Root of Our Political Divide – Part 2: Post-Trump Authoritarianism

Root of Our Political Divide – Part 2: Post-Trump Authoritarianism

by | Nov 10, 2020 | Evolutionary Science and Our Political Divide, Gender Politics, Men's Issues

Trump’s appeal resides on the primordial plains of Africa, where human leadership preferences were formed by the brutalities of daily living. ~ Hector Garcia

As part of a post-mortem on the presidential election, I will turn my attention to the “slide” of conservatism into full-blown authoritarianism — from a “normal” conservative fear of outsiders into the xenophobic overload that characterizes the authoritarian personality.

The Divide Inside the Mandate

Joe Biden got more raw votes than any presidential candidate in history. In comparison to the percentage of votes garnered by winning Presidential candidates in the past 30 years, only Barack Obama in 2008 got a higher percentage of votes (52.9) than Joe Biden. Most pundits would call this a strong mandate. But for many of us, this did not feel like a repudiation of Donald Trump – not the kind of cathartic dismissal we were hoping for. Seventy million Americans voted for Donald Trump, more votes than he received in 2016. Democrats lost seats in the House. State legislatures did not get more ‘blue” and the Senate portends a doubtful (yet still possible) majority for Democrats.

We Are More Tribal Than Ever

We are a tribal nation in a tribal media ecosystem. Even if Biden had won by 10 million or more votes, we would still be a nation of roughly 20-30 million Americans with a latent or activated authoritarian personality. It behooves us to understand who they are and how they “happened.” Authoritarianism in America is not going away with the defeat of Donald Trump. Far from it. Columnist Dana Milbank wrote on November 6: “The next couple of years could be ugly and unproductive. But gone will be a president who daily weakens democracy with authoritarian tendencies. Out will be a man who fuels our basest instincts with racism, vulgarity, vitriol, violence, self-dealing lies and conspiracy theories.” Yes, this particular despot is gone as President (not as leader or media mogul), but his followers and their subjective grievances remain in the American family.

My God — It Took A Pandemic

As Molly Ball most aptly put it (Time, November 5), “Win or lose, Trump has engineered a lasting tectonic shift in the American political landscape, fermenting a level of anger, resentment and suspicion that will not be easy for his successor to surmount. Even with a Biden win, “it’s still that case the an openly bigoted aspiring authoritarian not only won the presidency but captured the complete loyalty of one of two major political parties, and – but for a once-in-century-pandemic, he might have been reelected.”

Revisiting The Root of It – Part 1

In my last post, Evolutionary Science and Our Political Divide: The Root of It – Part 1, I provided evidence that:

  1. Human mating strategies (sexual selection) undergird our political affiliations and are extricability linked to evolved sex differences between men and women. A male-centric reproductive strategy is shaped by struggles for dominance in mate competitions, while a female-centric strategy is shaped by demands of rearing offspring.
  2. There is a fundamental gender gap in partisan political preference. Females tend to be political liberals (the “mommy party”) and males tend to be political conservatives (the “daddy party”) based on the evolutionary adaptations required of each sex.
  3. Conservatives (and men) are more comfortable with social hierarchies than liberals. Women lead the charge to check the impulses of dominant and authoritarian men unless they want to mate with them (a common collusion in primate and human mating).
  4. The psychology of in-group vs. outgroup and xenophobia vs. xenophilia, are driving forces of political affiliation. Conservatives are more xenophobic than liberals and men are more xenophobic than women.

This post will build on the above tenets with a closer look “downstream” into the roots of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism comes out of the aspirations for dominance among men and the fears and hopes of those who follow such men. I will address the psychology of social dominance and touch on the politics and psychology of the aforementioned gender gap, especially related to male identity. I will draw from a variety of post-election analyses but will start with foundational insights from Hector Garcia’s groundbreaking book (central to Part 1 of this series): Sex, Power, and Partisanship: How Evolutionary Science Makes Sense of Our Political Divide.

Struggle to Maintain Dominance Hierarchies

Hector Garcia sums up the implied motivation of the despotic leader: “Among humans, as among all social animals, a higher position on the dominance hierarchy affords preferential access to territory, food, and mates. And so, while political science rarely describes socioeconomic stances in evolutionary terms, the struggle to maintain dominance hierarchies, or to equalize them, reflects our long history of vying for position in rank-stratified primate social groups. Moreover, if conservatism reflects an extreme form of the male brain (see Evolutionary Science and Our Political Divide: The Root of It – Part 1) and liberalism its inverse, then we would expect to find evidence that conservative economic policy is embedded in a male reproductive strategy, and liberal economic policy in a female reproductive strategy. And this is exactly what we find.”

Authoritarianism is a product of our male-gendered psychology forged through the pressure of male mate competition. ~ Hector Garcia

Social Dominance Orientation

Political scientists have developed a measure called Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) to reflect the extent to which an individual wishes his or her group to be dominant over another group. People who score higher on the SDO scale favor hierarchy-enhancing ideologies and policies, whereas those lower on SDO tend to favor ideologies or policies that lessen hierarchies. SDO has been consistently found to predict conservatism and its corollaries, including economic conservatism and racial prejudice.

Men and Conservatives Favor Hierarchies

Men score higher on SDO than women. This difference holds across age, culture, nationality, religion, income level, educational attainment, and political ideology. Political conservatives generally score higher on SDO than do liberals. Men with high testosterone levels tend to have higher SDO scores. Those with high SDO are more likely to support war.

High SDO Disfavors Domestic Policies But Favors Patriotism

SDO also has implications within groups. It correlates negatively with domestic policies such as affirmative action, social welfare programs, support for women’s rights, and issues concerning the sexual control of women. Higher social dominance not only disfavors the out-group, but it also favors the in-group. Accordingly, SDO is associated with greater patriotism – a commitment to the larger tribe. Patriotism is a more strongly expressed value of conservatives and Republicans.

“Father Knows Best”

In George Lakoff’s 1996 book, Moral Politics, he examined how political values tend to arise from the fact that we are all first governed in our families. The way your ideal family is governed is a model for the ideal form of government. This is often how your real family is governed, though some people rebel and adopt an opposite ideal.

Conservative moral values arise from what Lakoff calls the “strict father family.” In this model, father knows best. He decides right and wrong. He has the ultimate authority to make sure his children and his spouse accept his worldview and uphold his authority. It is his moral duty to punish his children painfully when they disobey. If his “children” do not prosper, they are not disciplined and so deserve their poverty. Responsibility is thus taken to be a personal responsibility, not a social responsibility. You are responsible for yourself, not for others.

Who’s On Top?

“All politics is moral, ” says Lakoff. “Voters don’t vote their self-interest. They vote their values.” This is how Lakoff saw the conservative-based moral hierarchy in 1996:

  • God above man
  • Man above nature
  • The disciplined (strong) above the undisciplined (weak)
  • The rich above the poor
  • Employers above employees
  • Adults over children
  • Western cultures above other cultures
  • Men above women
  • Whites above nonwhites
  • Christians above non-Christians
  • Straights above Gays
Trump Supporters Have a Strict Father Morality

Conservative policies flow from the strict father worldview and this hierarchy. Trump is an extreme case, though very much in line with conservative policies of the Republican party and with an authoritarian personality. Most Trump supporters have a strict father morality. The Trump presidency gave them self-respect. Their self-respect is more important than the details of his policies, even if some of those policies hurt them. (See “What’s the Matter With Kansas Redux” below.)

Strict Father Can Be Despotic

Fred Trump was the quintessential strict father for his son, Donald. He brow-beat him into the ways of dominance. By the time Donald was sent to the military school, he was ready to put it into practice. Donald thrived in the hierarchical environment of military school and learned the efficacy and “joy” of being a bully. He learned the ways of authoritarianism directly from his mean and despotic father, a loveless mother, and a military school education that supported and developed his personality as a top-dog abuser.

Trump embodies the classic authoritarian leadership style: simple, powerful and punitive. ~ Amanda Taub

Despot’s Apprentice

According to Brian Klass (The Despot’s Apprentice: Donald Trump’s Attack on Democracy), our exiting President checked all the boxes in the despot’s playbook:

  • Scapegoated minorities
  • Attacked the press
  • Put cronies in a position of power
  • Promoted outright nepotism
  • Used office for personal economic gain
  • Spread misinformation about opponents
  • Called for the jailing of opponents
  • Did not agree to a peaceful transfer of power
The Authoritarian Personality

Since WWII, many social scientists sought to understand the psychology that gave the world Hitler. Drawing from that research, psychologist Robert Altemeyer devised a concept called ring-wing authoritarianism and created a short survey instrument (RWA) to measure it. The RWA is the most widely used assessment of the authoritarian personality.

Altemeyer’s research found four strongly held beliefs and behaviors that characterize the authoritarian personality:

  1. submission to authorities
  2. conforming to social conventions and rules perceived to be endorsed by society
  3. aggressiveness directed against persons perceived to be sanctioned by authorities
  4. general aggression against outsiders
“Stomping Out the Rot”

Using the RWA in 2019, Monmouth University Polling Institute found that the stronger the Trump supporter, the higher the person scored on the RWA. People strongly disapproving of Trump scored 54, while those who supported him had an average score of 119, more than twice as authoritarian as Trump opponents.

In the Monmouth poll, over half of Trump’s supporters agreed with the statement: “Once our government leaders and the authorities condemn the dangerous elements in our society, it will be the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning our country from within.” This authoritarian aggression is a central part of the RWA personality.

Authoritarian Nightmare

In their book, Authoritarian Nightmare (2020), John Dean and Altemeyer analyzed data from a previously unpublished nationwide survey that showed a desire for strong authoritarian leadership among Republican voters. Altemeyer and Dean described Trump supporters as “submissive, fearful, and longing for a mighty leader who will protect them from life’s threats.” They found shockingly high levels of anti-democratic beliefs and prejudicial attitudes among Trump backers, concluding: “Trump supporters will be a potent pro-authoritarian voting bloc in the years to come. Even if Donald Trump disappeared tomorrow, the millions of people who made him president would be ready to make someone else similar president instead.”

Allegiance to Leader – Animus to Outsider

Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) indicates passive deference to authoritarian leaders. SDO indicates a willingness to target outside groups. These two psychological motivations will often, if not always, be in synch with another. Like SDO, RWA is associated with xenophobia, being closed to experience, and political conservatism.

These two constructs reflect survival strategies underlying the conservative political stance: targeting outsiders (SDO) while following authorities who protect them against an external threat (RWA).

Rise of American Authoritarianism — We Saw This Coming

An amazingly prescient piece about authoritarianism in America appeared in Vox, on March 1, 2016 (written by Amanda Taub). Donald Trump had not yet won the Republican nomination for President but political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists were convening behind the scenes with alarm — like astronomers from separate observatories who finally resigned themselves to the reality that a comet was heading toward earth. A 2016 exit poll out of South Carolina had found that 75 percent of Republican voters supported banning Muslims from the United States; another poll found a third of Trump supporters were in favor of banning gays and lesbians from the country. Twenty percent said Lincoln should not have freed the slaves.

GOP Attracted the Authoritarians

In their book, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics (2009), Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler predicted Trump’s rise. They concluded that the GOP, by positioning itself as the party of traditional values and law and order, had unknowingly attracted a vast and previously bipartisan population of Americans with authoritarian tendencies.

“Whatever Action Is Necessary”

While at the University of Massachusetts, Mathew MacWilliams did his dissertation on the authoritarian psychological profile (of followers, not dictators). MacWilliams found that when these followers feel threatened, they look for strong leaders who promise to take whatever action is necessary to protect them from outsiders and prevent the changes they fear. This was a survival-based response to xenophobic overload.

How Many Are There?

Pollster Kyle Dropp of Morning Consult found that 44% of white respondents nationwide scored high or very high on his authoritarian survey questions. More than 65 percent of people who scored highest on authoritarianism were GOP voters. At the other end of the scale, the pattern reversed. People who scored low on authoritarianism were 75 percent Democrats.

The size of this new constituency in the U.S. is now bigger because of Trump, or at least more toxic and dangerous. They are fueled by continuing threats of social change and an out-of-control social media that activates latent authoritarianism by selling threat from outsiders.

“Sliding” into Authoritarianism

 The “slide” from conservatism into authoritarianism takes:

  • a despotic, authoritarian, rhetorically clever leader
  • continued economic displacement and social-cultural change, and
  • a degraded media and informational ecosystem that amplifies the feeling of threat and “activates” authoritarian impulses.
“Activating” Authoritarians

According to researcher Karen Stenner (The Authoritarian Dynamic, 2005), there is a certain subset of people who hold latent authoritarian tendencies that can be triggered or “activated” by the perception of physical threat or by destabilizing social change. What might look on the surface like bigotry, Stenner suggests, is really more of a generic susceptibility to messages about any group identified as objects of concern. Returning to Altemeyer’s research above, this illustrates aggressiveness directed against persons sanctioned by “authorities” such as Trump, Twitter, and Fox News.

Action-side of Authoritarians

“Whatever action is necessary” looks like a plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan. It looks like a “Trump train” bearing flags and banners, swarming around a Biden-Harris campaign bus on a stretch of I-35 in Hays County, Texas. Trump joked about this on the campaign trail and gleefully criticized the FBI for wanting to investigate. Trump-supporter caravans also blocked traffic in New Jersey and New York. The Republican convention provided a prominent speaking slot to a white couple from St. Louis who face felony charges for brandishing guns at racial-justice protestors. According to authoritarian researcher Stanley Feldman, it is the scale of the desired responses, the action side that most distinguishes authoritarians from the rest of Republicans.

Authoritarians Will Still Be Here

What Amanda Taub (Vox) said in 2016 looks even more true four years later: “If Trump loses the election, that won’t remove the threats and social changes that triggered the ‘action side’ of authoritarianism. The authoritarians will still be here. They are a real constituency that exists independently of Trump. They will look for candidates who will give them the strong, punitive leadership they desire. And that means Donald Trump could be just the first of many Trumps in American politics, with potentially profound implications for the country.”

Authoritarianism and Masculine Identity

Conservative columnist and Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Mona Charen, asked on November 7, 2020, “what does this election tell us?” One of her answers pointed to masculine identity:

There is a problem with masculinity in this country. The gender gap is now a chasm; we need to think more deeply about how we are raising men.

Dark Triad and Male Identity Anxiety

Authoritarian followership includes a heavy dose of male identity anxiety, perceived threat from outsiders, and a willingness to act-out to defend “territory” and unconsciously, defend access to mating opportunities. Trump is macho by design (developmentally and genetically) and embodies the “dark triad” personality: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathology. Trump’s attention-seeking narcissism is perfect fuel for finding and encouraging male followers who feel a threat to their manhood.

Losers in the Mating Game

In a prior post (Dynamics in the Mating Economy: Domain #1 of Male-Female Difference), I explain the “reproductive variance” between men and women throughout our evolutionary history: essentially, compared to women, most men do not reproduce — they are losers in the mating game. As proven by DNA studies, most authoritarian men in human history were sexually prolific. This dynamic — the fact of winner-take-all sexual access, is relevant to the discussion of the male identity crisis that looms in the underbelly of the male authoritarian personality and fuels its xenophobia and grievances.

“Young Male Syndrome” Around the World

Young men often enter mate competition with fewer resources to offer woman, what behavior ecologists call “embodied capital.” When young men face the peril of being shut out of the mating game, violent risk-taking has been an evolutionarily sensible strategy. Today, risk-taking and antisocial behaviors are strongly associated with being young and male across societies world-wide and men at their reproductive peak tend to be most inclined to violence, a phenomenon known as young male syndrome.*

These Boys Are More Angry Than Proud

The Proud Boys are a far-right, neo-fascist, male-only organization that promotes and engages in political violence. They feature “action-oriented” authoritarianism, white male grievance, and sexual control of women.

Proud Boys believe that men, especially white men, and Western culture are under siege. They officially reject white supremacy although members have participated in racist events. The name is derived from the song “Proud of Your Boy” from the musical adaptation of Disney’s film Aladdin. In the song, Aladdin apologizes to his mother for being a bad son and promises to make her proud. Proud Boys founder, Gavin McInnes, says the song is about Aladdin apologizing for being a boy. Proud Boys purportedly recruit right-wing, 15-30-year-old white males from the suburbs or exurbs.

Hispanic Men Looking for the Tough Guy

In the 2020 presidential election, Trump made inroads with Hispanic men in Texas and Florida. Former Texas Representative Jason Villalba says Trump’s macho image really resonated with Latino men in Texas who are focused on being strong and tough in the face of adversity.

University of Texas professor Eric McDaniel created a white masculinity threat index that measures the extent to which people believe that white males have become a discriminated-against group. McDaniel found that Hispanic men were more likely than white women, Hispanic women, or Black men, to believe that whites and men were discriminated against at higher rates than Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women, gays, and people who identify as transgender. Only white men scored higher than Hispanic men on the index, suggesting an affinity (identity) between Hispanic and white men that might explain the durability of Trump’s appeal.

Trump As Folk Hero

Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild (The Atlantic, October 29) said that many white men feel their gender and race have been vilified. Their economic prospects are bad and the American culture tells them that their gender is also bad. So they have turned to Trump as a type of folk hero, one who can restore their former glory. Exposing themselves and others to the coronavirus is part of that heroism. One male Trump supporter told Hochschild, “Trump is willing to accept risk to win for the American people and Joe Biden is sitting in his basement.”

Subjective Truth: They’re Cutting In Line

For her 2016 book, Strangers in their Own Land, Hochschild interviewed folks in Louisiana and found their “deep story,” the emotional feels-as-if truth of their lives. She heard the metaphor of a long line of Americans standing on a hill, waiting to get to the top — to the American dream. But as they stand there, tired and eager, they see certain people are cutting the line in front of them. They see women, African Americans, and immigrants getting ahead, boosted by the government and its affirmative-action programs.

Many white men, in particular, feel “shoved back in line,” she writes. Unable to draw confidence from their mostly nonexistent wealth, or their jobs which are steadily moving offshore, they turn to their pride in being American, she said.

Identity Politics for White Men

Trump has allowed his male supporters to feel like “moral” Americans and superior to those they consider “other” or beneath them. Trump may not always represent his supporters’ economic self-interest, but he feels their emotional self-interest. Hochschild asserts “Trump is, in essence, the identity politics candidate for white men.”

In Search of the Lost Heroic

Men in this community, she said, are starved for a sense of heroism. They don’t feel good about themselves. Confronting the coronavirus is a way to show stoicism and to feel heroic again. Hochschild’s subjects think they can handle the virus just like Trump handles everything. “He’s kind of a bad boy, and they relate to that.” A Trump supporter from McKinney, Texas said, “the president comes off as a man; he doesn’t come off as weak.”

Degradation of Our Information Culture

Fake news consumption has tripled since 2016 according to a study by the German Marshall Fund. Facebook is a much greater vehicle for disinformation today and that information is tailored to increase attention for a specific user in a way that is pernicious and destructive to the rational processing of facts. US demand for news that is either distorted or plain false continues to grow – such as news about the pandemic or QAnon conspiracy theories.

Post-media Rhetoric – “Twitter Dee and Twitter Dumb”

In her recent book, Demagogue for President: the Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, Jennifer Mercieca explains how Trump ran as a dangerous demagogue and also a heroic demagogue. Trump used rhetorical strategies to polarize, delegitimize, and demonize but also strategies to bring people “closer.” (Each strategy, with its Latin name, has been observed throughout history.)

Mercieca says Trump was the first true “post-media rhetorical presidency.” Even though he relied dramatically on Fox News, he had the ability to go directly to the people and around the media via Twitter. These rhetorical strategies were particularly effective with the authoritarian personality.

What’s the Matter with Kansas Redux

As described in Thomas Frank’s book in 2004 (What’s the Matter with Kansas?), the white working class abandoned the Democratic party because of cultural arguments related to abortion, guns, religion, and same-sex marriage. Republicans convinced (“it’s the messaging stupid!”) these white voters that cultural arguments were more important than their dire economic circumstances. Then Republicans governed with a bait and switch. They delivered a conservative economic agenda (except for fiscal responsibility), cutting taxes on the wealthy, undoing business regulations, and undermining the social safety net that actually hurt these working-class voters.

Working-class Republicans?

There have been some claims (Benjamin Wallace-Wells in The New Yorker and columnist David Brooks) that the 2020 election revealed a potential multiracial working-class Republican party. I don’t buy it, at least not as it relates to actual working-class policies. Thomas Frank’s analysis still rings true. Yes, Trump supporters and authoritarians are decidedly populist and anti-elitist (though who is elitist changes to fit the rhetorical moment). But authoritarians don’t think much about organized labor. Working-class people voted for Trump based upon other appeals — anti-socialist propaganda, racist xenophobia, and outright machoism. If they stay with the Republican party, they are in for more bait and switch as it relates to their social and economic well-being. Trumpism is populist nationalism with a high dose of white grievance. This is more identity politics than is practiced on the Left.

Epilogue – First Step Toward Healing

While this post is a cautionary note about the nation’s political divide and a recognition of the challenges presented by so many authoritarian-leaning Americans citizens, let it be clearly proclaimed: Americans have chosen a next President who is the polar opposite of a despot and bully. Americans have fired a narcissist and hired a man with an extraordinary capacity for empathy. If Donald Trump was the authoritarian “infection,” Americans have just course-corrected with a powerful “antibiotic” — a first step toward healing.

My last post in this series will present a way forward to understand the moral foundations of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians, and a possible way to acknowledge what is held sacred by those who affiliate with each of those political orientations.

References

*Margo Wilson and Martin Daly, “Competitiveness, Risk Taking and Violence: the Young Male Syndrome” Ethology and Sociobiology, 6 no.1, (Jan. 1985) p. 230

Please Note: Your comment may take up to 12 seconds to register and the confirmation message will appear above the “Submit a Comment” text. 

Root of Our Political Divide – Part 2: Post-Trump Authoritarianism

Evolutionary Science and Our Political Divide: The Root of It – Part 1

by | Oct 27, 2020 | Biological Difference, Evolutionary Science and Our Political Divide, Gender Politics, Sexuality

Male competition for mates and sex differences are first cause in human political affairs.

Since the advent of agriculture in human societies, nearly all impulses for male power and authoritarianism, and expressions of male dominance in a social hierarchy, have ultimately been the result of men competing for sexual access to women. All disputes over territory and wars between nations have their roots in out-group competition and the rewards of that competition for increasing mating opportunities. All causes of the unequal distribution of resources throughout all of human history are linked causally to the male reproductive strategy.

All impulses to check male authoritarianism come from men and women who lack resources and equality and exist at the lower end of a social hierarchy. Women primarily lead the charge to check the impulses of authoritarian men unless they want to mate with them. Liberal policies that strive to equitably distribute resources are more frequently backed by women.

Conservatives, and especially conservative men with power, are mostly interested in pursuing and maintaining male dominance and resist policies and governmental rules that change the status quo. Conservatives are most aligned with male needs and a male mating strategy. Liberals policies are more linked to a female mating strategy which focuses on the caretaking of children and other human beings.

Evolutionary Politics

The application of evolutionary science to our current political environment is quite revealing and instructive. In Sex, Power, and Partisanship: How Evolutionary Science Makes Sense of Our Political Divide (2019), Hector Garcia explores how evolutionary adaptations explain and predict our Left-Right political divide and a litany of issues. This post (and the one to follow) relies heavily on Garcia’s insights and the book’s 533 references of scholarship covering a broad range of disciplines.

Garcia applies the evolutionary lens to conservatism versus liberalism, equality versus hierarchy, and “big ape” authoritarianism; he reveals the “politics” of human mating strategies as a story of resource acquisition, sexual control, and the power of tribes. The underbelly of our political instincts has deep ancestral roots.

Planting and Staying Put Changed Everything

The study of human evolution shows that for most of our existence as a species, individual and community interests were in rough equilibrium. Our forging ancestors sought status, like all primates, but they generally acquired the highest status by doing things that benefited the group. Hunter-gatherers kept greed in check by employing guilt and shame among the group. Cooperation was essential to survival. Before agriculture, there were restraints on competition and evidence of coordination inside of the tribe.

With the advent of agriculture and civilization, a split began to occur. Individuals could acquire hitherto unimaginable status by accumulating wealth and power – often at the expense of family and community. Once agriculture drove out foraging, the need to cooperate was no longer essential to survival. It became every man for himself, except competition between tribes (out-groups) led to the development of coalitions and subsequent war between tribes and nations.

Size of the Tribe and Food Storage

Hunter-gatherer “tribes” tended to range in size from an extended family to a larger band of no more than about 100 people. Tribe-size groups were easier to regulate from within because hunter-gatherers could not store vast amounts of food to leverage their power base; there were limits to how much wealth and influence they could acquire. But when humans began to master agriculture, things changed drastically. Men used this power to achieve reproductive success in a zero-sum game. Zero-sum games are the root of inequality.

The Split

In the United States, the split between individual interests and community interests has become embedded in two ideologies: conservativism and liberalism. Conservatives promote individual freedom and self-reliance, primarily defined as freedom from government. Liberals promote fairness and equality and freedom from injustices suffered by a large segment of the community. In a later post, I will explain the foundations of morality that have shaped these positions. It is actually more complex than “individual vs. community,” but self-interest and the common good exist in a state of tension in most political ideologies. Understanding the moral foundations of conservatives and liberals is the only way for us to “listen to learn” from one another.

“Daddy Party” and “Mommy Party”

Republicans protect us with strong national defense; Democrats nourish us with Social Security and Medicare. Republicans worry about our business affairs. Democrats look after our health, nutrition, and welfare. It’s the traditional American family. “Daddy” locks the door at night and brings home the bacon. “Mommy” worries when the kids are sick and makes sure each one gets treated fairly.  ~ Chris Mathews (1991).

Gender/Sex and Political Affiliations

The existence of a fundamental gender gap in American political party affiliation has been reported for years. In 2009, Gallop concluded their survey analysis with this: “The fact that the gender gap persists not only across age groups, but within major racial, ethnic, and marital-status groups, reinforces the conclusion that a gender difference in political orientation is a fundamental part of today’s American political and social scene.”

In 2020, the gender gap has widened even more. The New York Times/Sienna College poll of July 16, 2020, found that women favored Biden by 22 points. White women with a college degree favored Biden by 39 points. The Wall Street Journal poll in August of 2019 found that white/non-college men favored Trump by 45 points, 67-22 percent.

“Barring a giant polling error, the 2020 election will witness the largest gender gap in partisan preference since women gained the franchise” (New York Intelligencer, “Men and Women Have Never Been More Politically Divided,” October 19, 2020).

Stereotypes and Political Affiliation

Political scientist Nicolas Winter looked at US survey data from the American National Election Study from 1972 to 2004 and that found voters overwhelming used more masculine stereotypes to describe GOP candidates and more feminine characteristics to describe Democrats.

In another study (2006), political scientist Monika McDermott administered the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) to 780 Americans, along with a series of questions about their political beliefs and behavior. The BSRI is one of the most widely used instruments to assess gendered psychology. For feminine traits, the BSRI asks participants to rate how much the following descriptors apply to him or her: “understanding, sympathetic, warm, loves children, compassionate, gentle, eager to soothe hurt feelings, affectionate, sensitive to the needs of others, and tender.” Masculine traits were described as “willingness to take risks, forceful, strong personality, assertive, independent, leadership ability, aggressive, dominant, willing to take a stand, and defends own beliefs.”

McDermott found that men and women who scored high on femininity were significantly more likely to identify as Democrat, and men and women who scored high on masculinity were more likely to identify as Republican.

Why Do Sex-Based Partisan Differences Exist?

Political partisanship arises from sex-based approaches to perpetuating our genes. Conservatism is a male-centric strategy shaped by the struggle for dominance in male competitions within-and-between groups, while liberalism is a female-centric strategy derived from the protracted demands of rearing human offspring.

Not all men enact a conservative strategy, nor do all women enact a liberal strategy. But we do see sex-based leanings — two bell curves, one tilting toward the political right for men, and one tilting to the left for women, with significant overlap between the curves.

Partisan Politics and Reproductive Dominance

The tribalistic flavor (us vs. them) of political conservatism, with its emphasis on female sexual control and hawkish territorial nature, is rooted in male mate competition – the ageless biological struggle for reproductive dominance. Male competition for women turns out to be the core driving force behind political issues.

The winner-take-all mentality of conservative economic policy is based on male competition for mates. War is team-based male-mate competition. The coalitionary psychology of men was forged by the risk of being annihilated by the outside tribe – and the potential gains of taking over the rival tribes’ territory, resources, and women. Militaristic logic embedded in that psychology maps squarely onto the hallmark values of political conservatism. It is from the context of violent male mate competition and its most heightened expression, war, that we are able to most fully understand the masculine tenor of conservative political psychology.

Roots of Liberalism

The roots of liberalism have arisen from the timeless effort to rein in dominant males and to prevent them from monopolizing resources and impinging on the evolutionary fitness of those with less power. Liberalism is based on the prodigious human task of raising children, a critical survival enterprise championed by women and provisioned by the “Mommy” parties of the world.

Big Five Personality Traits

Social scientists have developed various models for understanding human personality, the most widely researched of which is known as the “Big Five.” The Big Five personality traits are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Cross-cultural studies strongly suggest that Big Five patterns of interacting with the world are genetically based universals. Human personality traits, especially openness to experience, reliably correlated to political orientation.

Liberal Openness

Openness to experience is a hallmark of the liberal political orientation. This personality dimension reflects not only an openness to new things, policies, and programs, but also to other people. Liberals demonstrate xenophilia, an attraction to new cultures, and even outsiders. High openness is also related to sensation-seeking and a general appreciation for novelty and adventure. There is a moderate correlation of openness to the trait of extroversion – the tendency to be talkative and seek social interaction.

One large study (Gerber et al., 2010) of over twelve thousand Americans examined the Big Five personality traits as predictors of core social and economic values, as well as self-reported political ideology (a five-point scale ranging from very liberal to very conservative). The authors found that higher openness was associated with greater liberalism across all three measures of orientation.

Conservatives Fear Disease and Outsiders

Could fear of disease translate into fear of outsiders and political conservatism? Research has shown that individuals who have a higher perceived threat of disease show more ethnocentrism, greater xenophobic attitudes toward foreigners, and increased willingness to stigmatize socially marginalized groups. This is particularly ironic in the time off Covid-19 but will make sense in the context of conservative “moral foundations” described in a future post in this series.

Xenophobia: Membership Has its Privileges

Xenophobia is a dislike of outsiders and a corresponding preference for in-group members and values. This is not just about “outside” people and their physical differences, but also about differences related to language, customs, dress, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, political party, and even sports teams. This preference often manifests as a sense of patriotism and loyalty. Conservative political ideology predicts prejudice against an outside group. If xenophobia reflects an adaptation that helped our ancestors avoid contagious diseases from outsiders, we would expect to see xenophobia in modern times and conservatives exhibiting more fear of contagion.

Patrilocality and Human Warfare

Historically, humans have been mostly patrilocal – that is, women often left their natal group (i.e. more adapted to outsiders) whereas men stayed put with their male relatives. The resulting concentration of male blood relatives encouraged strong, trusting, and cooperative male bonds based on shared genes. The love and trust that related men have for one another have had profound implications for the human condition across time. Higher relatedness gave men greater confidence in risky cooperative enterprises, such as war. Patrilocality in human groups is associated with more frequent warfare.

Human Males Are Like Chimpanzees

Primatologists Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson write that among four thousand mammals, only chimpanzees and humans follow this pattern of patrilocality, accompanied by “a system of intense, male-initiated territorial aggression, including lethal raiding into neighboring communities in search of vulnerable enemies to attack and kill.” Chimpanzee males are extremely hostile to outside males, thus males rarely transfer between groups. Any male attempting to transfer would be killed by the males of the out-group. By contrast, 50-90 percent of female chimpanzees transfer to other groups to breed once they reach sexual maturity. Whereas male transfers are seen as sexual competitors carrying foreign genes, females are welcomed as potential mating partners. (Again, the female-centric roots of xenophilia.)

Xenophobia and Band of Brothers

Thus, xenophobia is concentrated among men and has caused real dangers for them. Most of the world’s perpetrators of violence are men, but most of its victims are also men. The United Nations recently found that globally, 80 percent of homicide victims are men.

If ancestral men could not leave their group for fear of death, then turning inward to their band of brothers, remaining xenophobic toward outsiders, and favoring dominance over other groups was evolutionarily sensible. The over-representation of men among conservatives and the preponderance of male interests embedded in conservative ideologies reflect these ancient selection pressures on men. (I will come back to xenophobia in post #2 of this series.)

Conservatives Are “Disgusted”

Research consistently finds a higher disgust sensitivity related to self-placement on the Left-Right spectrum. One study of 31,045 men and women from 121 countries found that those who self-rated as conservative showed significantly higher disgust sensitivity than those who self-rated as liberal.

Disgust sensitivity (as well as fear of disease) can translate into fear of outsiders. Researchers found that those with higher disgust sensitivity were more likely to see immigrants and foreign ethnic groups as less than human, and scored higher on measures of political conservatism, social dominance orientation, and right-wing authoritarianism. Research in this area links the fear of pathogens to disapproval of nonnormative sexual behaviors, which suggests that our sexual morality is rooted in adaptations designed to help us survive reproduction in a world filled with pathogens. (I will address social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism more in-depth in the next post.)

Conservatism, Conscientiousness, and Closed Systems

Conscientiousness (a Big Five personality trait) is consistently associated with political conservatism. Conscientiousness relates to orderliness and control of one’s environment. According to a study by Alain Van Heil and colleagues reported in the Journal of Personality, a preference for closed systems is related to cognitive rigidity, or lower cognitive complexity – the ability to grasp alternative perspectives or dimensions and synthesize those varying perspectives into a cohesive framework. An example offered by Garcia: saying “All immigrants are criminals,” instead of reasoning, “Some immigrants my commit crimes, but many do not, and there are a variety of factors that may lead to such behaviors” (p. 60).

Conservatives Are More Rule-oriented

Related to conscientiousness, conservatives in the US score higher than liberals on measures of following rules. This is linked to the conservative value of traditionalism and dedication to the existing way of doing things – a resistance to social change. Conservatives tend to favor harsher punishment for rule-breakers, such as the death penalty and longer prison sentences.

Political Affiliation and the Autistic “Male” Brain

One theory that might explain the conservative, male-centric personality is proffered by British developmental psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen. He argues that autism is an extreme variant of the male brain. Autism is over-represented by males in a 10-1 ratio. Baron-Cohen also describes how men prefer “closed systems” that are predictable, factual, rule-based, knowable, and to some extent, controllable. Again, these ways of processing information are linked more reliably with the “conscientiousness” of conservatism and in opposition to the “openness to experience” of political liberals.

Theory of Mind

Important differences between females and males that Baron-Cohen uses to explain autism are glaringly present between liberals and conservatives. Being able to read the mind of another human (thoughts, emotions, intentions) is called theory of mind (ToM). The inability to read minds is one of the hallmarks of autism. There is much evidence that women outperform men on theory of mind (ToM) tasks and are better at understanding the minds of others.

Brain Morphology and Theory of Mind

The brains of men and women (morphology and function) exhibit vastly more similarities than differences. Even so, existing differences have meaningful implications for our political psychology.

While few studies to date have measured the difference in the theory of mind between liberal and conservatives, two neuroimaging studies give us some interesting clues. One study measured gray-matter volume and found those self-identified as liberal exhibited greater volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region implicated in the theory of mind and feeling the pain of others. Conservatives had greater brain volume in the amygdala — the fear center of the brain.

Another study examined MRIs of Republicans and Democrats. Republicans showed greater activation in the amygdala, and Democrats had more activation in the cingulate insula, a brain region also activated in theory of mind tasks. Mindreading differences between liberals and conservatives may be a function of differences in brain structure.

Women and Liberals Show More Empathy

Any research finding of difference between women and men will have a rough correlation to differences between liberals and conservatives, respectively. For instance, women score higher on questionnaires that measure empathy. Girls from one year of age show more empathy to others’ suffering than do boys. Liberals show more signs of distress about violence and suffering than conservatives and tend to score higher on empathy measures.

Language, Gender, and Political Affiliation

Women have better language skills. A Gallup poll (2001) found that those who identified as being liberal were more likely to be bilingual than moderates or conservatives. Other studies show that liberals score higher than conservatives on verbal ability and vocabulary tests. (And girls develop vocabularies faster than boys.) Lower verbal ability has also been associated with right-wing authoritarianism and a high social dominance orientation. (I would gladly supply the eight studies behind this section upon request.)

Fairness and Turn-taking

Females are generally more concerned with fairness and males are more concerned with dominance hierarchies. These tendencies are observed early. One study found that girls exhibited twenty times more turn-taking than boys and boys exhibited competitive behaviors fifty times more than girls. Boys often form dominance hierarchies. Girls, on the other hand, spend more energy trying to solve differences using politeness, tact, and diplomacy. Boys are more incline to intra-group and intergroup dominance. Boys don’t let losers forget who won. Girls more often try to make the players feel equal and deemphasize who won. Intergroup dominance among male competitors continues into adulthood and is seen everywhere from professional sports teams to street gangs to militaries.

Primacy of Fairness for Liberals

In my next post, I will expound at length about the moral foundations of liberalism and conservativism. Suffice to say now, the concept of fairness (meaning equality) is a sacred value for liberals. In one large international study (34,476 subjects) conducted by Jesse Graham, liberals agreed to such statements as “when the government makes laws, the number one principle should be ensuring that everyone is treated fairly.” Graham found that fairness concerns are reliably higher among those identifying as liberals.

Conservatives and Social Hierarchy

Conservatives are more comfortable with social hierarchies, tend to oppose policies such as affirmative action, and participate little in efforts to redirect social wealth. Research has found that conservatives score higher on the Social Dominance Orientation scale (SDO). In my next post, I will explore and assert the benefits of a conservative framework that are somewhat independent of their comfort with social hierarchies.

“Conservatives” Helped Our Ancestors Survive – a Prologue to Moral Foundations

There is a significant relationship between conservatism, masculinity, physical stature, spatial abilities, and many other adaptations that are geared for using violence to survive a harsh, ancestral environment. There is evidence that less empathy among men has fitness benefits. A lack of empathy has utility in male mate competition and for killing in warfare. Natural selection doesn’t care what traits get passed on. Sometimes the advantage can involve empathy, and at other times, suppressing it. It is not difficult to imagine how suppressing empathy would help in the heat of battle. In a similar vein, intolerance for ambiguity would be useful in dangerous environments such as combat. When the stakes are life and death, it makes more sense to think in black and white terms.

Conclusion of Post #1 — The Roots of Our Political Divide

The differences found between men and women related to cognition, affect, language, social behavior, and brain morphology, strongly mirror the same differences between liberals and conservatives and are directly correlated to male and female mating strategies. “Stereotypes about liberalism having a feminine quality and conservatism a masculine one, have empirical backing and are rooted in our neuropsychology, which was shaped by selective pressures of the natural and social environments of our ancestors. In turn, our evolved political orientations reflect those pressures. While there have been many explanations for what drives our political stances, few have as much explanatory power as the strategies we employ to survive and reproduce” (Sex, Power and Partisanship. p.64-65).

Stayed tuned for Post #2 in this Series, the Roots of Our Political Divide

In the next post (#2 of “Roots”), I will address social dominance orientation (SDO), right-wing authoritarianism, the politics of sexual control, and much more. After that, I will unveil the brilliant work of Jonathan Haidt on the moral foundations of liberalism, conservativism, and libertarianism, and address related issues of motivated reasoning in the post-objectivity era.

References

Gerber, A. et al., (2010). “Personality and Political Attitudes: Relationships across Issue Domains and Political Contexts,” American Political Science Review, 104.

Graham, J. et al., (2011). “Mapping the Moral Domain,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101.

Kanai, R. et al., (2016). “Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults,” Current Biology 21, no. 8.

McCue, C. & Gopoian, D., (2000). “Dispositional Empathy and the Political Gender Gap,” Women & Politics, 21, No. 2.

McDermott, M., (2016). Masculinity, Femininity, and American Political Behavior.

Schreiber, D. et al. (2013). “Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans,” PLoS ONE 8, no. 2.

Van Heil et al., (2010). “The Relationship between Social-Cultural Attitudes and Behavioral Measures of Cognitive Style: A Meta-Analytic Integration of Studie,” Journal of Personality 78, no. 6.

Please Note: Your comment may take up to 12 seconds to register and the confirmation message will appear above the “Submit a Comment” text. 

Root of Our Political Divide – Part 2: Post-Trump Authoritarianism

Evolutionary Science and Our Political Divide: An Introduction

by | Oct 6, 2020 | Evolutionary Science and Our Political Divide, Gender Politics

# 1 – Introduction and Personal Assessments

I am temporarily setting side my series on the domains of difference in sexual psychology and response in order to explore how our current political divide is rooted in evolutionary science and psychology. I will attempt to answer a central question:

What is the basis for a conservative or liberal political ideology and/or the difference in values between a Republican and a Democrat?

In the next two posts, I will address how the differences between men and women relate to liberalism, conservatism, social dominance (hierarchy), authoritarian impulses, and war. Based primarily on the work of Hector Garcia in Sex, Power and Partisanship, I will argue that a male-centric reproductive strategy is shaped by struggles for dominance in mate competitions while a female-centric strategy is shaped by the demands of rearing offspring. Many conservative and liberal interests and positions flow from those different priorities.

I will address a framework for personal values (the moral foundation theory of Jonathan Haidt) that elucidates the difference between a conservative and a liberal, and also touch on the personality traits (the “Big Five”) that give us more clues to political differences. I will examine our “argument culture” in this post-objectivity era of the media and the underlying psychological biases in decision-making and motivated reasoning.

Before we get to these daunting topics, please consider taking one or more personal assessments as an adjunct for self-awareness and preparation to connect with the content to come. All assessments come from YourMorals.Org.

Go there to register (see instructions below) for these assessments if you want your results delivered to you immediately. Otherwise, you may view the assessments without registering using the links below. Assessments are listed in relative importance to the upcoming posts, but all add nuance to this discussion. They answer the following questions about you:

What are your attitudes toward various groups in society?

Find out with the Social Dominance Orientation Scale, under “Attitudes Toward Groups” at YourMorals.org.

Why do you care about some virtues and issues more than others?

Find out with the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, under “General Moral Constructs” at YourMorals.Org.

What is your relationship to authority?

Find out with The RWA Scale, under “Generality Personality Measures.”

How do you rate on the five aspects of personality?

Find out by taking the Big 5 Personality Scale, also found under “Generality Personality Measures.”

The election “season” is upon us. Let’s understand what is going on beneath the surface of our political divisions and the rhetorical rancor that surrounds us. I might end the last post in this series with some healing wisdom from Brene Brown.

Click here to register at YourMorals.org: https://www.yourmorals.org/register.php

  • Click “save” after completing the webform.
  • After you are registered, click on “complete list of studies.” It will take you to the page where you can find the assessments in the categories listed above.

Please Note: Your comment may take up to 12 seconds to register and the confirmation message will appear above the “Submit a Comment” text.