Members of extreme political groups are usually perceived as more
homogeneous than moderates. We investigated whether members of the general
public who share the same political ideology would exhibit different levels
of heterogeneity in terms of human values across 20 European countries and
Israel. We directly compared the variability across moderate-, left-, and
right-wing groups. Our findings suggest that the values of more extreme
(left-wing or right-wing) supporters are usually *more heterogeneous* than
those with more moderate views. We replicated this finding for
politics-related variables such as attitudes toward immigrants and trust in
(inter)national institutions. We also found that country-level variables
(income, religiosity, and parasite stress level) did not moderate the
pattern of value variability. Overall, our results suggest that endorsing
the same political ideology is not necessarily associated with sharing the
same values, especially in the case of common citizens holding extreme
political attitudes.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550618803348
