People with lower emotional intelligence are more likely to hold right-wing views, study finds.
New research from Belgium provides evidence that deficits in emotion understanding and emotion management are related to right-wing and prejudiced attitudes.
“I have a lifelong interest in political psychology and in political ideology in particular.
“Many scholars have investigated the cognitive basis of ideology in general, and right-wing ideological attitudes in particular.
In the present study, we wanted to investigate if a similar relationship would exist for emotional abilities.”.
In two studies, the researchers assessed the emotional abilities and political ideology of 983 Belgian undergraduate students.
Emotional ability was measured with three tests: the Situational Test of Emotional Understanding, the Situational Test of Emotion Management, and the Geneva Emotion Recognition Test. »
