The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology (OXFORD HANDBOOKS SERIES)

For reasons that need no repetition, the individual’s public preference depends on Ye, the expected level of the public opposition, and on x, his private preference. Given that his incentive to support the opposition varies directly with Ye and inversely with x, there is a critical value of Ye at which he will abandon the government for the opposit

Consider, for example, the shortcut rule that goes, “If an expert said so, it must be true.” As we will see in chapter 5, there is an unsettling tendency in our society to accept unthinkingly the statements and directions of individuals who appear to be authorities on a topic. That is, rather than thinking about an expert’s arguments and being conv

A 2011 study by the neuroscientist Ryota Kanai at University College London found that young adults who identify as conservative have structurally different brains from those who identify as liberals: they have a larger right amygdala, a part of the brain associated with emotion processing, especially anxiety and fear responses.

First, there is simple emotional contagion, as described by Fowler and Christakis. People pick up emotions from others, and emotional contagion is especially strong among girls. Second, there is “prestige bias,” which is the social learning rule I described in chapter 2: Don’t just copy anyone; first find out who the most prestigious people are, th