The Psychology Of The Alt-Right

The rise of the American alternative right, or alt-right, has been on many minds in the last year. This group includes white nationalists, white supremacists, neo-nazis, etc. and has recently made headlines with demonstrations of violence and power at Charlottesville, Virginia. But what are the individuals in this movement like? This article discusses what self-identifying alt-righters reveal about themselves, in a psychological perspective. 

Patrick Forscher and Nour Kteily surveyed 447 self-identifying alt-righters to delve into their values, motivations, personality traits, and tendencies. And it is quite as you might expect, if not worse. "This group is supportive of social hierarchies that favor whites at the top. It’s distrustful of mainstream media and strongly opposed to Black Lives Matter. Respondents were highly supportive of statements like, 'There are good reasons to have organizations that look out for the interests of white people'. And when they look at other groups — like black Americans, Muslims, feminists, and journalists — they’re willing to admit they see these people as 'less evolved'." And the differences between the alt-right and other groups is substantial, especially regarding levels of dehumanization, online harassment, and support for collective white action. Lastly, they are unabashedly expressing these views. 

This article lays out the findings of this study very clearly, as well as its potential implications and uses. The authors of the study hope that it may be a place to start acting on the prejudices of this group, whether it be targeting dehumanization or preventing aggression. It gives hard evidence of many things that people suspect about members of the alt-right, and armed with this, perhaps changes can be made.