One of the perplexing political questions of the moment is why, instead of more protest about issues such as poverty, unemployment, the lack of job security, as well as maybe climate change and a host of issues that are affecting people’s lives for the worse, we rather see people whose backs are against the wall becoming economically and in other ways  more conservative. hence the increased support for far right parties such as UKIP in the UK. We have often seen extreme political views flourish at times of crisis. 

With the American election looming, yet another study has come out which is making links between the states of mind of voters and their political views [1]. Researchers looked at children at age one and then followed them up 17 years later. A key predictor of whether these 1 year olds turned out to be Republican voters when they grew up was whether or not their parents had authoritarian parenting attitudes. Authoritarian attitudes are characterised by being very disciplinarian and often harsh, as opposed to authoritative parents who can assert authority fairly but who have a more democratic approach. Children with authoritarian parents were more likely to have conservative attitudes at age 18, even after accounting for their gender, ethnic background, cognitive functioning, and socioeconomic status. Children who had parents with egalitarian parenting attitudes, on the other hand, were more likely to hold liberal attitudes as young adults. Another factor which predicted more conservative attitudes was being more fearful at ages 4 or 5.