Worldview defence and self-determination theory explain the return of racial voting: Evidence from the 2016 US election |
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| Authors: | Mark Fabian Robert Breunig Jan-Emmanuel De Neve |
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| Institution: | 1. Institute for Social Change, University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia;2. Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia;3. Well-Being Research Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK |
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| Abstract: | We use self-determination (SDT) and worldview defence theories (WDT) to explicate the psychological roots of identitarian voting in recent US, UK and EU elections. We test our theory using the 2016 US election as a case study, data from a representative sample of nearly half a million Americans, and a measure of racial animus derived from Google search data. We find that worry has a strong and significant positive association with Trump's vote share, as predicted by WDT. However, this is reversed in counties with high levels of relatedness—one of the three basic psychological needs emphasised by SDT. The positive relationship between racial animus and Trump also loses significance once an interaction between racial animus and relatedness is introduced. These results imply that identitarianism is driven at least in part by a desire for in-group affiliation emerging out of worldview defence and unmet basic psychological needs. |
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| Keywords: | group identity self-determination theory voting well-being worldview defence theory |
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