Abstract
With Donald Trump the Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee for the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, speculations of why Trump resonates with many Americans are widespread - as are suppositions of whether, independent of party identification, people might vote for Hillary Clinton. The present study, using a sample of American adults (n = 406), investigated whether two ideological beliefs, namely, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) uniquely predicted Trump support and voting intentions for Clinton. Cognitive ability as a predictor of RWA and SDO was also tested. Path analyses, controlling for political party identification, revealed that higher RWA and SDO uniquely predicted more favorable attitudes of Trump, greater intentions to vote for Trump, and lower intentions to vote for Clinton. Lower cognitive ability predicted greater RWA and SDO and indirectly predicted more favorable Trump attitudes, greater intentions to vote for Trump and lower intentions to vote for Clinton.
DOI
10.1016/j.paid.2016.10.054
Publication Date
2017-02-01
Publication Title
Personality and Individual Differences
Volume
106
Publisher
Elsevier BV
ISSN
0191-8869
Embargo Period
2024-11-22
First Page
287
Last Page
291
Recommended Citation
Choma, B., & Hanoch, Y. (2017) 'Cognitive ability and authoritarianism: Understanding support for Trump and Clinton', Personality and Individual Differences, 106, pp. 287-291. Elsevier BV: Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.10.054
Comments
publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Cognitive ability and authoritarianism: Understanding support for Trump and Clinton journaltitle: Personality and Individual Differences articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.10.054 content_type: article copyright: © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.