Fanatics outcompete moderate parents because certainty is attractive

Evidence

It’s not enough to just position yourself as the antithesis. What are your own values and attitudes, what is your view of the world? Do you find the state-denying attitude of your ex-partner impossible? What are your political attitudes? What are important democratic values that you want to convey? It takes effort to address these issues and then to translate the answers into concrete action. Fanatics don’t shy away from this and are often more eloquent and well versed due to their intensive engagement with their views. As a result, they convey a certainty that is attractive to some. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 513

Categorization

• QUESTION: This implies moderates lose influence not from weak values but from unwillingness to articulate them — is that a researched phenomenon or an observation?