paramilitary groups, and public rallies. Until recently, public opinion researchers had not directly measured how many Americans explicitly endorse these exact principles.

Previous research has shown that white Americans hold distinct in-group racial identities, which sets the stage for understanding their political behavior. For instance, a 2019 study showed that many white Americans possess a strong sense of white racial solidarity. Other studies have explored what might cause these group-based attitudes to turn hostile.

A 2014 study indicated that learning about the country’s growing non-white population tends to make white Americans feel threatened and adopt more conservative views. Additionally, a study covered by PsyPost in 2020 found that people holding extreme white identitarian attitudes tend to score lower in personality traits related to politeness and openness to new experiences.

“We observed white nationalist ideas becoming more visible in American public life—in marches and rallies, on the internet and social media, and even in election campaigns,” Patrick J. Egan, a professor of politics and public policy and director of the Berkley Institute for Civil Discourse & Civic Solutions at New York University, told PsyPost.

“That led us to wonder the extent to which white nationalism appeals to the broader public, and who is most likely to support it,” Egan explained. “It turned out no academic study had directly measured support for the white nationalist movement before, and so we decided to investigate these questions ourselves.”

Egan and his colleagues suspected that explicit support for white nationalism might actually be driven by personal economic hardship or online radicalization, rather than local demographic changes. They also wanted to measure support directly by providing respondents with an accurate definition of the movement, reducing the chance that people would misunderstand the label.

To explore this, the researchers conducted three national surveys of non-Hispanic white adults in the United States. In the first study, conducted in 2021, the team surveyed 3,227 people using an online panel matched to national demographics. To test whether people truly understood what white nationalism meant, the researchers ran an experiment. Half of the participants were asked if they supported the movement, while the other half were given a short, factual description of its core beliefs about white power and cultural superiority before being asked the same question.

Providing the definition increased expressed support from 3.8 percent to 7.6 percent. When people were informed about the movement’s actual goals, their answers aligned more closely with their other racial attitudes, such as their sense of white identity and their opposition to minority groups holding power. This suggests that some white Americans agree with the movement’s ideas but are unfamiliar with the term white nationalism until it is explained to them.

Using the fully informed responses, the researchers then looked for demographic predictors. They found that support for white nationalism was 15 percentage points higher among people without a high school diploma compared to those with postgraduate degrees. It was also higher among conservatives, Republicans, frequent church attenders, people who believe in political conspiracies, and those who feel disconnected from politics entirely.

The researchers then tested the competing theories about what drives these beliefs. They found evidence supporting the idea that social and economic strain plays a role. People who had experienced three or more personal hardships in the past year, such as job loss or divorce, were 4 percentage points more likely to support white nationalism than those who experienced none. Living in a county with high levels of social distress, measured by poverty and unemployment rates, also predicted higher support.

However, the researchers found no evidence that changing local demographics drive white nationalist support. Living in a county with a large non-white population or a rapidly shrinking white population was not associated with endorsing the movement. The researchers note that these findings challenge the common assumption that everyday exposure to racial diversity fuels white nationalist grievance.

“One finding that is somewhat unexpected is that white people living in areas that are becoming more racially diverse were not more likely to support white nationalism,” Egan said. “This is in contrast to what we would expect from status-threat theories, which hold that demographic change can spark backlash and resentment.”

“Of course, we don’t have causal evidence in either direction here: our null findings regarding status threat may in part stem from suppressor bias introduced by whites’ residential sorting into preferred ethnoracial environments,” he added. In other words, if white Americans who dislike diversity simply move to neighborhoods that match their preferred racial makeup, it could mask the true relationship between demographic changes and nationalist views.

The study also explored the role of the internet. General social media use did not predict support for white nationalism. Instead, the nature of a person’s social ties mattered. Support was 13 percentage points higher among respondents who said all three of their closest friends were people they only knew online, compared to those whose closest friends were all known in real life.

In 2024, the researchers conducted a second study to confirm these patterns using a probability-based sample of 2,114 non-Hispanic white adults. This method is generally considered more accurate for estimating how common a belief is in the general population. This second survey replicated the main demographic findings, including the strong link between lower education, lower income, and higher support for white nationalism.

Based on this second sample, the researchers estimated that 4.9 percent of white American adults support the white nationalist movement once its tenets are explained to them. Support was highest among young men. The data showed that 13.5 percent of white men aged 18 to 29 endorsed the movement. The researchers noted that young men today spend vast amounts of time online and face unique social and economic challenges, potentially making them more receptive to grievance narratives.

A third survey, involving 2,548 white adults in late 2024 and early 2025, was designed to rule out statistical errors. The researchers tested whether respondents were just clicking a button to agree with whatever the survey asked, a phenomenon known as acquiescence bias. They also checked if asking about racial attitudes earlier in the survey primed people to express more extreme views. The results held up against these checks, confirming that the measurement of white nationalist support was robust.

The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which found that exposing white Americans to news about a growing non-white population did not actually increase their feelings of racial threat or worsen their attitudes toward minorities. The new study builds on this by showing that even real-world, local demographic trends fail to predict explicit support for white nationalism.

As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relies on observational data taken at specific points in time, meaning it cannot strictly determine cause and effect. Unmeasured factors, such as underlying personality traits or mental health challenges, might make someone more likely to experience personal hardships and also more susceptible to extreme political views.

The connection between online friendships and white nationalism is also complex. While isolated people might fall into online extremism, it is equally possible that holding extreme, unconventional political views makes it difficult for someone to maintain offline friendships. This dynamic could force individuals to seek out like-minded communities entirely on the internet.

Finally, the researchers noted that their study focuses strictly on ideological agreement rather than behavior. “We want to emphasize that we are only asking about endorsement of white nationalist views,” Egan noted. “We do not measure organizational affiliation with the white nationalist movement, nor do we measure support for its tactics.”

“We hope that researchers—whether that be ourselves, or other scholars—use our measure on future surveys to determine whether support for white nationalism is changing over time,” Egan said. “This will help us know if the rising visibility of white nationalism in the US is being accompanied by rising support for its ideas in the mass public.”

The study, “Predictors and prevalence of support for white nationalism in the United States,” was authored by Patrick J. Egan, James Bisbee, and Joshua A. Tucker.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/personal-hardship-and-online-isolation-predict-support-for-white-nationalism/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #WhiteNationalism #OnlineIsolation #SocialDistancingFromDiversity #WhiteIdentity #PoliticalConspiracyBeliefs #SocioeconomicHardship #OnlineFriendsOnly #RaceRelations #PublicOpinion #NatureStudy

NBC Bay Area: Councilwoman receives death threats and assaulted over Pittsburg data center. “Councilmember Arlene Kobata says the woman aggressively confronted her, grabbed her and pushed her at a First Friday event at the Pittsburg Marina.”

Maine Monitor: Why this conservative Maine town is trying to ban data centers. “Developers are unlikely to build such a project in the town, which has limited infrastructure and ordinances already on the books to regulate development. But with support from a statewide environmental group, the rural community’s Select Board is on track to pass a six-month ban on large-scale data center […]

Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): Americans’ views of data centers have turned more negative. “Americans have grown more negative toward the possible environmental and economic effects of data centers since the beginning of the year. And a majority say they’d be uncomfortable if a new data center started operating in their area, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.”

DATE: September 21, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Support for political violence drops across the board, though MAGA supporters remain the most likely to justify it

URL: https://www.psypost.org/support-for-political-violence-drops-across-the-board-though-maga-supporters-remain-the-most-likely-to-justify-it/

A recent nationally representative survey suggests that American public support for political violence decreased heading into the 2026 midterm elections, contrary to popular fears. The findings indicate that while partisan tensions remain high, an overwhelming majority of adults in the United States unconditionally reject the idea of using physical force to achieve political goals. The research was published as a preprint on SocArXiv, meaning it has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Political violence involves the use of physical force to advance a political agenda. This can range from damaging property to threatening, injuring, or killing individuals for ideological reasons. Aside from the immediate physical harm, political violence has long-term effects on public mental health and social stability. As the 2026 midterm elections approached, many political observers and citizens alike expressed concern that a highly polarized environment might lead to a spike in violent behavior.

These fears are sometimes amplified by public opinion polls, but survey design can play a large role in how these attitudes are measured. A 2022 study suggested that poorly designed polling questions often inflate apparent support for partisan violence, pointing out that Americans’ actual willingness to commit physical harm is much narrower than some surveys imply.

To accurately track these attitudes over time, a research team led by Garen J. Wintemute, a distinguished professor of emergency medicine, the Baker-Teret Chair in Violence Prevention, and director of the Centers for Violence Prevention at the University of California, Davis, launched an annual, nationally representative survey project in 2022.

“Political violence poses a serious threat to the United States,” Wintemute told PsyPost. “We are seeking to understand factors associated with justification for and willingness to commit political violence.”

As part of this ongoing monitoring effort, a study covered by PsyPost in 2025 found that individuals who identify as “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) Republicans were more likely to view political violence as justified compared to other Americans, though they were not necessarily more willing to personally carry out such acts. With the 2026 midterms looming and several recent high-profile incidents of government-initiated violence in the news, the researchers anticipated that public appetite for political violence might increase. They conducted the mid-2026 wave of their survey to test whether this expectation matched reality.

The researchers analyzed data from the fifth wave of their annual survey, which was administered online between May 15 and June 15, 2026. The sample included 7,752 adult participants drawn from the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, a probability-based panel designed to reflect the demographic makeup of the noninstitutionalized U.S. population.

The survey measured three main concepts: respondents’ beliefs about the potential for future civil war, their justification for using political violence, and their personal willingness to engage in it. For these questions, the survey explicitly defined violence as physical force strong enough that it could cause pain or injury to a person.

Respondents first indicated whether they felt violence was ever justified in general or to achieve any of 21 specific political goals. These goals included preserving a certain American way of life, stopping police violence, preventing voter fraud, or stopping illegal immigration. A new question in the 2026 survey asked those who said violence was “never justified” to clarify their stance, checking to see if their rejection of violence was unconditional.

Those who said violence could be justified were then asked how willing they would be to personally damage property, threaten people, injure someone, or kill someone to advance a political objective. They were also asked about their willingness to target specific populations, such as elected officials, police officers, election workers, or members of an opposing political party. Finally, all participants were asked how likely they were to use a firearm in a situation where they felt political violence was justified.

The results point to a broad rejection of political violence across the ideological spectrum. Out of 53 survey items measuring anticipation of, justification for, and willingness to commit political violence, 51 showed small average decreases between mid-2025 and mid-2026.

“The general perception is that political violence is common and increasing,” Wintemute noted. “Neither of those things is true. And in our survey respondents, support for political violence fell from 2025 to 2026, across the political spectrum.”

Overall, high levels of support for violence were quite rare. In 2026, the belief that violence was “usually or always” justified to advance any specific political objective never exceeded 13 percent of the sample. Additionally, among the nearly one-quarter of respondents who said violence was never justified for any of the listed objectives, over 91 percent clarified that their rejection was absolute and unconditional.

When it came to personal willingness to carry out violence, the numbers were even lower. Among the subset of respondents who felt political violence was at least sometimes justified, only about 2 percent said they were “very or completely willing” to damage property, threaten, injure, or kill another person. Willingness to act in a group or as a lone actor also declined from the previous year. Similarly, fewer than 4 percent of all respondents expected that they would shoot or threaten someone with a firearm to advance a political goal.

The only measure that increased from 2025 to 2026 was the public’s expectation of a civil war. In 2025, 7.1 percent of respondents strongly agreed that a civil war would happen in the next few years; in 2026, that figure rose to 8.0 percent. However, the belief that a civil war was actually needed to “set things right” remained mostly flat at less than 4 percent.

The researchers also examined differences among political groups. MAGA Republicans and MAGA supporters who do not identify as Republicans tended to report higher levels of justification for political violence compared to Democrats and non-MAGA Republicans. For instance, roughly half of MAGA-affiliated respondents considered violence justified to advance at least one political objective. Among the small group of respondents who were willing to engage in violence, non-Republican MAGA supporters expressed the highest willingness to target specific populations. Despite these differences, the general trend of declining support for violence was observed among nearly all political groups.

“We found, as others have, that support for political violence is generally stronger on the political right than on the political left,” Wintemute explained. “Willingness to commit political violence is another matter; it is rare across the board. The vast majority of respondents in our surveys reject political violence altogether, and most of those who consider it acceptable are not willing to become involved in it themselves.”

These findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2024, which found a similar nationwide decrease in support for political violence and belief in an imminent civil war between 2022 and 2023. Together, the data suggest a resilient public aversion to political violence, even during periods of intense political stress.

In a statement accompanying the research, the study authors emphasized the power of public norms. “These findings are clear,” they wrote. “Entrapment in a spiral of escalating political violence is not inevitable in the United States. Those who promote political violence should recognize that they do not have the public’s support and that promoting violence may exact a political cost.”

“We who reject political violence must make our rejection known to our families, friends, and larger social networks,” the researchers added. “A public climate of non-acceptance for violence can help reduce the likelihood of it occurring.”

There are a few things to keep in mind when interpreting these findings. First, survey responses about hypothetical willingness to commit violence do not perfectly predict how people will behave in real life. Some respondents might overstate their willingness to fight for a cause, while others might underreport their aggressive intentions because they know violence is socially unacceptable.

Also, the survey only asked about willingness to commit violence to the subset of people who first agreed that violence could be justified. Because different political groups passed this initial filter at different rates, the follow-up comparisons about personal willingness are based on varied sample proportions. For example, fewer Democrats than Republicans met the initial criteria, meaning the follow-up percentages for Democrats represent a smaller, more specific subset of that group. Finally, the survey was fielded over a single month in mid-2026, and rapidly unfolding political events or news stories could quickly shift public sentiment in unpredictable ways.

Moving forward, the research team hopes to translate these findings into proactive solutions. “Next year we hope to launch a randomized trial of an intervention to prevent political violence,” Wintemute said.

The study, “Decreased Support for Political Violence in the United States in Mid-2026: Findings from a Nationally Representative Survey,” was authored by Garen J. Wintemute, Sonia L. Robinson, Daniel J. Tancredi, Krista Neumann, Shaina Sta. Cruz, Aaron B. Shev, Elizabeth A. Tomsich, Bradley Velasquez, Mona A. Wright, and Veronica A. Pear.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/support-for-political-violence-drops-across-the-board-though-maga-supporters-remain-the-most-likely-to-justify-it/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PoliticalViolence #PublicOpinion #MidtermElection2026 #MAGA #ViolencePrevention #PublicSafety #SurveyResearch #CivilDiscourse #PoliticalViolenceReduction #PublicNorms

The AI czar role has sat vacant since March after the previous officeholder's term ended. A new Siena poll shows 61% of likely voters oppose AI data centers, including majorities across both parties. Implementation details remain unclear. https://www.implicator.ai/trump-ai-force-czar-public-disapproval/ #AI #Policy #PublicOpinion

DATE: September 19, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Conspiracy theories appear to erode public faith in meritocracy

URL: https://www.psypost.org/conspiracy-theories-erode-public-faith-in-a-fair-society/

When people buy into conspiracy theories, their faith in the fairness of society begins to erode. New research published in Political Psychology shows that exposure to conspiratorial narratives directly reduces the belief that resources are distributed based on merit, equality, or need. The findings suggest that suspicions of hidden plots foster a deep distrust of institutions, coloring how individuals view the basic rules of social and economic life.

Meritocracy is the idea that society rewards talent and hard work. Many political leaders and cultural narratives lean heavily on this concept to motivate citizens and justify existing economic structures. Alongside equality and need, meritocracy forms the foundation of what psychologists call distributive justice. This term refers to the perceived fairness of how a community divides its wealth, opportunities, and resources.

Public perception of these justice principles dictates how well a society functions. When people believe the system is fair, they are more likely to cooperate and follow the rules. Alternatively, widespread perceptions of injustice can foster resentment and social instability.

Researchers have extensively studied how income disparities and social mobility affect these views. Little research has examined how conspiratorial thinking influences ideas about fairness. Conspiracy theories typically allege that malevolent, secretive groups are orchestrating events for their own benefit. Because these narratives frame elites as exploitative and corrupt, they naturally conflict with the notion of a fair society.

A team of researchers led by Qi Zhao, a psychologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, set out to test this dynamic. They wanted to know if believing in a conspiracy theory makes people less likely to view the world as fair. The team designed a combination of survey analyses and experiments to see if conspiratorial beliefs alter how people perceive the distribution of resources.

In their first study, the researchers analyzed data from the World Value Survey, a large international dataset. The sample included 90,837 participants across 68 different societies. The researchers looked at survey items measuring beliefs in election fraud conspiracies, such as the idea that rich people buy elections or that television news manipulates voters.

They compared these responses to a question asking whether hard work usually brings a better life. The results showed a consistent negative relationship between conspiracy beliefs and faith in meritocracy. People who endorsed election fraud narratives were less likely to believe that effort leads to success.

This pattern held true regardless of whether a country had a highly democratic government or an authoritarian one. The researchers also accounted for national differences in economic inequality, gross domestic product, and expert ratings of corruption. The link between conspiracy beliefs and diminished faith in meritocracy remained intact across these varied environments.

Because the survey could only show a correlation, the researchers conducted an experiment to test for a causal effect. They recruited 403 participants in the United States for an online study. Half of the participants read a news report about a fictional local government misusing public funds, accompanied by evidence supporting the conspiracy theory. The other half read the same report but with evidence refuting the allegations.

Afterward, participants rated their agreement with statements about how resources were handled in the fictional community. Those exposed to the supporting evidence reported lower belief in meritocracy. They also expressed less belief in the principles of equality, which assumes everyone gets an equal share, and need, which dictates that resources go to those who require them most.

The experiment demonstrated that adopting a conspiracy belief directly lowered perceptions of distributive justice. The researchers also tested potential psychological mechanisms behind this shift. They found that distrust in government acted as a primary bridge, explaining how exposure to the conspiracy theory led to lower ratings of fairness.

The researchers then replicated this experiment with 788 participants in China to see if the effect crossed cultural boundaries. Chinese culture traditionally places a stronger emphasis on equality and need compared to the merit-focused culture of the United States. The scenario in this experiment involved a local government colluding with the media to suppress negative news and control the public.

Just as in the American sample, participants who read evidence validating the conspiracy theory reported lower faith in all three justice principles. They were less likely to believe that the fictional society rewarded hard work, distributed resources equally, or helped those in need. Institutional distrust once again served as the psychological mechanism driving these negative perceptions.

To test whether these dynamics exist outside of civic government, the team conducted a final experiment focused on a corporate workplace. They recruited another 403 American participants and asked them to imagine working for an electronics company. The participants read a rumor that the company’s administration was deliberately hiding the presence of dangerous chemicals to avoid bad publicity.

Similar to the previous experiments, participants received information either confirming or debunking the corporate cover-up. Those in the confirmation group displayed a pronounced drop in their belief that the company operated fairly. They doubted that the administration rewarded good work, treated employees equally, or accommodated worker needs.

The researchers concluded that conspiracy theories degrade trust in administrative bodies, which in turn poisons the perception of fairness in an organizational setting. The effect was especially pronounced for the principles of equality and need. Meritocracy perceptions were also reduced, though they remained slightly more resilient, likely because performance-based rewards are deeply ingrained in corporate structures.

A few caveats apply to how these results translate to the real world. The experiments relied on fictional scenarios to manipulate beliefs, which might not perfectly mirror the deeply entrenched narratives people encounter online or in their communities. Real-world conspiracy theories often tie into long-standing political identities, making them harder to accept or reject based on a single piece of evidence.

The studies focused entirely on conspiracy theories involving powerful institutions like governments and corporate boards. It is unknown if conspiracies targeting marginalized groups or ordinary citizens would have the same effect on perceptions of societal fairness. Future research might explore whether narratives about less powerful groups also erode trust in the broader economic system.

Additionally, while the experiments showed that conspiracy beliefs cause a drop in perceived fairness, the reverse might also happen outside the laboratory. Experiencing genuine unfairness might make people more susceptible to conspiratorial thinking. Examining this cycle could help psychologists understand how institutional distrust deepens over time.

The study, “Not a real meritocracy? How conspiracy beliefs reduce perceived distributive justice,” was authored by Qi Zhao, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, and Giuliana Spadaro.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/conspiracy-theories-erode-public-faith-in-a-fair-society/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ConspiracyTheories #Meritocracy #DistributiveJustice #FairnessPerception #InstitutionalTrust #PublicOpinion #SocialEquity #EconomicJustice #CivicKnowledge #MediaInfluence

UNESCO: UNESCO- ICOM Global Survey finds museums embracing AI, but governance and capacity lag behind. “Surveying more than 400 museums across 90 countries, the study finds that 57% of responding museums are already using AI, while 55% have no internal AI policy, strategy or guidelines.”

Reuters: In Silicon Valley, AI data center boom meets local resistance. “In ​Silicon Valley’s biggest city, residents and environmental groups are organizing against a wave of proposed data center projects that officials have courted ‌in a bid to position the city as a hub for AI infrastructure.”

Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): Globally, More People Expect AI to Cause Job Loss Than Growth. “As policymakers, business leaders and experts engage in a rapidly moving debate about the potential economic impacts of artificial intelligence, ordinary citizens around the world are concerned. In 34 of 37 countries Pew Research Center surveyed earlier this year, people tend to believe AI will […]