Authoritarian attitudes linked to altered brain anatomy, neuroscientists reveal

A new brain imaging study published in the journal Neuroscience has found that authoritarian attitudes on both the political left and right are linked to specific structural differences in the brain. Young adults who scored higher on right-wing authoritarianism had less gray matter volume in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, a region involved in social reasoning. Meanwhile, those who endorsed more extreme forms of left-wing authoritarianism showed reduced cortical thickness in the right anterior insula, a brain area tied to empathy and emotion regulation.

The research aimed to better understand the brain-based traits that might underlie authoritarian thinking. Previous studies have documented the psychological characteristics associated with authoritarianism—such as impulsivity, dogmatism, and heightened sensitivity to threat—but few have examined whether these traits are reflected in brain structure. The authors were particularly interested in both left- and right-wing authoritarianism, as research has increasingly recognized that rigid, anti-democratic attitudes can be found at both ends of the political spectrum.

“Research on ideological authoritarianism and other forms of radical political attitudes has been attracting growing attention,” said study author Jesús Adrián-Ventura, a professor at University of Zaragoza and member of the Pseudo-Lab Research Group.

“However, despite increasing reports on its psychological correlates, its integration with neurobiological data remains very limited, in particular regarding left-wing authoritarianism, which remains poorly represented in the current psychological literature. This led us to undertake a study on authoritarianism from a neuroscientific perspective.”

To investigate these questions, the researchers recruited 100 young adults in Spain, mostly university students between the ages of 18 and 30. Each participant completed a series of psychological questionnaires that measured political orientation, authoritarian beliefs, impulsivity, anxiety, and emotional regulation.

Importantly, the researchers used updated scales that assess both traditional right-wing authoritarianism and a recently developed measure of left-wing authoritarianism, which includes dimensions like anti-hierarchical aggression and top-down censorship.

Participants also underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans using a high-resolution 3T scanner. The researchers focused on two structural features of the brain: gray matter volume, which reflects the density of neurons and connections in different brain regions, and cortical thickness, a measure of the depth of the brain’s outer layer. They used whole-brain statistical analyses to identify whether either of these features was associated with authoritarian beliefs.

Behaviorally, the results supported previous findings that people with authoritarian attitudes, regardless of political orientation, tend to act impulsively in emotionally charged situations. Both left-wing and right-wing authoritarians scored higher on “negative urgency,” a trait linked to impulsive actions under distress. However, left-wing authoritarianism—especially the tendency toward aggressive anti-establishment views—was also linked to higher levels of trait anxiety.

“Both left-wing and right-wing authoritarians act impulsively in emotionally negative situations, while the former tend to be more anxious,” Adrián-Ventura told PsyPost.

At the neural level, the researchers found two key structural associations. First, higher scores on right-wing authoritarianism were related to smaller gray matter volume in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. This region is known to be involved in understanding others’ perspectives, making moral judgments, and navigating complex social situations.

“Right-wing authoritarianism is associated with a lower dorsomedial prefrontal cortex gray matter volume, a region involved in understanding others’ thoughts and perspectives,” Adrián-Ventura said.

Previous studies have linked activity in this region to political decision-making and reactions to conflicting information. The authors suggest that reduced volume in this area might reflect more rigid thinking styles or difficulties with cognitive flexibility among right-wing authoritarians.

Second, individuals who scored high on the anti-hierarchical aggression component of left-wing authoritarianism showed lower cortical thickness in the right anterior insula. Interestingly, the same region has been implicated in studies examining reactions to political disagreement and emotional responses to moral violations.

“Reduced cortical thickness in the right anterior insula—a region associated with emotional empathy and behavioral inhibition—is linked to increased anti-hierarchical aggressive attitudes (i.e., the preference for violent actions and punishment against perceived authority structures) in the context of left-wing authoritarianism,” Adrián-Ventura explained.

“These neurobiological results were very surprising. Due to the lack of prior studies, our approach was mainly exploratory and data-driven. Still, it is quite difficult to obtain significant results in MR studies when strict statistical thresholds are applied. The obtained medium-to-large effect sizes are therefore striking and demand further scrutiny.”

To further validate their findings, the researchers examined whether these brain differences were also associated with related political ideologies. The gray matter reductions in the prefrontal cortex correlated with higher scores on social dominance orientation, a belief system often linked to right-wing authoritarianism. Likewise, the thinning in the anterior insula was related to endorsement of radical feminist views, which share ideological ground with the anti-authority stance of left-wing authoritarianism.

Although the study breaks new ground by identifying distinct neural correlates for both left-wing and right-wing authoritarianism, it is not without limitations. The sample was relatively homogenous, consisting mainly of young, educated individuals from a single European country. The findings may not generalize to older populations or to people in different cultural and political environments.

“So, new research would be needed to confirm and expand our results in different populations,” Adrián-Ventura noted. “This is particularly relevant in the domain of authoritarianism as this construct tends to manifest within a range of context-dependent determinants (i.e., salient forms of authoritarian attitudes in post-communist or Hispanic American countries, among others, often exhibit specific traits).”

In addition, because the study was cross-sectional, it cannot determine whether the brain differences cause authoritarian attitudes or result from them.

The researchers emphasized that authoritarian beliefs are not solely determined by brain anatomy. Instead, the structural differences may reflect long-standing cognitive and emotional patterns that interact with social and cultural influences. For example, people with a tendency to experience anxiety or act rashly under stress may be more drawn to authoritarian ideologies when they perceive the world as threatening or unstable.

Future research could build on these findings by examining how these brain structures function during political decision-making or when people are confronted with opposing views. Longitudinal studies may also help clarify whether changes in political ideology are associated with structural or functional shifts in the brain over time. Experimental studies could test whether interventions targeting emotion regulation or perspective-taking influence authoritarian attitudes and their neural underpinnings.

“We are dedicated to the scientific study of radical beliefs (e.g., authoritarianism, pseudoscientific doctrines, conspiracy theories, and interventions such as empathetic refutation),” Adrián-Ventura told PsyPost. “In the context of authoritarianism, our goal is to delineate a precise network of psychological associations and its neurocognitive profile. To this end, we will integrate novel behavioral and neuroimaging data—by means of structural and functional MRI—together with new experimental designs.”

The study, “Authoritarianism and the brain: Structural MR correlates associated with polarized left- and right-wing ideology traits,” was authored by Jesús Adrián-Ventura, Diego Avendaño, Anna Miró-Padilla, Anastasia Cherednichenko, César Ávila, Angelo Fasce.