I think it’s important to be wary of psychological studies that involve politics. It’s an area at risk for bias- conscious or unconscious, for obvious reasons. I haven’t read the study itself, it’s not freely available, so I’ll have to see if can access it via my resources through work.
I’m not entirely clear of their methodology based on the article, but the description leads me to have many questions about the integrity of the results. It should be no surprise analyzing 80,000 tweets and 380 books opens the door for significant selection bias. And the survey questions that are asked and they way they are asked can influence respondents. Again, I have no judgement either way based on not having the full text.
The idea of hierarchical thinking among conservatives is not new- I believe this comes from 18th century writer Edmund Burke. The author of the study cites right wing “social dominance orientation” but fails to mention there is left wing authoritarianism, which exists but with different traits. I would argue some of the stereotypical left wing beliefs are very hierarchal in nature, but perhaps not quite to the same extent, but certainly in different areas that may or may not have been addressed.
I do find it interesting his results about not observing strong differences regarding danger vs safety, as this has been a long observed pattern- including differences in brain anatomy that might support this. Maybe those studies were wrong, maybe his study is wrong, or maybe how people respond is based on the context of the environment in which people live, at a given time. Given COVID-19, Trump, 1/6, the reported rise of hate groups, increasingly partisan/dramatic news, etc, it’s not surprising liberals might see the world as more unsafe than in past times.
It’s important to keep in mind any such conclusions, even if valid, are an aggregation of results condensed into a generalization. It does not imply the beliefs of every conservative or every liberal or the motive behind their beliefs. It’s best to treat people as individuals, not statistics.
I would agree with the author however that understanding why people believe what they believe is imperative for people to cooperate when opposing ideas exist.