likely for people to adopt a misanthropic outlook because their freedom was denied. Democracy, on the other hand, may have the opposite effect since it allows more personal freedom due to its more optimistic outlook on human nature. Empirical studies often use questions related to trust in other people to measure misanthropy. This concerns specifically whether the individual believes that others would be fair and helpful. In an empirical study on misanthropy in American society, Tom W. Smith concludes that factors associated with an increased misanthropic outlook are low socioeconomic status, being from racial and ethnic minorities, and having experienced recent negative events in one's life. In regard to religion, misanthropy is higher for people who do not attend church and for fundamentalists. Certain factors seem to play no significant role, like gender, having undergone a divorce, and never having been married. Another study by Morris Rosenberg finds that misanthropy is associated with certain political outlooks, like being skeptical about free speech and a tendency to support authoritarian policies, for example, to suppress certain political and religious liberties. However, there seems to be no clear link to many of the broader political outlooks, like being a Democrat rather than a Republican or being a liberal rather than a conservative. Arguments for and against Various discussions in the academic literature concern the question of whether misanthropy is an accurate assessment of humanity and what the consequences of adopting it are. Many proponents of misanthropy focus on the different forms of human flaws together with examples of when they exercise their negative influences. They argue that these flaws are so severe that misanthropy is an appropriate response. Special importance in this regard is usually given to moral faults. This is based on the idea that humans do not merely cause a great deal of suffering and destruction but are also morally responsible for them. The reason is that they are intelligent enough to understand the consequences of their actions and could potentially make balanced long-term decisions instead of focusing on personal short-term gains. Opponents of misanthropy often respond to the different examples by pointing out that they are extreme individual manifestations of human flaws, either by mentally ill perpetrators or by normal people under extreme circumstances. In this regard, the negative cases do not reflect on humanity at large and therefore are unable to justify the misanthropic attitude. So while there are