7 psychological concepts that explain the Trump era of politics - Vox

I’ve been asking psychologists variations on a basic question: What research can best help us reckon with uncomfortable social and political realities... Here are seven essential lessons on the hidden forces shaping our views and actions in the Trump era...
When Gallup polled Americans the week before and the week after the presidential election, Democrats and Republicans flipped their perceptions of the economy. But nothing had actually changed about the economy. What changed was which team was winning....
The more informed people are about politics, the more likely they are to be stubborn about political issues... The more information we have, the more we bend it to serve our political aims... current debate over “fake news” is a bit misguided: It’s not the case that if only people had perfectly true information, everyone would suddenly agree....
an attack on our strongly held beliefs is an attack on the self... we have an immune system for uncomfortable thoughts. ..
people have stable, gut-level morals that influence their worldview. The liberal moral foundations include equality, fairness, and protection of the vulnerable. Conservative moral foundations favor in-group loyalty, moral purity, and respect for authority... we often don’t realize that people have moral foundations different than our own.... we all tend to overrate the power of arguments we find personally convincing — and wrongly think the other side will be swayed....
dehumanization, the ability to see fellow men and women as less than human... People who dehumanize low-status or marginalized groups also score higher on a measure called “social dominance orientation,” meaning that they favor inequality among groups in society, with some groups dominating others...
fear is an all-too-easy button for politicians to press. We fear unthinkingly. It directs our actions. And it nudges us to believe the person who says he will vanquish our fears... Negative, scary information is almost always more sticky and memorable than positive information... threatening statements more credible than the non-threatening one