Economists can say global trade is a good thing until they’re blue in the face, voters still don’t believe them, according the New York Times. The Brexit vote is a good example, and American voters’ terrifying leaning toward Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is another. But why? While economists think the issue is self-interest, studies on free trade and offshore outsourcing by Edward Mansfield and Diana Mutz, political science professors at the University of Pennsylvania, say otherwise. Voters actually swing toward policies based on national interests, a theory called sociotropic voting.

So why does the average “person on the street” think globalization is bad for the economy? Looking at US voters, the short answer is they don’t want their countries involved in conflicts abroad and, more worryingly, they think the US is culturally superior and that the racial or ethnic group they belong to is superior as well. “They say their own group is harder-working, less wasteful and more trustworthy.” The study does report, however, that “this isolationist, nationalist, ethnocentric worldview is related to one’s level of education. The more years of schooling people have, the more likely they are to reject anti-globalization attitudes.”