A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 1

A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right

Patrick S. Forscher1 and Nour S. Kteily2

1
Department of Psychological Science, University of Arkansas, 2Department of Management and
Organizations, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

Author notes

Data and materials for this project can be found at https://osf.io/xge8q/

Conceived research: Forscher & Kteily; Designed research: Forscher & Kteily; Collected data:
Forscher & Kteily; Analyzed data: Forscher & Kteily; Wrote paper: Forscher & Kteily; Revised
paper: Forscher & Kteily.

Address correspondence to Patrick S. Forscher, Department of Psychological Science, University

of Arkansas, 216 Memorial Hall, Fayetteville, AR, 72701 (Email: schnarrd@gmail.com).
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 2

Abstract

The 2016 U.S. presidential election coincided with the rise the “alternative right” or “alt-
right”. Although alt-right associates wield considerable influence on the current administration,
the movement’s loose organizational structure has led to disparate portrayals of its members’
psychology. We surveyed 447 alt-right adherents on a battery of psychological measures,
comparing their responses to those of 382 non-adherents. Alt-right adherents were much more
distrustful of the mainstream media and government; expressed higher Dark Triad traits, social
dominance orientation, and authoritarianism; reported high levels of aggression; and exhibited
extreme levels of overt intergroup bias, including blatant dehumanization of racial minorities.
Cluster analyses suggest that alt-right supporters may separate into two subgroups: one more
populist and anti-establishment and the other more supremacist and motivated by maintaining
social hierarchy. We argue for the need to give overt bias greater empirical and theoretical
consideration in contemporary intergroup research.

Keywords: politics; extremism; intergroup relations; dehumanization; prejudice; alt-right

 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 3

A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right

The 2016 U.S. presidential election broke with orthodoxy on numerous counts. One of its
most surprising features was the fact that Donald Trump won the Republican nomination — and
subsequently the U.S. presidential election — despite flouting both conservative orthodoxy and
U.S. political norms forbidding offensive speech targeting minorities.

Trump’s election coincided with the rise of a political movement, the “alternative right”
or “alt-right”, that took an active role in cheerleading his candidacy and several of his
controversial policy positions (Schreckinger, 2017). Although the movement embraced Trump
enthusiastically, the precise nature of its membership and goals remain unclear. Nevertheless,
associates of the alt-right appear to wield considerable influence within Trump’s administration
(Schreckinger, 2017), dramatically increasing the movement’s reach and political power.
Moreover, some alt-right associates have shown a willingness to use aggressive behavior in
pursuing their aims, including violence at political rallies (Berkeleyside editors, 2017) and
doxxing of political opponents (i.e., publicly releasing sensitive personal information on the
internet; Broderick, 2017). Beyond the significance of the alt-right’s rise for theories of
intergroup relations, the movement’s growing political influence and the seeming willingness of
some of its adherents to use extremist tactics towards their objectives highlight the practical need
to better understand the psychological roots of alt-right support.

Some of the opaqueness of the alt-right’s motivations follows from the movement’s
largely decentralized structure; whatever formal organization it has exists primarily online
(Caldwell, 2016; Bokhari & Yiannopolous, 2016; Lyons, 2017; NPR Staff, 2016; Southern
Poverty Law Center, 2017). This has led to divergent understandings of their psychology. On
one end of the spectrum are portrayals characterizing the movement as primarily driven by anti-
globalist and anti-establishment sentiment (Guardian style editors, 2016; Bokhari &
Yiannopoulos, 2016; Daniszewski, 2016). On the other end are portrayals characterizing the
movement as driven by anxiety about threats to the status and power of US-born Whites (Lyons,
2017; SLPC, 2017; Caldwell, 2016; Daniszewski, 2016; see also Gest, Reny & Mayer, 2017),
with some outlets explicitly labeling the movement as White supremacist (NPR staff, 2016;
Armstrong, 2017).

These different views of the alt-right make distinct predictions about its primary goals. If
the alt-right is primarily anti-establishment, one would expect its adherents to focus on
transferring power from perceived elites to perceived non-elites. If the alt-right is primarily
supremacist, one would expect its adherents to focus on protecting and promoting the political
interests of Whites and other favored groups. These characterizations need not be mutually
exclusive; populist and supremacist subgroups may exist within the alt-right, and a given person
may identify with the movement for both populist and supremacist reasons — perhaps especially
if they view Whites as a victimized group whose plight has been ignored by elites (Craig &
Richeson, 2014; Norton & Sommers, 2011).

We sought to clarify the psychology of people who identify with the alt-right movement
by comparing the characteristics of supporters and non-supporters. We assessed an array of
psychological constructs, capturing a wide range of potentially relevant distinguishing
characteristics. Based on journalistic and academic investigations of the radical right, we
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 4

speculated that populism and supremacism might be important features of alt-right support and
ensured that we assessed associated psychological constructs. For populism, these included
concern about the gap between elites and non-elites, general attitudes about the economy, and
trust in various media outlets. For supremacism, these included desire for collective action on
behalf of Whites, Social Dominance Orientation (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994),
blatant dehumanization (Kteily et al., 2015), and the motivations to express prejudice toward
Blacks (Forscher et al., 2015). We use “populism” and “supremacism” broadly — the former to
mean suspicion of elites and mainstream institutions, and the latter to mean a belief that some
groups are superior to others and need their interests protected.1 Finally, we measured
characteristics, such as the Dark Triad and self-reported aggression, that might capture a
disposition toward extremism.

Although we did not have firm hypotheses due to our study’s exploratory nature, we had
a modest expectation that alt-right adherents would prefer groups that have been historically
advantaged in US society (e.g., men, Whites), derogate both disadvantaged minority groups (e.g.,
Blacks, Muslims) and political outgroups (e.g., Democrats), distrust mainstream institutions, and
report high levels of extremist behavior.

Method

All data and materials can be found at https://osf.io/xge8q/.

Alt-right sample. We recruited our participants using mTurk and set a recruitment goal
of 400-500 per sample, which we believed was large enough to obtain accurate effect size
estimates for most psychological variables (Schönbrodt & Perugini, 2013). Our mTurk posting
specifically asked for alt-right participants, and we offered participants $3 for their participation.

To ensure that this sample genuinely identified with the alt-right, we added identification
probes both at the beginning and end of the survey, with the latter probe appealing for honesty
and assuring that compensation was not contingent on their response. If a participant answered
that they were not a member of the alt-right at the beginning of the survey, they were routed out
and a cookie was placed in their browser preventing re-responding. If the participant indicated
they were not alt-right at the end of the survey, they still received payment but their data were
not included in analysis.

978 people viewed the online consent form, 682 identified as alt-right in the first probe,
552 made it past the initial demographic questions, 492 reached the second probe, and 480
(97.6%) identified as alt-right on this second probe. We eliminated 36 extra responses: 17
because they were not recruited through mTurk,2 14 because we determined that they were
unlikely to be true members of the alt-right from their free response data (specifically, when
asked to describe the movement, they copied text directly from the two top Google hits for “alt-
right”: Wikipedia and the Southern Poverty Law Center), 3 because we determined that they

1
Note that our measured constructs map imperfectly onto these definitions and hence are imperfect approximations
of them.
2
Initially, we supplemented our alt-right recruitment through social media, which resulted in 17 responses. Because
we met our recruitment goals efficiently using mTurk recruitment alone, we decided to eliminate non-mTurk
responses to ensure comparable recruitment methods across samples.
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 5

were less-complete duplicates of other responses in the dataset, and 2 because they both
completed the survey very quickly (6 minutes or less) and gave repetitive survey responses. This
left 447 participants for analysis (34.0% female, 66.0% male; 93.3% White, 2.9% Black, 4.9%
Hispanic, 1.8% East Asian, 1.1% South Asian, 1.1% other). 74.7% reported voting for Donald
Trump, 5.6% for Hillary Clinton, 4.5% for Gary Johnson, 0.7% for Jill Stein, 2.9% for another
candidate, and 11.6% reported not voting.

Comparison sample. A few weeks after recruiting the alt-right sample, we recruited a
sample of participants who did not identify with the alt-right through the same sampling source,
mTurk. We did not identify any specific inclusion criteria in our mTurk advertisement.
Participants were paid $2 for participating (alt-right participants received a slightly higher
incentive because we assumed they would be more difficult to recruit).

To ensure this sample did not identify with the alt-right, we placed an identification probe
at the end of the survey. 513 people viewed the online consent form, 411 completed the initial
demographic questions, and 405 reached the identification probe, of whom 390 (96.3%) did not
identify as alt-right. We eliminated 8 extra responses: 7 because they had duplicate responses in
the dataset, and 1 because this person both completed the survey very quickly (6 minutes or less)
and gave repetitive survey responses. This left 382 participants for analysis (49.7% female,
50.3% male; 80.9% White, 11.0% Black, 6.3% Hispanic, 5.8% East Asian, 1.3% South Asian,
0.8% other). 17.5% reported voting for Donald Trump, 55.8% for Hillary Clinton, 5.2% for
Gary Johnson, 2.1% for Jill Stein, 3.4% for another candidate, and 13.6% reported not voting.

Procedure. All measures described below were presented in blocks of similarly-themed

scales. The order of the blocks was randomized, as was the order of the scales within blocks
and, unless otherwise noted, the order of questions within scales. We reduced sets of items that
did not already have a previously validated factor structure3 through exploratory factor analysis
with the alt-right sample (the focus of our investigation), using scree plots of principle
components to decide the number of extracted factors followed by oblimin rotations to decide the
variables that loaded on each factor (see https://osf.io/xge8q/ for the scree plots and factor
loading matrices).

The survey started with four free response questions to allow the participants to describe
their thoughts in their own words. For the alt-right sample, these were “In one or two sentences,
how would you describe the alt-right ideology?”, “Why do you choose to identify with the alt-
right movement?”, “What are some common misconceptions about people who identify with the
alt-right movement?”, and “What are your thoughts when people claim the alt-right is racist?”
For the comparison sample, these were “In one or two sentences, how would you describe your
political ideology?”, “What are your general views about the alt-right?”, “What parts, if any, of
the alt-right movement are you sympathetic to?”, and “What are your thoughts when people
claim the alt-right is racist?” All answers to these questions are available at https://osf.io/xge8q/.

In our description below, we omit the following measures: (1) scales measuring the
attribution of animalistic traits to White and Black people due to overlap with the ascent items

3
These included ascent, self-reported aggression, attitudes towards the economy, perceptions of disadvantage,
concern about political issues, police attitudes, media trust, and race-based collective action.
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 6

(which we had for a broader array of groups) and to avoid overweighting dehumanization in our
cluster analyses (described below); (2) Whites’ beliefs about the goals of Black people because it
was an exploratory measure included for another project; and (3) single items measuring the
evaluation of President Trump’s job performance, perceptions of Trump as an ally of the alt-
right, and satisfaction with the direction of the country because they are single-item measures
with unknown reliability.4 We note that, as is common with factor analyses, some subjectivity is
required in labeling different factors, and it can in certain cases be challenging to identify one
label that captures the full conceptual scope of a given factor. We therefore acknowledge that
some of our labels for the constructs may be imperfect. A summary of our scales, including scale
anchors, the number of items per scale, sample items, and scale reliabilities is shown in Table 1.

4
Descriptive statistics for these measures, and all measures prior to the construction of aggregates through
exploratory factor analysis, are shown at https://osf.io/xge8q/. As also shown there, our cluster analysis results are
robust to the inclusion of the omitted single-item measures.
 A Psychological Profile
of the Alt-Right 7

Table 1. Survey measures.

 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 8

Friendships. Participants were asked to list the names or nicknames of up to five

friends. They then rated each friend using 1 to 7 Likert scales on the degree to which they felt
close to the friend, the degree to which the friend’s morals matched their own, and the degree to
which the friend identified as a member of the alt-right (for the comparison sample, this last
question asked the extent towhich each friend shared the participant’s political views). We
created averages of each subscale representing their perceived closeness to and moral match with
their friends, as well as the degree to which their friends shared their political views.

Personality characteristics. We measured both moral foundations (Graham et al., 2011)

and Dark Triad traits (Jones & Paulhus, 2014).

Moral foundations are theorized to derive from innate psychological mechanisms that can
be modified by the social environment. These foundations consist of equality, fairness, loyalty,
authority, and purity, which are all measured using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ).
The short form of the MFQ measures each of these foundations with 4 items (i.e., 20 items total),
half of which ask participants to rate the relevance of various considerations to their morals on a
0 (not at all relevant) to 5 (extremely relevant) scale, and half of which ask participants to rate
their agreement with various statements on a 0 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) scale.
We only used the agreement items to conserve survey length (i.e., 2 items per foundation). Only
the purity subscale yielded acceptable reliability, and we therefore present results only for this
subscale.

The Dark Triad traits consist of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, each of
which is associated with callous, manipulative behavior (Jones & Paulhus, 2011). The short
form of the Dark Triad scale (Jones & Paulhus, 2014) measures each trait using 9 items using a 1
(strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) scale. We further shortened these to 4 items each and
averaged all items for analysis.

Intergroup orientation. We measured Social Dominance Orientation (SDO; Pratto,

Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994) and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA; Altemeyer,
1988).

SDO assesses individuals’ beliefs about the desirability of hierarchy between groups. We
used six items from the SDO7 scale (Ho et al., 2015), including all four of the short-form SDO-D
sub-dimension (reflecting active support for the domination of some groups by others) and two
from the short-form SDO-E sub-dimension (reflecting opposition to equality), each of which is
measured on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) scale. The two remaining SDO-E items
were left out due to experimenter error. We examined the overall SDO scale (i.e., as one
dimension) for our purposes here.

RWA is an individual difference composed of conventionalism, submission to authority,

and authoritarian aggression. We assessed RWA with 12 items taken from Altemeyer’s (1981)
scale.

Motivations to inhibit and express prejudice. These scales consisted of the

motivations to express prejudice toward Blacks (Forscher, Cox, Graetz, & Devine, 2015), and
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 9

the motivations to respond without prejudice toward Blacks (Plant & Devine, 1998). Each
motivation is further subdivided into an internal (value-driven) motivation and an external
(social) motivation, resulting in four subscales: The internal motivation to express prejudice
(IMP), and the external motivation to express prejudice (EMP), the internal motivation to
respond without prejudice (IMS), the external motivation to respond without prejudice (EMS).
Each scale is measured using 5 items on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree) scale. We
shortened this to 3 items each.

Dehumanization scales. We measured blatant dehumanization of various groups using

the ascent dehumanization measure (Kteily, Bruneau, Waytz, & Cotterill, 2015). This scale asks
people to rate how ‘evolved’ they perceive people or groups to be using a diagram shown in
Figure 1. This diagram depicts the purported biological and cultural evolution of humans from
quadrupedal human ancestors. People use a 0-100 slider to decide where a person or group falls
along the continuum established by the silhouettes in the image, with a score of 0 corresponding
to the quadrupedal human ancestor and a score of 100 corresponding to a modern human.
Higher scores therefore indicate humanization, lower scores dehumanization.

Figure 1. Image used for the ascent scale anchor points.

We assessed humanity attributions towards a broad array of targets. On the basis of

exploratory factor analysis among the alt-right sample, we created three subscales corresponding
to (1) the humanity attributed to targets favored by the alt-right (Americans, Europeans, Swedes,
White people, Donald Trump, Republicans, Christians, men); (2) religious and ethnic groups
targeted by the alt-right (Arabs, Muslims, Turks, Mexicans, Nigerians, and Blacks); and (3)
political opposition groups (Hillary Clinton, Democrats, feminists, Republicans who refused to
vote for Trump, journalists).

Self-reported aggressive behavior. We adapted items from the Pew Research Center
(2014) to measure the self-reported frequency of online and offline name-calling, physical
threats, harassment, and making statements because others find them offensive. We also
measured two online behaviors that have no clear offline equivalents: making private
information about a person public without their consent (i.e., doxxing) and sharing memes
intended to offend others. All self-reported behaviors were measured on a 1 (not at all
frequently) to 7 (very frequently) scale. On the basis of exploratory factor analysis, we created
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 10

separate subscales assessing harassing behavior (online and offline threats, online and offline
harassment, doxxing) and intentionally offensive behavior (online and offline name-calling,
online and offline offensive statements, meme-sharing).

Attitudes about the economy. We adapted four questions from a survey by Pew
Research Center (2016). Two of the questions asked the participant to assess each of their
personal economic situation and that of the national economy using a 1 (very bad) to 4 (very
good) scale. The second asked the participants to rate whether they expected their personal and
the national economic situations to get worse or improve using a 1 (worsen a lot) to 5 (improve a
lot) scale. On the basis of exploratory factor analysis, we created separate subscales measuring
current and future evaluations of the economy across the personal and national dimensions.

Perceptions of disadvantage. We asked participants to rate the degree to which they

thought 10 groups were advantaged or disadvantaged in society using a 1 (strong disadvantage)
to 5 (strong advantage) scale. On the basis of exploratory factor analysis, we created two
subscales assessing perceptions of disadvantage affecting allies and ingroups (i.e., White people,
men, Republicans, and the alt-right) and that affecting adversaries and outgroups (i.e., Black
people, Muslims, Hispanics, women, and immigrants).

Concern about political issues. We asked participants to rate the extent to which they
perceived 12 issues to be a problem in the United States using a 1 (not at all a problem) to 7 (a
big problem) scale. On the basis of exploratory factor analysis, we created four subscales
assessing concern about discrimination against ingroups and allies (i.e., discrimination against
Whites, discrimination against men), concerns about corruption and wealth inequality (i.e.,
government corruption, the gap between the Washington elites and the common folk, the gap
between the rich and the poor), security-related concerns (i.e., crime, illegal immigration, Islamic
terrorism), and concerns about issues and groups prioritized by liberals (i.e., discrimination
against Blacks, discrimination against women, climate change).

Police support. The police support questions consisted of 3 items that asked people to
agree or disagree with statements that either expressed support for the police or suspicion that
police are racist using a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) scale. We averaged items
together such that higher numbers indicate greater support.

Media trust. The media questions asked the participants to rate their trust in 22 news
media outlets, which we sampled from a report by Pew Research Center (2014) and
supplemented to capture a broad range of ideological lean and media format. Participants rated
the extent to which they perceived each outlet as trustworthy using a 0 (not trustworthy at all) to
100 (extremely trustworthy) scale. Participants were allowed to select a checkbox labeled “Don’t
know” if they were not familiar with a particular media outlet. On the basis of exploratory factor
analysis, we created separate subscales representing trust in “alternative” media outlets (i.e., Fox
News, the Drudge Report, InfoWars, Breitbart News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn
Beck) and more “mainstream” outlets (i.e., CNN, the Economist, NYT, Washington Post, BBC,
the Wall Street Journal, ABC, CBS, NBC, and MSNBC. Although they loaded on the same
factor, we removed ratings of Buzzfeed, the Rachel Maddow Show, and the Huffington Post
because they did not seem as mainstream as the other outlets in the cluster. Note that the
“alternative” media grouping contains Fox News, which is arguably mainstream (at least in terms
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 11

of the size of its viewership) but tends to take a substantially different editorial line than other
mainstream television outlets and may thus be seen by participants as aligning with the rest of
the “alternative” grouping. In addition, the “mainstream” factor contains some outlets, like the
Economist and the Wall Street Journal, that lean conservative but, because they tend to
emphasize economic rather than social conservatism, tend not to advocate for the same social
policies as the outlets in the “alternative” cluster (Benkler, Faris, Roberts, & Zuckerman, 2017).

Race-based collective action. This category included two scales, one measuring support
for collective action on behalf of the interests of White people (e.g., “I think there are good
reasons to have organizations that look out for the interests of Whites”), and a second measuring
opposition to the Black Lives Matter (i.e., BLM) movement. Support for collective action on
behalf of Whites was measured using 5 items, and the scale assessing opposition to BLM
consisted of 3 items. All items used a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) scale.

Results

Alt-right descriptive statistics. As shown in Table 2, in absolute terms, the alt-right

sample reported low levels of trust in the mainstream media (M = 28.65, SD = 22.27) and
moderate levels of trust in alternative media (M = 45.23, SD = 24.90). The alt-right sample also
reported levels at or near the scale midpoint of Dark Triad traits (M = 3.73, SD = 1.11), social
dominance orientation (M = 3.98, SD = 1.57), Right-Wing Authoritarianism (M = 4.28, SD =
1.31), and ascent dehumanization of both religious/ethnic outgroups (M = 63.14, SD = 30.61)
and the alt-right’s political opposition groups (M = 60.19, SD = 31.44).

Although the mean levels of these latter variables were all near the scale midpoints, they
are nevertheless striking considering how the variables are scaled. For example, the means of
63.14 and 60.19 on the ascent scale place the religious/national groups and political opposition
groups just above the primitive, stoop-necked human ancestor in Figure 1 and are just 10 rating
points above Americans’ ascent ratings of ISIS (M = 53.53, Kteily et al., 2015), a group with
which the US is engaged in violent combat. The mean of 3.98 on social dominance place the alt-
right participants directly between disagreement and agreement on items like “Some groups of
people are simply inferior to other groups”, a full rating point above the level that typifies a
nationally representative sample of Whites (Ho et al., 2015).

From a similar perspective, the mean reported levels of some of the other variables are
“high” even though they are far from the scale maximums. This is the case for the motivations to
express prejudice (IMP: M = 3.74, SD = 1.57; EMP: M = 3.07, SD = 2.19), self-reported
offensive behavior (M = 2.69, SD = 1.68) and harassment (M = 1.98, SD = 1.44). These mean
levels imply that people in the alt-right sample only slightly disagree with statements like
“Avoiding interactions with Black people is important to my self-concept” (IMP) and “I avoid
interactions with Blacks because of pressure from others” (EMP), and reported doing things like
“Online, physically threatened another person” (harassment) and “Offline, made a statement
because others find it offensive” (offense) somewhat frequently. Levels of desire for collective
action on behalf of White people (M = 5.06, SD = 1.62) and opposition to collective action on
behalf of Black people in the form of Black Lives Matter (M = 5.57, SD = 1.36) were particularly
high, reflecting support for statements like “I think there are good reasons to have organizations
 A Psychological Profile
of the Alt-Right 12

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of the alt-right and comparison sample. “Estimate” reflects the difference in means across samples
(Malt-right – Mcomparison), “Lower” reflects the lower bound of the 95% CI, “Upper” reflects the upper bound, and “d” reflects the
standardized mean difference. The means are color coded such that red represents the scale minimum, white represents the scale
midpoint, and green represents the scale maximum. The mean differences are color coded such that red represents a third of the
maximum possible negative difference, white represents no difference, and green represents a third of the maximum possible positive
difference.
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 13

that look out for the interests of Whites”, and “I think the Black Lives Matter movement has
been very harmful to our country”.

Comparisons of alt-right adherents and non-adherents. The characteristics of the alt-

right sample are brought into still starker relief when compared to the non-alt-right sample. As
shown in Figure 2 and Table 2, the alt-right sample reported much higher levels of SDO, RWA,
the motivations to express prejudice, harassing and offensive behavior, perceptions that the alt-
right’s ingroups were at a disadvantage, concern about discrimination against the alt-right’s
ingroups, concern about security issues, respect for the police, trust in alternative media, support
for collective action on behalf of White people, and opposition to collective action on behalf of
Black people. The alt-right sample also reported lower levels of embeddedness among
ideologically similar friends, internal motivation to respond without prejudice, perceptions that
the alt-right’s outgroups are at a disadvantage, concern about traditional liberal issues, and trust
in mainstream media. Finally, the alt-right sample reported much higher levels of
dehumanization of religious and ethnic groups, as well as the alt-right’s political opposition
groups.
 A Psychological Profile
of the Alt-Right 14

Figure 2. Density plots of the survey variables for the alt-right and comparison samples. The heights of the density plots are scaled
such that 1 is the distribution maximum.
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 15

Interestingly, compared to the non-alt-right sample, the alt-right reported relatively

similar levels of closeness and moral match to their friends, evaluations of the current state of the
economy, concern about government corruption, and attributions of humanity to the alt-right’s
in-groups (interestingly, this last finding suggests that alt-right non-adherents refrain from
dehumanizing the groups the alt-right supports). Finally, the alt-right expected more
improvement in the state of the economy relative to the non-alt-right sample.

Many of the differences between the alt-right and non-alt-right samples were quite large.
The difference between the two samples in the humanity attributed to religious and ethnic
outgroups disfavored by the alt-right (e.g., Arabs, Muslims) and political adversaries of the alt-
right (23.82 and 25.93 points, respectively) was a quarter the size of the maximum difference
possible on the ascent scale, representing nearly a full standard deviation in our sample (d = .91
and d = .96, respectively). If we translate the alt-right and non-alt-right ratings into their
corresponding ascent silhouettes, this means that our alt-right sample saw religious, national, and
political opposition groups as a full silhouette less evolved than the non-alt-right sample (see
Figure 1). Similarly, the difference in support for collective action on behalf of White people was
2.41 points, about a third the size of the maximum difference possible on a 1-7 scale, and about
one and a half standard deviations large (d = 1.48).

Correlational results. A full correlation matrix, presented separately for alt-right and
non-alt-right participants, is shown at https://osf.io/xge8q/. We focused more closely on the
correlates of four variables we deemed to be especially important outcomes: self-reported
harassment, self-reported offensive behavior, support for collective action on behalf of Whites,
and opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement. As predictors of these outcomes, we chose
SDO, RWA, the internal and external motivations to express prejudice, and a difference score
representing the relative amounts of humanity attributed to White and Black people (White
ascent – Black ascent), which we used in lieu of the separate ascent ratings of the two groups to
remove individual differences in scale usage (Kteily et al., 2015). For each outcome, we fit
regression models that examined all these predictors both individually and simultaneously. To
assess whether these variables serve as potential explanations for the gap between alt-right and
non-alt-right participants in the aggression and collective action variables, we also included a
dummy-coded indicator for sample as a predictor [0=comparison; 1=alt-right]. If, for a given
outcome, the coefficient for sample is reduced in the simultaneous model relative to the
individual model, this tentatively suggests that the set of psychological predictors help explain
why alt-right and non-alt-right participants differ on the outcome.
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 16

Figure 3. Regression results. Each column represents a regression outcome, each row a
predictor. In the “Individual” models, only the predictor was regressed on the outcome; in the
“Simultaneous” models, all predictors were regressed on the outcome simultaneously.
“Dehumanization” represents the relative ascent scores of Whites and Blacks (White ascent –
Black ascent); “Sample” represents a dummy-coded indicator [0=comparison; 1=alt-right].
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 17

The results are shown in Figure 3. Focusing first on self-reported harassing and offensive
behavior, all five predictors were associated with these outcomes in the individual models, but
the only variables to maintain robust relationships in the simultaneous models were the
motivations to express prejudice. In the simultaneous models, people who reported being
motivated to express prejudice for both internal, value-driven reasons and external, social
reasons reported both harassing (IMP: b = .08, 95% CI = [.03, .14]; EMP: b = .28, 95% CI =
[.23, .33]), and offending others (IMP: b = .09, 95% CI = [.02, .15]; EMP: b = .26, 95% CI =
[.19, .32]) more frequently. The coefficients representing the comparison between the non-alt-
right and alt-right samples were greatly reduced from b = .69, 95% CI = [.52, .85] and b = 1.19,
95% CI = [.99, 1.39] in the individual models to b = .17, 95% CI = [.00, .34] and b = .43, 95%
CI = [.22, .65] in the simultaneous models; these reductions were both statistically significant,
harassment: b = .49, 95% CI = [.31, .66], offense: b = .71, 95% CI = [.51, .92]. Keeping in mind
the limitations imposed on our conclusions by our cross-sectional design, this tentatively
suggests that, as a set, the psychological predictors help to account for the gap in self-reported
aggression between the alt-right and non-alt-right samples.

All predictors were also associated with the collective action variables in the individual
models. In the simultaneous models, the motivations to express prejudice were no longer
associated with the collective action variables, but all other predictors were. Specifically, people
who overtly dehumanized Blacks relative to Whites, who reported more social dominance, or
who reported more right-wing authoritarianism were all more likely to support White collective
action (ascent difference: b = .012, 95% CI = [.008, .016]; SDO: b = .24, 95% CI = [.16, .32];
RWA b = .37, 95% CI = [.29, .45]) and oppose Black Lives Matter (ascent difference: b = .007,
95% CI = [.002, .011]; SDO: b = .24, 95% CI = [.16, .32]; RWA: b = .37, 95% CI = [.29, .45]).
The coefficients for sample were reduced from b = 2.41, 95% CI = [2.19, 2.63] and b = 1.98,
95% CI = [1.77, 2.20] in the individual models to b = 1.01, 95% CI = [.78, 1.23] and b = .90,
95% CI = [.66, 1.15] in the simultaneous models. These were statistically significant reductions
(White collective action b = 1.41, 95% CI = [1.19, 1.64]; BLM opposition b = 1.09, 95% CI =
[.86, 1.33]). Still, the coefficients for sample remained substantial in the simultaneous models.
This suggests that our predictors may help explain part, but not all, of the differences in desire
for White collective action and opposition to Black Lives Matter between the alt-right and non-
alt-right samples.

Cluster analysis. Among the alt-right sample, many of the density distributions shown
in Figure 1 are markedly bimodal. This is especially true for the motivations to express
prejudice, the external motivation to respond without prejudice, ascent dehumanization of
derogated and political opposition groups, self-reported aggressive behavior, the desire for
collective action on behalf of Whites, and opposition to Black Lives Matter. These bimodal
distributions hint at possible subgroups of the alt-right that differ in their psychological traits –
and possibly their reasons for identifying with the alt-right.

We investigated the possibility of subgroups among our alt-right sample through model-
based clustering with the mclust package (Fraley & Raftery, 2002). Model-based clustering
represents each cluster as a mixture of variable distributions, each of which has a functional form
that the analyst must specify. mclust handles this specification of the cluster’s distributional
 A Psychological Profile
of the Alt-Right 18

properties by testing a variety of functional forms and choosing the one that yields the best Bayesian Information Criterion (Fraley &
Raftery, 1998).

In addition to specifying a functional form, the analyst must select the number of clusters used to generate a cluster analysis
solution. Methods of evaluating the plausibility of a particular number of clusters generally fall into two categories: internal criteria
and stability criteria. The internal criteria evaluate the quality based on whether the clusters each have a compact structure and are
separated from each other in multidimensional space, whereas the stability criteria evaluate quality based on whether the cluster
solutions change when each variable is deleted from the dataset. Internal criteria thus assess fit of the cluster solution to the data,
whereas stability criteria assess robustness of the cluster solution to alternative specifications.

Table 3. Validation measures for cluster analysis solutions with varying numbers of clusters. The “best” score for each validation
measure is highlighted in yellow.

After standardizing all variables to ensure that none of them were overweighted during clustering, we chose the number of
clusters and validated our choice using the internal and stability criteria from the clValid package (Brock, Pihur, Datta, & Datta,
2008). As shown in Table 3, the two-cluster solution performed best on two of the stability metrics, the Average Proportion of
Overlap (APN) and the Average Distance Between Means (ADM). All solutions had very similar scores on remaining two stability
metrics. We concluded from these results that the two-cluster solution was most robust to alternative specifications. On the internal
metrics, all clusters performed similarly on the Dunn metric, and the three-cluster solution performed best on Connectivity and the
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 19

Silhouette. However, the two-cluster solution did not perform poorly on these latter two metrics;
indeed, it performed second best after the three-cluster solution. We selected the two-cluster
solution as the one that provides the best level of robustness while still providing good fit to the
data.

The two-cluster solution used a functional form that fixed the covariance structure’s
volume and orientation, while allowing the shape to vary. This resulted in clusters that contained
226 and 217 people. As shown in Figure 4, the two clusters were more similar to each other than
they were to the non-alt-right sample. As shown in Table 4, these similarities spanned a large
number of variables, including right-wing authoritarianism, trust in mainstream and alternative
media, attitudes about the current and future state of the economy, support for collective action
on behalf of Whites, and opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement. These similarities
suggest that membership in the alt-right better differentiates our measured psychological
characteristics than does membership in the two alt-right subgroups.

Nevertheless, the two clusters did differ meaningfully. The larger cluster (N = 226),
which we labeled the “populists”, was distinguished by its relatively high levels of concern about
government corruption, M = 5.68, SD = 1.48. The smaller cluster (N = 217), which we labeled
“supremacists”, was distinguished by their higher levels of SDO, their heavy dehumanization of
ethnic/religious outgroups and political opposition groups (national ascent: M = 51.49, SD =
29.51; opposition ascent: M = 51.68, SD = 29.68), and their internal and external motivations to
express prejudice toward Black people (IMP: M = 4.85, SD = 2.18; EMP: M = 4.16, SD = 2.11)
— all features central to the view of certain groups of people as inferior to others. The people in
this cluster also reported high levels of Dark Triad traits, M = 4.53, SD = .93 and aggressive
behavior (harassment: M = 3.01, SD = 1.49; offense: M = 3.98, SD = 1.40), constructs that we
interpreted as indicative of extremist tendencies. Of note, the supremacist cluster was also high
relative to the populist cluster in their ideological embeddedness among other alt-right friends.

We should note that, although those belonging to the supremacist cluster prioritized the
interests of White people, this was neither their exclusive concern nor their singular defining
characteristic. Indeed, as we note above, populists and supremacists alike were equally high in
their desire for White collective action and their opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Rather, supremacists were most notably distinct from populists in their willingness to derogate
other groups, including but not limited to Blacks. To illustrate, in addition to perceiving Black
people half-way between the ape-like human ancestor and the modern “full” human (M = 51.45,
SD = 33.35), supremacists similarly dehumanized Democrats (M = 52.15, SD = 33.90) and
journalists from mainstream media outlets (M = 51.48, SD = 34.29), and rated both Muslims (M
= 44.78, SD = 34.68) and feminists (M = 46.88, SD = 34.19) closer to the ape-like human
ancestor than the modern human.
 A Psychological Profile
of the Alt-Right 20

Figure 4. Density plots of the survey variables for the comparison sample, the populists, and the supremacists. The heights of the
density plots are scaled such that 1 is the distribution maximum.
 A Psychological Profile
of the Alt-Right 21

Table 4. Descriptive statistics of the populist and supremacist clusters. “Estimate” reflects the difference in means across clusters
(Msupremacist – Mpopulist), “Lower” reflects the lower bound of the 95% CI, “Upper” reflects the upper bound, and “d” reflects the
standardized mean difference. The means are color coded such that red represents the scale minimum, white represents the scale
midpoint, and green represents the scale maximum. The mean differences are color coded such that red represents a third of the
maximum possible negative difference, white represents no difference, and green represents a third of the maximum possible positive
difference.
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 22

Discussion

Portrayals of the alt-right vary widely, with some emphasizing the movement’s anti-
globalist and anti-establishment views (Guardian style editors, 2016; Bokhari & Yiannopoulos,
2016) and others emphasizing the movement’s interest in maintaining structures of group-based
privilege (Lyons, 2017; SLPC, 2017; Caldwell, 2016; NPR staff, 2016; Armstrong, 2017).

We found some evidence for the populist portrayal, as alt-right supporters expressed
suspicion of mainstream media and trust in alternative media. Interestingly, we found little
evidence that this populism extended to economic issues: alt-right supporters were more
optimistic about the current and future states of the economy than non-supporters.

In contrast, we found abundant support for portrayals of the alt-right that emphasize their
perception that certain historically advantaged groups are superior to other groups and need their
interests protected. Our alt-right sample reported high levels of social dominance orientation,
strong support for collective action on behalf of White people, and strong opposition to
collective action on behalf of Black people. They also tended to perceive their favored groups as
less advantaged than their outgroups and adversaries, and saw discrimination against groups like
Whites and men as more of a problem than that against groups like women and Blacks. Taken
together, these results suggest that members of the alt-right feel that the social positions of their
favored groups are under threat, consistent with theoretical accounts describing a conservative
shift in response to status-anxiety (Craig & Richeson, 2014; Gest et al., 2017; Norton &
Sommers, 2011). Alt-right adherents also expressed hostility that could be considered extremist:
they were quite willing to blatantly dehumanize both religious/national outgroups and political
opposition groups, reported high levels of the motivations to express prejudice towards Black
people, and reported high levels of harassing and offensive behavior.

Although these patterns characterized our alt-right sample overall, our cluster analyses
revealed heterogeneity in the form of subgroups. One of these, which we labeled “supremacists”,
showed especially pronounced bias favoring certain groups over others and reported
characteristics potentially reflective of extremism: they reported very high motivations to express
prejudice, extreme dehumanization of religious, national, and political opposition groups, as well
as very high Dark Triad scores and more frequent aggressive behavior. The other subgroup,
which we labeled “populists”, reported lower extremist tendencies and greater concern about
government corruption.

The exact relationship between these two subgroups is unclear. It is possible, for
example, that the clusters represent two stages in a developmental trajectory of alt-right
identification, with people starting in the populist cluster and then moving into the supremacist
cluster as they acquire more alt-right friends — a possibility consistent our finding that those in
the supremacist cluster were relatively ideologically embedded among fellow alt-righters.
Becoming more embedded within alt-right social networks may further motivate people to
express prejudice, both for value-based and normative reasons, causing more dehumanization
and aggression. People in the two clusters may also simply have different personalities, a
possibility consistent with the finding that those in the supremacist cluster reported higher Dark
Triad scores.
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 23

Regardless, our findings clearly suggest that blatant, explicit forms of intergroup bias
deserve continued empirical attention (see Forscher et al., 2015; Kteily et al., 2015; Kteily &
Bruneau, in press). Despite psychology’s rich history of examining intentional and/or blatant
intergroup bias (e.g., Adorno et al., 1950; Westie, 1964; Pettigrew, 1958), contemporary
intergroup research focuses on more subtle forms (e.g., Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2002;
see Forscher & Devine, 2015). This pattern suggests an unstated — and perhaps unduly
optimistic — assumption that blatant intergroup bias is a feature of a bygone past. Although our
data do not permit statements about the relative prevalence of either alt-right support or blatant
intergroup bias, they do support the argument that blatant intergroup bias has by no means
disappeared and must be given greater attention in contemporary theorizing on intergroup issues.

Indeed, it was not just the mean levels of these variables that were notable: consistent
with the work highlighting the predictive utility of explicit measures (e.g., Kteily et al., 2015;
Forscher et al., 2015), we also observed that several explicit measures, including the motivations
to express prejudice toward Blacks, relative dehumanization of Blacks versus Whites, social
dominance, and right-wing authoritarianism all predicted self-reported aggression and support
for race-based collective action. The fact that these constructs uniquely predicted separate
outcomes supports the view that these variables have both discriminant and predictive validity
and should be considered in combination rather than isolation. Of particular note, ascent
dehumanization appears to be more than a motivation to express negativity toward a group, and
the motivations to express prejudice appear to be more than blatant dehumanization.

Limitations

This study is not without its limitations. Our study is cross-sectional, so it can only speak
strongly to the correlates rather than causes of alt-right membership. We also only measured a
subset of potentially relevant variables, likely capturing an incomplete psychological profile of
the alt-right. Of particular interest is whether alt-right adherents differ on variables like the full
moral foundations questionnaire (we were only able to measure purity reliably), status anxiety,
and trait-based trust.

Our participants were also recruited through convenience sampling. Thus, we cannot
speak to whether the psychological profile we documented generalizes to either other alt-right
members or other insurgent right-wing political movements. Lastly, our sampling depended on
alt-right participants self-reporting their identification, which raises the possibility that they were
lying (Chandler & Paolacci, 2017). We do not think this is likely for at least two reasons. First,
we probed for alt-right membership a second time once the survey was complete, and ensured
participants had no incentive to lie. Second, our participants’ free responses (available at
(https://osf.io/xge8q/) match our quantitative findings and use terminology unique to the alt-right
subculture. For example, several respondents used insults specific to the alt-right (e.g.,
“cuckservative”, “snowflake”) and dismissed accusations of racism on grounds of racial realism.
One respondent answered the question, “What are your thoughts when people claim the alt-right
is racist?” with the following:

[…] If it were not for Europeans, there would be nothing but the third world. Racist really
needs defined. Is it racist to not want your community flooded with 3,000 low IQ blacks
from the Congo? I would suggest almost everyone would not. It is not racist to want to
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 24

live among your own. […] Through media [the Jews] lie about the Holohoax, and the
slave trade. Jews were the slave traders, not Europeans.. many people don't even
understand these simple things. […]

We believe a person merely lying for money is unlikely to generate this kind of response.

Conclusion

Our work takes an important step toward examining the psychology underlying
identification with the alt-right. Our work reveals support both for portrayals that emphasize their
anti-establishment sentiments and those that highlight supremacist tendencies. The group also
appears to have some extremist elements. Given the rise in hate groups since Trump’s election
(Potok, 2017), and in light of recent calls for social scientists investigate the causes of extremism
(Nature Human Behavior, 2017; Baez et al., 2017), understanding the psychological roots of the
alt-right and other similar groups is a high priority for future research.
 A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right 25

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