Leiden University Student Repository

Rosenthal, Martin Sindri (2023)

Worlds Apart: Ideological Differences in Attack and Defense

Master thesis | Psychology (MSc)

In the study of political ideology, a debate has formed between two opposite sides, one side belief that there is a fundamental difference in the psychological process of rightist and leftists. Those who oppose this, belief that there bias in research methods and there is not a difference for rightists and leftists. A study was conducted online, recruiting a sample of 388 participants from the United States United Kingdom, with the aim to find out if aggression differed between leftists and rightist in a context neutral situation. Using the game of Attack and Defense to provide a context neutral situation, the results showed that rightist were significantly more aggressive than leftists regardless of who they played against. However, when looking at aggression levels when playing against a member of an outgroup, the results contradicted what was hypothesized. Leftists were significantly more aggressive than rightists when playing against a member of their political outgroup.

Context neutral

Aggression

Leftist

Rightist

Attack and Defense

Author

Rosenthal, Martin Sindri

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Economic and Consumer Psychology

Supervisors

Pliskin, R.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en