Far-right extremism has grown increasingly mainstream in the United States, and messaging targeting women plays a crucial role in normalizing it — leveraging benevolent sexism and gender stereotypes to make extremist ideology more palatable. Despite women's active participation in far-right movements, their experiences remain poorly understood. Their heterogeneity is often underestimated, inhibiting targeted interventions, and their reasons for joining are underdocumented, inhibiting primary prevention. Significance Quest Theory (SQT) offers one explanation: when individuals' need for personal significance goes unmet, they become vulnerable to extremist narratives that promise to restore it.
In this research, presented as a data-blitz at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Extremism Pre-Conference in 2026, we examined perceptions of personal significance and belonging, and explored heterogeneity in traditional gender role support among far-right women in the U.S.
