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Perceived grievance and individualising moralities exploring the psychological structure of left-wing authoritarianism1.13 MB
Published VersionCC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
Perceived grievance and individualising moralities: exploring the psychological structure of left-wing authoritarianism
Journal of Political Ideologies, Vol.30(3), pp.748-773
2025
Appears in UniSC Supported Open Access Outputs
Abstract
Research shows a sharp increase in political polarization over the last two decades. While right-wing authoritarianism has received considerable academic attention, the psychological mechanisms of left-wing authoritarianism remain under-explored. This study used structural equation modeling to empirically test the factors that influence left-wing authoritarianism and its relationship with features of identity politics and psychological distress. Moral foundations theory was used to assess the moral concerns underlying left-wing authoritarianism. Participants from English-speaking countries (52.4% female, aged 18 to 85 years old) were recruited from various political groups on social media. The final sample (N = 299) voluntarily completed an online survey measuring left-wing authoritarianism, psychological distress, moral concerns, need for cognitive closure, and emotional reactivity. The final model explained 53% of the variance in left-wing authoritarianism and demonstrated that psychological distress indirectly affects left-wing authoritarianism through perceived grievance. However, perceived grievance had the strongest direct impact, providing support for the premise that perceived grievance, a feature of identity politics, constitutes a strong positive predictor of left-wing authoritarianism. Additionally, non-hypothesized mediating effects were observed from perceived grievance to the individualizing foundations and left-wing authoritarianism.
Details
- Title
- Perceived grievance and individualising moralities: exploring the psychological structure of left-wing authoritarianism
- Authors
- Savannah Love - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - PsychologyRachael Sharman (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - Psychology
- Publication details
- Journal of Political Ideologies, Vol.30(3), pp.748-773
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Date published
- 2025
- DOI
- 10.1080/13569317.2024.2344755
- ISSN
- 1469-9613; 1356-9317
- Copyright note
- © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
- Data Availability
- Stored on the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Research (R) network drive. Dataset unavailable as we do not have ethics permission to make public.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Health - Psychology
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991026296202621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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