Are Right-Wing Adherents Mentally Troubled? Recent Insights on the Relationship of Right-Wing Attitudes With Threat and Psychological Ill-Being

Abstract

Classic views on right-wing attitudes suggest that right-wing adherents are characterized by psychological problems, such as deeply rooted anxieties and fundamental unhappiness. This perspective has gained much attention and has influenced the way researchers and even laypeople think about right-wing individuals. We reviewed recent accumulated evidence that suggests that right-wing attitudes are not “bad for the self” and that right-wing adherents have relatively normal mental lives. Specifically, we found that although right-wing adherents feel threatened by societal problems (external threat), they do not experience strong personal anxieties (internal threat). Moreover, our evidence showed that right-wing attitudes are weakly related to psychological ill-being. These findings are discussed in terms of the self-defensive function of right-wing attitudes, and a novel perspective that distinguishes between different levels of the self is proposed.