Tribal Politics: Political Orientation Predicts Authoritarian Traits, Cross-Cultural Interactions, and Adherence to Common Identity Factors

Cultural interactions have been at the forefront of political strife in recent years as authoritarian regimes have come to power across the globe. This warrants investigation by social science researchers in the fields of social psychology, political psychology, and cognitive psychology. This study drew upon those three fields to explore the relationships between political orientation and (1) authoritarian traits, (2) attitudes towards intergroup relations and cross-cultural interactions (CCI), and (3) identity factors, largely through the lens of Social Identity Theory. Participants comprised 2,582 undergraduates at a public university in the U.S. The Diverse Learning Environments survey assessed views on social identity, intergroup relations, political and religious ideology, and social and political issues. Correlational analysis and ANOVA were conducted to determine relationships between variables and differences between groups. Results indicated that the more strongly respondents rated their political orientation as conservative, the more authoritarian traits they tended to report, the less likely they were to engage in CCI, and the more likely they were to hold negative views of those from different backgrounds than themselves. The more respondents rated their political orientation as liberal, the more open they were to diversity and more likely they were to engage in CCI. Identity factors appeared to be more important to conservatives than to liberals in that strength of political ideology was related to common identity characteristics for conservatives but not for liberals.