The Digital Authoritarian: Smartphones reveal the everyday behavioral patterns of individuals with authoritarian tendencies

As authoritarianism rises worldwide, understanding authoritarian tendencies among ordinary citizens is an increasingly urgent scientific and societal challenge. However, our understanding of individuals’ authoritarian tendencies is limited by thin empirical evidence on their everyday behavioral patterns. Here, we develop a comprehensive behavioral portrait of authoritarianism in everyday life using more than 280 million digital records collected via smartphones. These records include app usage, music listening, keyboard typing, calling and texting, locking and unlocking, and GPS location logs collected over three to six months from 669 volunteers’ smartphones. We processed the digital records using a theory-informed variable derivation approach, enriched them with data from external sources, and analyzed them using interpretable machine learning methods. Our findings are twofold. First, we find that everyday behavioral patterns predicted self-reported authoritarian tendencies independently of, and more strongly than, demographic characteristics typically linked to authoritarianism. Second, we find that behavioral predictors of authoritarian tendencies included reduced exposure to unfamiliar people and cultures, a preoccupation with status and hierarchy, and heightened aggression and emotionality. Notably, patterns of social media use—particularly greater Facebook use—were the strongest behavioral predictors of authoritarian tendencies. Overall, these behavioral patterns provide insight into the psychology of individuals with authoritarian tendencies, advancing psychological theories of authoritarianism. We discuss the implications of our findings for developing behavioral assessments and interventions that document and potentially counter authoritarianism’s rise among ordinary citizens in the digital age.