Psychosocial development is negatively correlated with political extremism

Previous research indicates that in college samples there is a positive correlation between psychosocial development and economic conservatism. We tested the generality of this relationship with a nationally representative sample of respondents from the United States. The result was instead consistent with an alternative hypothesis that psychosocial development is related to political extremism. To our knowledge, this is the first report of an association between psychosocial development and political orientation.