The election of Donald Trump and the vote for Britain to leave the EUsurprisedmost observers , but that did n’t stop plenty of multitude providing red-hot proceeds , convinced they understood the reasons . seek a more evidence - based approach , political scientists and psychologists conduct studies of what differentiated multitude who voted one elbow room from those who went the other . Two paper on the matter have now been liberate . The one on the US election is potential to induce some angry denunciation as “ fake word ” , but that ’s nothing to the answer we can require to the Brexit motivation paper .
After Donald Trump ’s election , punditsdebatedthe influence of economical hardshipagainstracial anxiety , but with piddling hard grounds . Professor Diana Mutzof the University of Pennsylvania film advantage of a task require selfsame doubt – include one about trade , in-migration , racial matters , and attitudes to candidates – to a group of 1,200 multitude in October 2012 and 2016 . In theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , they report that the “ event do not support an rendition of the election based on pocketbook economic concerns . ”
or else , Mutz conclude : “ campaigner orientation in 2016 reflected increasing anxiousness among high-pitched - position grouping rather than complaints about past treatment among low - status group . Both growing domestic racial diverseness and globalization contributed to a sense that livid Americans are under siege by these engines of change . ”
Mutz concluded that the the great unwashed most likely to vote for Trump , after either vote Democrat antecedently or not voting at all , were those who felt their place in the world was being menace . This come in part from a sensing that America was make to share its condition as the earthly concern ’s most powerful nation . It was also driven by people who feared the possibility of lose the benefits of being part of a dominant cultural group .
The interpretation that most of Trump ’s voters were motivated in large part by resentment at have to treat Joseph Black , Asians , and Hispanics as their equals is improbable to go down well in some R-2 , most particularly with Trump voters . However , if you recall that conclusion is controversial , wait until you hear what Ph.D. student Leor Zmigrod and confederate at Cambridge University have to say about Brexit champion in the same edition ofProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
The Cambridge team charter a sample of 332 UK citizen and asked them how they vote in the referendum , as well as their attitudes to come to issues regarding internal identity operator and refinement . They also had the same group do two long - standing run of cerebral capacity . TheRemote Associates Testmeasures verbal creative thinking , while theWisconsin batting order Sorting Testis used to appraise strategical planning and nonfigurative reasoning , particularly for people who have suffer brain damage .
What the authors call “ subjective and documentary cognitive inflexibleness ” ( but others might call the inability to adapt to alter circumstances ) auspicate enceinte nationalism , conservativism , and sustenance for tyrannical policies . On the plus side , people with these sorts of attitudes were also more probable to be conscientious and emotionally stable . The newspaper concludes that the results of these tests accounted for almost half ( 47.6 percent ) of the variability in support for Brexit .
Zmigrod stressed many other component are at play in the other half of the variance . “ Ideologies such as nationalism are highly complex constructs , and there are many reasons mass believe what they do and vote the way they do , ” she said in astatement . The same applies equally well to Mutz ’s determination .
Nevertheless , Zmigrodadded : “ In today ’s politically - polarise climate , it is important to realize more about the psychological processes behind nationalistic and social attitudes if we are to build bridge between residential area . ”
Whether the picture tie will work up more bridges than it burns remains to be see .
