The more a person craves order and security, the further right they sit

Western established democracies, pooled and weighted. Respondents grouped into five equal bins by a need-for-order/security index; for each bin, mean self-placement on the 1–10 left–right scale (bars) and the share placing themselves on the Right, 7–10 (line).

Mean left–right placement (1=Left · 10=Right) Share on the Right (7–10)

Takeaway: every step up the order index nudges a Western public rightward — mean placement and the share on the right both rise monotonically across the five bins.

Need-for-order index = within-pool z-mean of living-in-secure-surroundings, valuing obedience and religious faith in children, and worry about a terrorist attack (at least two non-missing components required; components fielded 2005 onward). Pooled Western respondent-weighted correlation of the order index with right placement, r = 0.144; equal-country median across the 11 Western democracies, r = 0.124. Source: WVS/EVS, weighted; bin n = 8,293–9,714.

Jost's two cores both load on the right — most cleanly in the established democracies

Median within-country correlation of each core with right self-placement, by World Bank region (each country weighted equally). Resistance to change = traditional-morality and order items; acceptance of inequality = the economic items.

Resistance to change Acceptance of inequality

Takeaway: both cores point right almost everywhere, but the correlations are strongest in North America and Western Europe and shrink toward zero across much of the developing world.

Resistance-to-change core = z-mean of reluctance to justify homosexuality, abortion and divorce, valuing obedience, and support for a strong leader. Acceptance-of-inequality core = z-mean of income (larger differences as incentives) and reversed government-responsibility. North America = the United States and Canada (2 countries). Source: WVS/EVS, weighted; 97 countries, fieldwork 2005–2023.

The link sharpens with development — the anxious mind needs a structured axis

Each dot is a country: its Human Development Index (horizontal) against the within-country correlation of the order index with right self-placement (vertical). Western established democracies highlighted; the trend line is the least-squares fit across all countries.

Other countries Western established democracies

Takeaway: the order→right correlation drifts upward as development rises, and the Western democracies cluster in the high-HDI, high-correlation corner.

Across-country Pearson of HDI and the order→right correlation, r = +0.222 over the 94 countries with an HDI value. Order→right correlation positive in all 11 Western democracies. Source: WVS/EVS, weighted within country; HDI from the UN Human Development Report. Effective n per country = 252–7,044 (median 1,992).