… Many observers have noted that Donald Trump’s anti-trade language is decidedly “us versus them.” In Britain, the “leave” movement’s campaign against economic openness was infused with anti-foreign sentiment. A series of studies by both economists and political scientists confirms this link between nationalistic sentiment and opposition to global markets. […] Read more »
Why facts don’t matter to Trump’s supporters
How did Donald Trump win the Republican nomination, despite clear evidence that he had misrepresented or falsified key issues throughout the campaign? Social scientists have some intriguing explanations for why people persist in misjudgments despite strong contrary evidence. … This literature about misperception was lucidly summarized by Christopher Graves, the […] Read more »
Understanding the allure of Trump
There is a lot being written spoken about Trump by intelligent and articulate commentators whose insights I respect. But as a longtime researcher in cognitive science and linguistics, I bring a perspective from these sciences to an understanding of the Trump phenomenon. … I will begin with an updated version […] Read more »
Will Sanders Supporters Come Around?
Looming over the Democratic National Convention this week was the threat of party division. Will the rift between Hillary Clinton’s supporters and Bernie Sanders’s supporters be mended? Or will there be a failure to reconcile, imperiling the effort to defeat Donald J. Trump in the presidential election? We are not […] Read more »
And Then There Was Trump
How do you deal with an opponent immune to the truth, whose appeal is atavistic rather than rational? How do you pick off enough of his constituents and prevent him from making inroads into yours? In Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and her Democratic allies face a candidate for whom there […] Read more »
Cultural worldviews and beliefs about gun control
… Moral and social psychologists have studied how worldviews – cultural values, norms and how an individual sees the world – affect people’s perspectives on politically charged issues like gun control. What they are finding is that your worldviews – more than your race, your gender, if and how you […] Read more »