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Ideology Its Resurgence in Social, Personality, and Political
Abstract
We trace the rise, fall, and resurgence of political ideology as a topic of research in social, personality, and political psychology. For over 200 years, political belief systems have been classified usefully according to a single left-right (or liberal-conservative) dimension that, we believe, possesses two core aspects: (a) advocating versus resisting social change and (b) rejecting versus accepting inequality. There have been many skeptics of the notion that most people are ideologically inclined, but recent psychological evidence suggests that left-right differences are pronounced in many life domains. Implicit as well as explicit preferences for tradition, conformity, order, stability, traditional values, and hierarchy-versus those for progress, rebelliousness, chaos, flexibility, feminism, and equality-are associated with conservatism and liberalism, respectively. Conservatives score consistently higher than liberals on measures of system justification. Furthermore, there are personality and lifestyle differences between liberals and conservatives as well as situational variables that induce either liberal or conservative shifts in political opinions. Our thesis is that ideological belief systems may be structured according to a left-right dimension for largely psychological reasons linked to variability in the needs to reduce uncertainty and threat.
© 2008 Association for Psychological Science.
... However, adjacent fields have discussed ideology in greater depth. First, ideology has been covered in the work of Jost (Jost, 2006;Jost et al., 2008), which focused primarily on social and political psychology. Jost's work distinguished between (traditional) politically rightwing and leftwing ideologies, which is important in the context of political psychology, but does not capture the full functioning of ideology. ...
... However, adjacent fields have discussed ideology in greater depth. First, ideology has been covered in the work of Jost (Jost, 2006;Jost et al., 2008), which focused primarily on social and political psychology. Jost's work distinguished between (traditional) politically rightwing and leftwing ideologies, which is important in the context of political psychology, but does not capture the full functioning of ideology. ...
... Jost's work distinguished between (traditional) politically rightwing and leftwing ideologies, which is important in the context of political psychology, but does not capture the full functioning of ideology. Ideology was defined as a more or less coherent set of moral and political attitudes and beliefs that help explain why people do what they do (Jost, 2006). In addition to such definitions representing a more conscious, explicit identification with a particular ideology (i.e., presenting ideology as a set of conscious attitudes, that people can access when making decisions), Seeck et al. (2020) provided a more comprehensive overview of the uses and conceptualizations of ideology within the field of management. ...
This entry describes the notion of ideology in Organizational Psychology. It discusses the strange absence of the term in the field, and provides seven ways through which ideology can be studied in the field. The entry continues to discuss ideology as fantasy construction as introduced by the philosopher Slavoj Žižek, which presents the most 'psychological' theory of ideology, and which hitherto has been rather ignored in the field. The entry also describes how this ideology as fantasy has been identified in Organizational Psychology through the study of neoliberal ideology. The entry finishes with discussing potential ways out of ideology.
... Conservative political beliefs are characterized by politeness, conscientiousness, variety seeking, and traditionalism (Fernandes & Mandel, 2014;Shavitt, 2017). Conservative ideology is associated with close-mindedness, resistance to change, and a stronger preference for helping in-group members (Carney et al., 2008;Jost et al., 2008). Importantly, political ideologies can also extend to organizations and brands (Jung & Mittal, 2020;Vredenburg et al., 2020). ...
... For example, conservatives are more likely to have negative attitudes toward those who hold opposing political views (Iyengar et al., 2012) as well as toward immigrants (Grigorieff et al., 2020). The binding foundations, which stress the preservation of social institutions and sacrifice for the in-group (Carney et al., 2008;Haidt & Graham, 2007), can lead to negative behaviors such as racism, prejudice, stigma, and resistance to change (Graham et al., 2009;Jost et al., 2008). These differences in the foundational lenses through which liberals and conservatives view actions have drawn societal attention, as evidenced by the stereotypes placed on the two political parties (e.g., "liberals without brains" and "conservatives without hearts"; Farwell & Weiner, 2000, p. 851;Graham et al., 2012). ...
... The moral stereotype of in-group bias associated with conservativism has negative consequences for social interactions and decision-making. Specifically, in-group bias can lead to exclusion and marginalization of out-group members and can create division, thus perpetuating inequalities and discrimination (Graham et al., 2009;Jost et al., 2008). By perpetuating stereotypes and prejudices against out-group members, ingroup bias can result in discrimination as well as a lack of diversity and inclusion (Graham et al., 2009;Jost et al., 2008). ...
... Sobre esta relação, Narvaez et al. (1999) Estudos prévios também apresentaram uma relação entre conservadorismo e preconceito (Hoyt et al., 2019;Sears & Henry, 2003;Terrizzi et al., 2010). Jost et al. (2008) diferenciam os dois polos do espectro ideológico igualitarismo-conservadorismo a partir de duas dimensões: defesa ou resistência a mudanças sociais e aceitação ou rejeição da igualdade. Nesse sentido, indivíduos que defendem ideais conservadores, em relação àqueles que defendem ideais igualitaristas, tendem a ser mais resistentes a ações para redução do preconceito. ...
... Nesse sentido, indivíduos que defendem ideais conservadores, em relação àqueles que defendem ideais igualitaristas, tendem a ser mais resistentes a ações para redução do preconceito. A relação positiva entre esta última variável e a ideologia política igualitária são coerentes com a própria caracterização de ambos os polos político-ideológicos, como apresentado por Jost et al. (2008). ...
Esta pesquisa, que possui um delineamento quantitativo, buscou investigar a relação entre o julgamento moral
e a ação política para redução do preconceito na sociedade, dando-se destaque ao ativismo político e ao
racismo moderno. Partiu-se da ideia de que o julgamento moral está ligado às concepções que as pessoas
possuem sobre a realidade social e sobre seus diferentes grupos e que tais concepções podem afetar o modo
como as pessoas agem politicamente, ou sua intenção de agir. Participaram desta pesquisa 130 brasileiros
(as) que responderam um formulário virtual, desenhado para avaliar o julgamento moral, o racismo moderno, a
ideologia política, a disposição para executar ações para a redução do preconceito e promoção da diversidade
e a intenção de engajamento em ações políticas na forma de ativismo. Os dados foram analisados por meio do
IBM SPSS, sendo verificado que o julgamento moral convencional esteve relacionado com o conservadorismo
político, com um maior índice de racismo e com uma menor disposição para o engajamento em ações políticas
voltadas para a redução do preconceito e promoção da diversidade. Da mesma forma, observou-se que este
julgamento se relaciona com uma menor intenção de engajamento em ações ativistas, mesmo aquelas voltadas
para a defesa do próprio grupo. A partir dos resultados, pode-se concluir que, formas qualitativamente
distintas de julgamento moral, ao nível do pensamento individual, estão associadas a formas qualitativamente
distintas de se pensar a sociedade e de agir nela.
Palavras-chave: Ativismo, ideologia política, moralidade, racismo.
... Due to the radical social transformations that may be required, addressing climate change has the potential to challenge traditional ways of life, and substantially disrupt existing power structures (Feygina, Jost, & Goldsmith, 2010;Hornsey, 2021). These implications of mitigating climate change challenge social conservatives' preferences for strong hierarchies and protecting the status quo (Jost, Nosek, & Gosling, 2008). Moreover, the global nature of climate change means a high degree of international cooperation is required to address it, which can be seen as a problem for those with high levels of nationalism, as is often the case among social conservatives (Kulin, Johansson Seva, & Dunlap, 2021). ...
... On the one hand, the lower levels of social conservatism among the middle publics compared with the unconvinced or disparaging could support this view. On the other hand, social and cultural attitudes tend to be tightly held by most people and do not change substantially over time (Jost et al., 2008). Even social conservatives with relatively moderate climate opinions may therefore be unlikely to progress to higher levels of engagement in the near future. ...
Public opinion on climate change is complex, comprising aspects such as belief, support for policies, and issue salience. This multidimensional nature of climate opinion can be accounted for by identifying “publics,” each comprising people with similar climate attitudes. Climate opinion has also been found to relate strongly to political worldviews, with people holding conservative attitudes tending to have low levels of engagement with climate change. However, few studies have investigated how political worldviews relate to membership of climate publics. The current study therefore identifies climate publics in New Zealand and Australia and investigates how they relate to economic and social aspects of conservative worldviews. Using an original online survey, I find no clear link between economic conservatism and membership of climate publics. Social conservatives, however, are more likely to be members of publics with low levels of climate engagement and of “middle” publics, which accept the science of climate change but are “lukewarm” on climate action. Climate opinion appears to be more polarized in Australia than New Zealand. These results provide insight into the worldviews of people in the “mainstream” of climate opinion and suggest that only a minority of the public are demanding ambitious climate action.
... The extent to which an individual embraces an ideological view that emphasizes the value of traditional institutions and practices (Jost et al., 2008) Subjective norms (SN) The extent to which the manager perceives social pressure to engage in pro-environmental practices (Ajzen, 1991;Arli et al., 2018) Personal norms (PN) ...
... Most studies have found that Conservatism is generally associated with a weaker pro-environmental attitude, whereas Liberalism is associated with a more positive attitude toward the environment (Kidwell et al., 2013;Tranter & Booth, 2015;Wood & Vedlitz, 2007;Zia & Todd, 2010). Conservatives tend to defend the status quo and resist any attempt to change it (Jost et al., 2008). Environmental risks are seen as challenging the existing social, political, and economic hierarchy (Kahan et al., 2007;McCright & Dunlap, 2010). ...
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a critical role in the green economy due to their significant environmental footprint. Because more than 84% of the world’s population identifies with a religion, most SME top-executives are likely to identify with a religion that would influence their decision-making. Despite these recent advances, prior studies have focused on SMEs’ external drivers and did not consider the role of internal drivers, such as the characteristics of SMEs’ top-executives, in influencing green marketing strategy. We aim to address this gap by focusing on religious identification as a key driver of green marketing by SMEs. Specifically, we examine the effects of top-executives’ religious identification on strategic green marketing orientation (SGMO), and how such effects are moderated by political ideology. Using respondents comprised of CEO and/or owner-managers of SMEs in the US, the results show empirical evidence supporting the importance of religious identification in influencing green marketing decisions. Moreover, we found that the effects of religious identification on SGMO are more pronounced among top-executives with Conservative ideology.
... Conservatism, which is considered unidimensional (Azevedo et al., 2019), indicates a preference for tradition, hierarchy and agency ( Jost et al., 2008). These preferences result in greater prejudice towards marginalized groups, including poor people, sexual assault survivors, sexual minorities, Indigenous peoples, Muslims, immigrants, refugees and Black people (Henry & Sears, 2002;Hunt et al., 2021;Jost, 2023). ...
... We chose this statement because the owners of Hobby Lobby-a US-based crafts store-have openly lobbied for conservative causes, including a Christian-run US government, and challenging laws requiring organizationally sponsored health insurance from covering employees' contraceptive care (Crump, 2021). Their mission statement also contains key components of conservatism, such as traditional values and individualism ( Jost et al., 2008): ACME Enterprises is interested in hiring an entry-level manager to help our growing team. We are especially interested in hearing from candidates who can support the organization's efforts to strengthen individual accountability and preserve traditional American values. ...
We examined how potential job candidates react to a hiring organization that requests diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) statements, which conservatives in the United States and elsewhere have criticized as being unrelated to job function and inappropriately political or ideological. Across three studies (two of which were pre-registered), we compared reactions to requests for DEI (vs. teamwork or conservative values) statements as a function of race (Black vs. White), political conservatism and symbolic racism (Total N = 1108). When a DEI (vs. teamwork or politically conservative values) statement was requested, participants who were more (vs. less) conservative perceived the organization as less just, expressed less interest in the job, and expected poorer person-organization fit, even when a job-related rationale was provided. Further, participants who were more (vs. less) conservative evaluated a request for a statement consistent with conservative values more favourably. Thus, criticisms that DEI statements are overly political are not applied to other statements that might elicit similar concerns. Moreover, an internal meta-analysis suggested that the relationships of conservatism to justice and interest (but not person-organization fit) in response to requests for DEI (vs. teamwork) statements were not independent of racism. Findings were consistent with social dominance theory; racism may underlie seemingly race-neutral backlash to DEI statements. K E Y W O R D S conservatism, diversity initiatives, political ideology, selection, social dominance theory This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
... Political orientation is a self-defined reflection of different political opinions that are described on a spectrum from left to right (Kandler et al., 2012). Among the several dimensions that form political orientations, including social, cultural, and economic (e.g., Bagozzi et al., 2022;Jost et al., 2008), we focus on the economic dimension in this study, which refers to how people position themselves on issues such as taxation and welfare. ...
... Companies' moral transgressions often mirror these issues (e.g., tax fraud, workers' exploitation, environmental pollution), and consumers evaluate companies according to the duties and responsibilities they attribute to companies in the market. (Jost & Hunyady, 2003;Jost et al., 2008Jost et al., , 2017. Liberals tend to be more hostile towards and suspicious of corporate interests (Heinze et al., 2014), leading to them having more negative reactions to companies' moral transgressions and the subsequent apologies (Chan & Palmera, 2021). ...
To determine when and why a company’s apology for a moral transgression might backfire, this study considers a rarely researched cue: exposure of company misconduct by non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In three experimental studies, we demonstrate that after companies’ moral transgressions are exposed by NGOs, their apologies exacerbate consumers’ negative responses because consumers view the companies as having increased moral and behavioural hypocrisy. Consumers’ political orientations moderate the mediating effect of companies’ moral hypocrisy as, following exposure by an NGO, conservatives perceive the company issuing an apology to be more deceptive, which is not the case for liberals. Thus, this study expands upon the developing research stream related to the efficacy of apologies as strategic responses to preventable crises. It specifies an underlying mechanism that explains when and why exposure by NGOs causes apologies to backfire and suggests practical guidelines for companies when developing appropriate apologies.
... These interpretations lead to a pluralism of norms, values, foundations and conditions of social transformation, meaning, and political identity salience. As a subject of growing interest within the domain of behavioural psychology, political identity reflects (and is reflected) in the choices that individuals make in relation to their society's core socioeconomic, political, and cultural values and motives (see Jost, Nosek, and Gosling 2008). In addition to being a nation's critical attribute, political identity functions as a psychological pointer for measuring and understanding the formation of such a state. ...
... conservatism) represent opposing schools of thought dominant in the Western hemisphere. This left-right spatial metaphor dates back to the 1789 French revolution (Jost et al., 2008), and in modern times, the left and right represent liberal and conservative ideologies respectively. The attitudes of conservatives and liberals differ across fundamental psychological traits. ...
When service failure occurs, the service provide often dispenses compensation to manage customer relations. However, little research has studied who accepts larger or smaller compensation amounts. Presently, we use political ideology as a basis to segment customers. Drawing on prior work on System Justification Theory, we hypothesize that politically conservative customers accept a lower amount of compensation than liberals as conservative customers more likely believe that whatever amount the service provider offers is just and fair. Importantly, we propose that the effects are specific to economic conservatives, not social conservatives. The findings are consistent with our predictions, with (economic) conservatives’ customers’ system justification beliefs serving as a mechanism. Theoretically, our work is the first to examine who accepts different levels of compensation while also broadly suggesting that political ideology is an important customer segmentation basis in the tourism and hospitality sectors. Our work also contributes to the literature on political ideology by being one of the first to empirically tease apart the distinct effects of economic and social conservatism.
... A system is any predominant social, political, or economic arrangement and system justification is a social, cognitive, and motivational rejection of system alternatives by considering the system as fair, legitimate, and justifiable even if that is against individual or group interests (Jost et al., 2004(Jost et al., , 2017Kay & Jost, 2003). Nowadays, overall systems are commonly related to conservative ideologies, which makes system justification an inaction factor for groups motivated to challenge the system and an action factor for groups motivated to support it (Jost et al., 2008). Returning to the early 2023 Brazilian case, system justification may have had a pivotal role in causing people who considered Lula's election legitimate (i.e., justifiable by the election system) not to act against the anti-democratic protests. ...
Introduction: The decay of democracy has led to a growth in political protests worldwide, but even when people perceive their situation as unfair, some do not act. We propose that system justification and learned helplessness are relevant factors in explaining this. Objective: To test a model of collective action that considers factors of inaction. Method: Through structural equation modelling, we estimated models with data from 961 Brazilians, variables were measured through self-report instruments, such as Collective Action scales, the General System Justification Scale, the Social Justice Perception Scale, the Positive and Negative Affect Scale, and the Learned Helplessness Scale. Results: The models had a good fit and supported the derogation effect of system justification on collective action, but only partially corroborated the predicted association between learned helplessness and collective action. In the Multigroup Model, we found that people who hold weaker political motivations are more prone to inaction through learned helplessness. Discussion: Our findings point to the risk of relative deprivation in generating learned helplessness, which may contribute to inaction and social isolation.
... Left) Attitudes Scale. We built a scale of right (vs. left) attitudes based on the bifactorial structure of the left-right spectrum (Jost, 2006;Jost et al., 2008). Following this approach, the traditional distinction between the right-and left-wing ideologies is represented by two continuous axes. ...
This chapter taps into the concept of populist thin ideology defined by Mudde and Kaltwasser as a set of two fundamental beliefs: (A) the society is divided between the pure people ingroup and corrupt elite outgroup, and (B) right politics intended as a direct expression of the people’s general will without any institutional mediator. Starting from this definition, we conducted an in-depth theoretical analysis of this concept, drawing on social identity theory. Further, we uncovered how extant attitudinal measures of populism present a lack of content and construct validity, implying a mismatch between theory and operationalisation. Accordingly, we designed a new attitudinal scale of the populist thin ideology that aimed to fix identified issues by caring that both (and only) the two subdimensions of populism were measured. We then evaluated the validity of the scale using correlational, factorial analyses, and regression conducted on three independent samples (total n = 1934) of the French adult population. Results showed good psychometric properties in terms of convergent, discriminant, construct, and predictive validity. These findings represent first robust evidence of POP-ThIS possessing satisfying psychometric validity requirements in France. Future research should test this scale in other political contexts and make empirical comparisons with other scales.
... Distinct modes of historizing might also have diverging appeal as a function of audience political ideology. For instance, liberals are more open to change (Jost, 2009;Jost et al., 2008), whereas conservatives are more receptive to nostalgic appeals that paint the past in a positive light (Kenny, 2017;Lammers & Baldwin, 2018). Thus, liberals (vs. ...
This paper conceptualizes the phenomenon of historizing the present , defined as emphasizing the historical significance of present events and treating the present from the perspective of history. The authors identify four modes of historizing the present (emphasizing that: (1) the present will shape history; (2) the present is a unique moment in history; (3) the present will be remembered in history; (4) the present echoes history) and demonstrate how historizing can be employed by marketers of for‐profit and nonprofit organizations in a variety of contexts. The paper examines the psychological implications of appreciating the historical significance of the present and outlines a research agenda for studying the downstream behavioral consequences of historizing the present across diverse substantive consumer domains. It concludes with an examination of the broader societal implications of historizing the present as well as its implications for consumer well‐being.
... Although concerns about inequality are widespread (e.g., Pew, 2020), people who selfidentify as politically liberal (or leftwing) are particularly disturbed by inequality (Jost et al., 2008) and particularly empathic toward low-status groups (e.g., Hasson et al., 2018;Jeffries et al., 2012;Lucas & Kteily, 2018). Consequently, self-identified Liberals may be especially motivated to reject information that is perceived as threatening group equality. ...
Many scholars conceive modern Western universities as places for open inquiry and relentless pursuit of truth. Yet in recent years, some scholars have expressed concerns about increasing censoriousness on college campuses. The present investigation tested whether people have heightened desires to censor information on campuses that is perceived as threatening to group equality or reinforcing of status hierarchies—specifically, information that portrays low-status groups unfavorably. Across four samples from three countries (U.S. adults, U.S. college-aged adults, undergraduates at a U.K. university, and undergraduates at a Hungarian university; total n=1,616) and three domains of group differences, we found that people were more censorious of statements that portray lower status groups unfavorably (women, Black people, Muslims) than otherwise identical statements that portray higher status groups unfavorably (men, White people, Christians). We also found that these differential standards in censorship preferences increased as participants self-identified as more politically liberal, perhaps reflecting Liberals’ greater aversion to inequality and protectiveness toward low-status groups. Such patterns (especially in conjunction with other recent work finding similar patterns) challenge the conventional wisdom that evaluative biases generally _harm_ low-status groups and _reinforce_ existing hierarchies. Our results suggest instead that, at least in recent years in modern Western societies, biases in information evaluations seem designed to _help_ low-status groups and to _eliminate_ or _reverse _existing hierarchies.
... Although concerns about inequality are widespread (e.g., Pew, 2020), people who selfidentify as politically liberal (or leftwing) are particularly disturbed by inequality (Jost et al., 2008) and particularly empathic toward low-status groups (e.g., Hasson et al., 2018;Jeffries et al., 2012;Lucas & Kteily, 2018). Consequently, Liberals may be especially motivated to reject information that is perceived as threatening group equality. ...
Modern Western societies conceive universities as places for open inquiry and relentless pursuit of truth. Yet in recent years, many scholars have expressed concerns about increasing censoriousness on college campuses. The present investigation tested whether people have heightened desires to censor information on campuses that is perceived as threatening to group equality or reinforcing of status hierarchies—specifically, information that portrays low-status groups unfavorably. Across four samples from three countries (U.S. adults and three college-aged samples in the U.S., U.K., and Hungary; total n=1,616) and three domains of group differences, we found that people were more censorious of information that portrays lower status groups unfavorably (women, Black people, Muslims) than identical information that portrays higher status groups unfavorably (men, White people, Christians). We also found that these differential standards in censorship preferences increased as participants were more politically liberal, likely reflecting Liberals’ greater aversion to inequality and protectiveness toward low-status groups. Such patterns (especially in conjunction with other recent work) challenge the conventional wisdom that evaluative biases generally _harm_ low-status groups and _reinforce_ existing hierarchies. Instead, in modern Western societies, at least in recent years, biases in information evaluations seem designed to _help_ low-status groups and _eliminate_ or _reverse _existing hierarchies.
... One possible explanation for when perceived economic inequality may affect people's well-being is related to ideological differences. Ideologies are belief systems that explain and prescribe how the world should be (Jost et al., 2008). As such, ideologies are crucial in informing people's understanding of the world and guiding their responses toward social issues. ...
The relationship between economic inequality and subjective well-being has produced mixed results in the literature. Conflicting evidence may be due to overlooking the role of psychosocial processes that translate socioeconomic conditions into subjective evaluations. We argue that perceiving high economic inequality erodes social capital, undermining people’s subjective well-being. We rely on the Psychosocial Model of Perceived Economic Inequality and Subjective Well-Being (PEISW), which posits that perceived economic inequality negatively affects subjective well-being by increasing status anxiety and decreasing social trust. Furthermore, these indirect effects from perceived inequality to subjective well-being will be moderated by system-justifying ideologies. The present article provides the first empirical test of this model using a national survey from Spain (N = 1,536). We confirmed that perceived economic inequality is negatively associated with well-being. We also found that perceived economic inequality had an indirect negative effect on subjective well-being via increasing status anxiety and reducing social trust. We found no evidence that system-justifying ideologies (i.e., social dominance orientation) moderated the association between perceived economic inequality and subjective well-being. We discuss that perceived economic inequality is crucial to understanding the link between economic inequality and subjective well-being and elaborate on the role of psychosocial mechanisms that promote competition and undermine social cohesion.
... Geographic sorting along ideological lines is on the rise (Sussell, 2013). Ideology is closely linked with personality (Jost et al., 2008), and personality characteristics are associated with the antecedents of geographical sorting, including residential (dis)satisfaction and a stated interest in moving (Arreguin, 2023). People are drawn to move between communities not just for reasons of love and work (Mummolo and Nall, 2016), but also because of the appeal of living among others "in a shared reality that validates their daily experiences and reactions" (Fulmer et al., 2010(Fulmer et al., , p. 1564. ...
... Wilson (1973) is among the first to document the risk-averse tendency among conservative people, characterized by their intolerance of ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity. Wilson particularly defines conservatism as ''resistance to change and the tendency to prefer safe, traditional and conventional forms of institutions and behavior'' (Jost et al., 2007)bib39 and Jost et al. (2008) in tandem argue that the preference on stability induces conservative people to maintain what is familiar and known while rejecting what is risky and uncertain. By conducting a survey experiment, Kam and Simas (2010) provide further evidence that conservatives are less risk-accepting than liberals, and Republicans are less risk-accepting than Democrats. ...
This study investigates whether CEO political contribution, as a measure of CEO political ideology, is associated with a firm’s financial reporting policies in accounting conservatism. Using a sample of federal-level political contributions by CEOs in S&P 500 firms, we find that firms with Republican-leaning CEOs, who tend to have conservative ideology, are associated with a higher degree of accounting conservatism than firms with Democratic-leaning CEOs. We further show that changes in political ideology around CEO turnovers are associated with changes in the firm’s accounting conservatism policies. Our results are robust to a battery of robustness tests. Taken together, our findings are consistent with the assertion of upper echelons theory and suggest that managers with political preference have discretion to translate their personal risk attitude into corporate financial reporting decisions.
... According to Jost et al. (2008), the meaning attributed to the political left-right or the liberal-conservative orientations mainly refers to "(a) advocating versus resisting social change and (b) accepting versus rejecting inequality" (p. 128), although depending on the issue considered, both liberals and conservatives might accept or reject social change (Proch et al., 2019). ...
A growing number of studies investigate the relationship between narcissism and political orientation. This study uses an undergraduate sample from Turkey to explore this relation for a relatively understudied population. Given findings that link basic human values to narcissism and to political orientation, we also investigate the possibility of a mediating role for human values in this relation. Leftwing orientation is weakly and negatively correlated with narcissism and with narcissism's self-sufficiency dimension. In multinomial logistic regression, we find that the odds of placing oneself in the extreme right position verses moderate left position increases as narcissism increases. The effect of narcissism on political orientation appears fragile, however, when this relation is controlled for self-esteem, sex, and human values. Among Schwartz's basic human values, tradition turns out to be a stronger predictor of political orientation than narcissism and mediation is supported only for the values tradition and universalism. We find a positive indirect effect of narcissism on leftwing orientation through the value tradition and a negative indirect effect on leftwing orientation through the value universalism.
... Another gap is that the tourism experience only exists temporarily, during which tourists' habits can change (Juvan & Dolnicar, 2014;Santos et al., 2020). However, consumer ideology should be stable and consistent (Jost et al., 2008) as locavorism was demonstrated (Reich et al., 2018). Kozinets and Handelman (2004) suggested that consumers adopt an ideology because they find lasting commitment, legitimacy and authenticity in its teaching, just like following a religion. ...
Locavorism, often known as the consumer’s ideology of consuming only local food, was religiously practised by a legion of devout followers – the locavores. These consumers have not only consumed food but also expressed various related behaviours, such as patronizing locally sourced restaurants or visiting similar shops. However, its extension outside of food consumption has been neglected. Based on the VAB framework, the current study examined locavorism within the tourism product context and empirically tested its antecedents and consequences. Using collected data from 226 Vietnamese consumers during the vacation-planning period in 2023, we critically examined the newly adapted measurement of locavorism in tourism and found strong evidence supporting a strong tendency to consume local tourist products. Theoretical findings and managerial implications for hospitality researchers and practitioners are then discussed.
... Moreover, following the reasoning that collective psychological ownership can make one feel efficacious (Pierce & Jussila, 2010), collectively claiming country ownership could be a way to alter and control one's environment. Conservatives also have a stronger desire for a stable societal position, and the maintenance of traditional norms and values (Jost et al., 2008), which respectively resonate with the need for a sense of place and the need to maintain one's identity. In present times characterized by complex demographic and cultural changes, caused not in the least by large inflows of immigrants, reclaiming ownership of the country could help right-wing people fulfil their need for efficacy, a sense of place, and a sense of identity. ...
We examined if ethnic majority members with different background characteristics (national identification, political orientation, gender, education, and age) differ in the perception that their ethnic group owns the country they live in, and whether this can explain their opinions about stricter immigration policies. Using nationally diverse samples of Anglo-Australian (N = 475), Dutch (N = 599), and British participants (N = 1005), we found that ownership beliefs were consistently positively associated with support for stricter immigration policies. Further, we showed that ownership beliefs were stronger among higher national identifiers, men, right-wing, lower educated (United Kingdom only), and older people (Australia only), and ownership partially accounted for these groups’ stronger endorsement of stricter immigration policies. Our study underscores the relevance of ownership beliefs as a novel construct that can explain the relation between personal background characteristics and anti-immigration stance among ethnic majority populations in Western countries.
... Due to the large variations in the monetary value of property loss, this measure is further transformed to a logged form. Political ideology is usually classified according to a liberal-conservative dimension (Jost, Nosek, and Gosling 2008). ...
With increasing hazard risks, coordinating public agencies to address emerging threats has become a pressing challenge for public administration. However, little empirical research explores why some public organizations actively coordinate with others in preparation for future crises while others do not. The related research relies on correlation‐based approaches and generates inconclusive findings. To further extend current inquiry, this study takes a configurational approach and examines which configurations of organizational attributes – and environmental characteristics – lead to emergency preparedness coordination. A configurational model for emergency preparedness coordination is proposed along with three propositions. We conducted a large‐N fuzzy‐set QCA to examine U.S. public transit agencies' inter‐organizational coordination in preparation for the extreme weather events. Findings demonstrate that it is the configurations rather than individual attributes that are essential for active preparedness coordination. Both top‐down and bottom‐up mechanisms can achieve active coordination and managerial commitment is an critical contingency factor.
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... This alleged difference between the left and right is attributed to different psychological motives underlying the respective political orientation: compared to those on the political left, right wingers are seemingly less tolerant of ambiguity, show lower openness to experience and have a heightened need for cognitive closure (Jost et al., 2003b; but see van Hiel et al., 2010van Hiel et al., , 2016. These findings are commonly interpreted as a sign for a generalized tendency to support social change among the political left and a general resistance to change among the political right (e.g., Jost et al., 2003bJost et al., , 2004Jost et al., , 2008-no matter what kind of change is at stake. However, the empirical evidence for this generalized assumption is ambiguous. ...
Right‐wing movements across the globe call for system‐changing actions. This development contradicts the typically assumed resistance to change among the political right. Many of these movements use conspiracist rhetoric and, thus, we reasoned that conspiracy mentality might be associated with the striving for system change—especially on the political right. In four cross‐sectional studies in Germany (one nationally quota‐balanced, one preregistered; total N = 1539) we found that high conspiracy mentality was related to support for social change among the right and to support for reactionary social change among the left. Support for change among those high in conspiracy mentality was diminished when elected representatives (vs the population) were thought to drive social change. These results suggest that both right wingers and left wingers high in conspiracy mentality support change in ways that are seemingly incompatible with their political orientation.
... Conservative people may also endorse positive stereotypes; especially those that can be used to legitimatize unequal systems, which would be aligned with the two theories discussed above. In fact, research reveals that conservative people are more apt than liberal people to legitimize unequal systems (e.g., Jost and Hunyady 2005;Jost, Nosek, and Gosling 2008). And, as previously mentioned, some research shows an association between compensatory positive stereotyping and belief in system legitimacy (e.g., Glick et al. 2000;Kay et al. 2005). ...
Scholars have documented harm associated with positive stereotypes about groups that experience inequality. We surveyed five samples from the United States to explore antecedents to dominant group endorsement of positive stereotypes about women, gay men, Asian Americans, Black Americans, and Native Americans. We found more liberal participants, and those with more close contact with members of these groups, were more internally motivated to respond without prejudice, which was then associated with greater endorsement of positive stereotypes about women, gay men, Black Americans, and Native Americans. In contrast, more conservative participants were more likely to believe in system legitimacy, which was then associated with greater endorsement of positive stereotypes about women and Asian Americans. We theorize that positive stereotypes are used by dominant group members in divergent ways, sometimes to legitimate inequality and other times with concern about inequality. The latter likely involves naivety regarding the harmful nature of positive stereotypes.
... Political identity is defined as a person's self-conception based on their ideology regarding the underlying goals and ideals about how a social and political system should work (Grove et al., 1974;Jung & Mittal, 2020). These beliefs are deeply related to the underlying needs and motives of individuals who subscribe to them (Jost et al., 2008). Political identity is generally expressed as a continuum along the left-right dimension. ...
Dogs have become an essential part of many consumers' everyday lives as well as their purchase and consumption considerations. This research investigates dog owners' affective reactions (i.e., disgust) to dogs wearing clothes and their purchase of dog apparel influenced by owners' political identities. We find an interesting pattern where conservatives (relative to liberals) experience higher disgust for dogs wearing clothes but are more likely to purchase dog apparel. We propose that liberals and conservatives endorse different moral values leading to different human‐animal relationship beliefs, as reflected in speciesism (i.e., human superiority). Conservatives have higher speciesism beliefs, leading to both higher feelings of disgust and purchase of dog apparel due to status signaling. The effects are further moderated by the type of apparel, with a stronger effect for nonfunctional (vs. functional) clothes. In three studies, we surveyed dog owners and non‐owners and conducted an experiment to demonstrate these effects. We also provide managerial implications in terms of designing and marketing pet apparels.
As a political ideology, conservatism is primarily focused on maintaining and restoring past society. This aspect is so central that conservatives’ support for policies is increased simply by framing them as a return to the past. Until now, the underlying process of this temporal framing effect is unclear. Drawing on theories of conservatism as motivated social cognition, four preregistered studies (N total = 2,405) test the hypothesis that it results from conservatives’ epistemic and existential beliefs about the past. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that American conservatives’ preference for past-focused political communication is blocked if the past is perceived to be inconsistent with these beliefs. Studies 3 and 4 (a representative UK sample replication) find that the effect is mediated by epistemic and existential beliefs about the past. This research theoretically integrates the earlier-established conservative temporal framing effect into the wider literature of conservatism as motivated social cognition.
Multiculturalism and tolerance, as two sets of normative beliefs about how to deal with intergroup diversity, have been recognized as effective at reducing outgroup negativity among majority group members. However, whether majority group members' normative beliefs regarding them might motivate their solidarity‐based collective actions and how their political ideology might qualify this influence remained unclear. To answer these questions, we conducted two pre‐registered experimental studies ( N = 626), both zooming in on the multiculturalism issues in the context of the relationships between native Dutch citizens and citizens with a Moroccan background within Dutch university campuses (Study 1) and broader Dutch society (Study 2). In both studies, we found an ingroup norm of tolerance (vs. control) undermined majority group members' engagement in collective actions in support of ethnic minorities. Additionally, ideological leftists were more sensitive to norms than rightists: Study 1 showed a facilitative effect of the multiculturalism norm (vs. control) on solidarity‐based collective action intentions particularly among leftists, whilst Study 2 revealed a dampening effect of the tolerance norm (vs. control) on these intentions particularly among leftists.
Generativity and environmentalism are two interconnected concepts that have gained significant attention in recent years. As individuals strive to contribute to future generations’ well-being, pro-environmentalism is often seen as an expression of generativity. This chapter reviews the conceptual and empirical relationships between generativity and environmentalism. Using a legacy perspective, it examines how environmental behaviors relate to intergenerational decision-making via family socialization. Additionally, it discusses the growing political divide between liberals and conservatives on environmental issues, as well as the potential for generativity to bridge this gap. This review aims to shed light on the role of generativity in influencing attitudes and behavior toward the environment.
Social and political psychologists have focused on how liberals and conservatives differ from one another and have developed a vast literature on individual differences and fixed attributes that distinguish ideological groups. However, ideological orientations might be more contextual and flexible than what is often portrayed in research. We present a novel look at ideological variability as an intra group phenomenon that makes liberals and conservatives nuanced, heterogeneous, and more similar to one another—important perspectives for reducing ideological stereotyping and polarization. In this paper, we review patterns showing ideological variability and overlap in thinking, emotions, attitudes, and behaviors across the lifespan, geographical regions, status groups, and diverse cultures around the world. By understanding the social psychological and situational factors associated with intragroup variability in ideology, we can develop more culturally inclusive models of ideology and map out better solutions to polarization.
Istanbul Convention, which is a polarizing issue between conservative (right-wing) and liberal (left-wing) people in Turkey, is an important step in the struggle against violence against women. This thesis aims to investigate the reasons behind this polarization in the culture-war issues and make claims about possible reconciliation. In this regard, two studies were conducted, including the relationship of Moral Foundations Theory. Study 1 is qualitative research about opinions toward the Istanbul Convention and violence against women. Results of Study 1 show that violence against women is a problem that compromise exists between liberals and conservatives, but there is a polarization toward the Istanbul Convention issue in
the context of moral foundations and political ideologies literature. In addition, people’s level of awareness toward the convention is crucial to this situation. Study 2 is an experimental study investigating the moral framing effect on the polarization towards the Istanbul Convention, controlling the level of partisanship, awareness toward the convention, and demographic variables. Results of Study 2 show there is partial support for the hypotheses. Political orientation and type of framing have significant effects on the level of support for the Istanbul Convention, but the interaction of these two variables is non-significant. The results were discussed for researchers and policy-making authorities.
Introduction
Gender roles are pervasive and impact all areas of modern society. Implicit gender role theory is one perspective on understanding individual perceptions of gender roles and how these perceptions influence behavior. This mixed-method study explored the association between implicit gender role ideology and support for “gendered legislation” (i.e., legislation with the potential to differentially impact individuals depending on their gender identity).
Methods
Quantitative data (N = 558) collected from 2017 to 2018 demonstrate the association between implicit gender role ideology and six different pieces of gendered legislation. Participant individual interviews (N = 20), collected from 2017 to 2018, allowed for a more comprehensive and nuanced exploration of individual gender role attitudes and perceptions of two specific bills.
Results
Individuals who believe gender roles are fixed and immutable are more likely to justify a patriarchal gender system and support legislation that differentially impacts individuals due to gender identity. Males are also more likely to identify with masculine traits and feel that their gender is central to their identity, while females are more likely to shed femininity in favor of agency to gain power and respect. Finally, qualitative themes highlight a general lack of nuanced understanding regarding gender roles, gender identity, sex, and sexual orientation.
Conclusion
Males and individuals who believe gender roles are fixed were more likely to justify a patriarchal gender system. Males, particularly those who believed gender roles are fixed, were also more likely to identify their gender as central to their identity.
Policy Implications
Regardless of political orientation, gender role attitudes and participant sex may influence the ways in which people perpetuate or challenge the patriarchal gender system. Thus, perpetuation of the current gender system, or moving toward gender equality, may stem from interventions at the individual level.
Political orientation reflects beliefs, opinions, and values that are, at least in part, rooted in stable interindividual differences. Whereas evidence has accumulated with regard to the relevance of basic personality dimensions, especially concerning the sociocultural dimension of political ideology, less attention has been paid to the more specific dispositional tendency to assign a higher weight to one’s own utility above others’ (i.e., socially aversive personality), which is likely to play a pivotal role concerning the economic dimension of political ideology in particular. In three studies with over 66,000 participants from 38 countries, we show that individuals with elevated levels in aversive personality tend to endorse more right-wing political orientations in terms of a single left–right dimension, hold relevant ideological beliefs tied to both sociocultural and economic conservatism, and report corresponding electoral voting behavior. We further provide support for the idea that this overlap between a dispositional tendency toward aversive behavior and a right-wing political orientation can be attributed to shared belief systems.
Healthy democratic polities feature competing visions of a good society. They also require tolerance, trust, and cooperation to avoid toxic polarization that puts democracy itself at risk. In the U.S., liberal-leftists and conservative-rightists differ in many attitudes, values, and personality traits, as well as tendencies to justify the unequal status quo and embrace authoritarian aggression and group-based dominance. Some of these differences imply that conflict between liberal-leftists and conservative-rightists is tantamount to a struggle for and against democratic ideals. However, these political and psychological differences between the left and the right do not necessarily mean that Americans are forever doomed to intergroup hatred and intractable political conflict. Some modest basis for optimism emerges from recent experimental interventions, including one that encourages people to identify with and justify the system of liberal democracy in the U.S.
People vary in how they perceive, think about, and respond to moral issues. Clearly, we cannot fully understand the psychology of morality without accounting for individual differences in moral functioning. But decades of neglect of and explicit skepticism toward such individual differences has resulted in a lack of integration between moral psychology and personality psychology—the study of psychological differences between people. In recent years, these barriers to progress have started to break down. This special issue aims to celebrate and further increase the visibility of the personality psychology of morality. Here, we introduce the articles in this special issue by highlighting some important contributions a personality‐based perspective has to offer moral psychology—particularly in comparison to the currently prominent social psychological approach. We show that personality psychology is well‐placed to (a) contribute toward a rigorous empirical foundation for moral psychology, (b) tackle the conceptualization and assessment of stable moral tendencies, (c) assess the predictive validity of moral traits in relation to consequential outcomes, (d) uncover the mechanisms underlying individual differences in moral judgments and behavior, and (e) provide insights into moral development. For these reasons, we believe that moral psychology needs personality psychology to reach its full scholarly potential.
As perspectivas sobre o início da vida humana abrangem diferentes critérios, como a fertilização entre o espermatozoide e o óvulo, o início das atividades cerebrais, a viabilidade do feto fora do útero, entre outros. Diante desse indicadores, este estudo tem como objetivo analisar as representações sociais de estudantes brasileiros e espanhóis sobre o início da vida humana e suas ancoragens psicossociais, particularmente nos valores humanos e no partidarismo político. Para tanto, contou com a participação de 424 estudantes universitários, sendo 192 no Brasil (M=23,11; DP=6,2) e na Espanha (M=19,72; DP=5,7). Os participantes, em ambos os países, responderam a um questionário de autorrelato, que continha uma pergunta aberta sobre o começo da vida humana, o Questionário de Perfis de Valores (QVP) e perguntas sociodemográficas (idade, gênero, classe socioeconômica e posicionamento no espectro político). As análises foram realizadas com o auxílio do software Iramuteq, por meio do procedimento da Classificação Hierárquica Descendente (CHD). Os resultados, tanto para a amostra brasileira quanto para a espanhola, formaram cinco classes temáticas. As representações sociais para a amostra brasileira destacaram-se pelos argumentos que exploravam a possibilidade de o feto ser considerado uma vida em potencial. Já na amostra espanhola, a ênfase recaiu sobre os aspectos biológicos do desenvolvimento humano. Nesse contexto, observam-se as diversas variações que um fenômeno pode apresentar devido à sua inserção no campo representacional dos grupos sociais.
Palavras-chave: Representação Social; Início da Vida Humana; Grupo Social; Psicologia Social.
Tunus’ta başlayan baskıcı rejim karşıtı ayaklanmaların Suriye’yi etkilemesi ve ülkede bir iç savaşa dönüşmesi sebebiyle, 2011 yılından itibaren 3.6 milyondan fazla kayıtlı Suriyeli mülteci, can güvenliğinden endişe ederek Türkiye’ye göç etmiştir. Ani ve düzensiz şekilde gerçekleşen bu kitlesel göç hareketi Türkiye’de yaşayan yerel halk ve Suriyeli mülteciler arasındaki ilişkilerin gerilmesine ve toplumda gruplar arası çatışma ortamının oluşmasına neden olmaktadır. Yerel halkın mültecilere yönelik tutumlarının belirtilen gruplar arası ilişkilerde ve mültecilerin topluma uyum sürecindeki başarısında önemli bir rolünün olduğu alanyazınca bilinmektedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı ise Türkiye'de yaşayan Suriyeli mültecilere yönelik olumsuz tutumları saptamak ve etnik ve siyasi kimlikleşme ve olumsuz tutumlar arasındaki ilişkide mültecilere yönelik algılanan tehdit düzeyinin aracı rolünü incelemektir. Çevrimiçi ortamda gerçekleştirilen çalışmaya 18-33 yaş aralığında (Ortyaş = 22.36, S = 3.26), 368’i kadın ve 158’i erkek, lisans düzeyinde eğitim gören 526 üniversite öğrencisi katılmıştır. Yapısal eşitlik model testi bulgularına göre; Türk kimliğiyle özdeşleşmiş ve sağ-kanat siyasi yönelime sahip kişilerin Türkiye'de yaşayan Suriyeli mültecilere yönelik algıladıkları gerçekçi ve sembolik tehditler daha yüksek düzeylerdedir ve bu durumda Suriyeli mültecilere yönelik olumsuz duygulanım ve olumsuz kalıpyargılar güçlenirken, mültecilerle kurulan temasın kalitesi azalmaktadır. Bulguların, mülteci konularında çalışan bilim insanları ve bu konularda sosyal politikalar geliştiren ve uygulayan profesyoneller için faydalı olması beklenmektedir.
Purpose
This study aims to examine the role of hope and hate in political leaders’ messages in influencing liberals versus conservatives’ social-distancing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the increasing political partisanship across the world today, using the appropriate message framing has important implications for social and public policy.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use two Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods – a pretrained package (HateSonar) and a classifier built to implement our supervised neural network-based model architecture using RoBERTa – to analyze 61,466 tweets by each US state’s governor and two senators with the goal of examining the association between message factors invoking hate and hope and increased or decreased social distancing from March to May 2020. The authors examine individuals’ social-distancing behaviors (the amount of nonessential driving undertaken) using data from 3,047 US counties between March 13 and May 31, 2020, as reported by Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports and the New York Times repository of COVID-19 data.
Findings
The results show that for conservative state leaders, the use of hate increases nonessential driving of state residents. However, when these leaders use hope in their speech, nonessential driving of state residents decreases. For liberal state leaders, the use of hate displays a directionally different result as compared to their conservative counterparts.
Research limitations/implications
Amid the emergence of new analytic techniques and novel data sources, the findings demonstrate that the use of global positioning systems data and social media analysis can provide valuable and precise insights into individual behavior. They also contribute to the literature on political ideology and emotion by demonstrating the use of specific emotion appeals in targeting specific consumer segments based on their political ideology.
Practical implications
The findings have significant implications for policymakers and public health officials regarding the importance of considering partisanship when developing and implementing public health policies. As partisanship continues to increase, applying the appropriate emotion appeal in messages will become increasingly crucial. The findings can help marketers and policymakers develop more effective social marketing campaigns by tailoring specific appeals given the political identity of the consumer.
Originality/value
Using Neural NLP methods, this study identifies the specific factors linking social media messaging from political leaders and increased compliance with health directives in a partisan population.
Socializing, moving, working, and leisure form the foundation of human experience. We examined whether these foundational, ostensibly apolitical activities are nevertheless organized along political fault lines, revealing “lifestyle polarization.” In a sample of up to 1,373 young adults followed for up to 11,397 days, we quantified the association between political identity and 61 social, movement, work, and leisure behaviors collected from smartphone sensors and logs (i.e., GPS, microphone, calling, texting, unlocks, activity recognition) and ecological momentary assessments (i.e., querying activity level, activities, interaction partners, locations) at multiple temporal levels (i.e., daily, mornings, afternoon, evenings, nights, weekends, weekdays). We found that liberals and conservatives behave differently in everyday life. Behavioral differences between liberals and conservatives were small but robust, observed at most times of the day and week, and were most pronounced in the leisure domain. At the same time, these small behavioral differences were not accurately discerned by observers, who overestimated the extent to which liberals and conservatives within their community behave differently. Together, our results suggest that political identity has penetrated some of the most basic aspects of everyday life, but not to the degree that people think. We argue that lifestyle polarization has the potential to undermine individual wellbeing and societal cohesion.
As societal discussion on the public opinion of science and technology ignites over and over again, understanding where such opinions are rooted is increasingly relevant. A handful of prior studies have suggested personality traits as a root of science and technology attitudes. However, these report mixed findings, and employ small student or convenience samples. This leaves considerable uncertainty regarding personality traits’ relation to attitudes toward science and technology. If in fact stable psychological predispositions play a role, this has considerable implications for science policy and science communication. This article investigates the relationship between the big five personality traits and science attitudes in Germany and the Netherlands. Findings indicate that personality traits are related to science attitudes but only very weakly so, among them openness to experience and negative emotionality are most notably related to science attitudes, whereas extraversion, in contrast to prior studies, shows no relation to science and technology attitudes.
p style="text-align: justify;"> Objective. Exploration of the psychological factors of conflict-related action among Sundanese Muslim students in Indonesia.
Background. Religious-based conflicts have been widely examined in various disciplines, attracting responses and factors in every cultural context.
Study design. Study 1 used an indigenous-based survey and was analyzed by thematic analysis. Study 2 examined the role of political ideology and perceived injustice in conflict-related behavior using hierarchical regression analysis.
Participants. Study 1: 224 people (35,7% of men, 64,3% of women) from 18 to 49 years old ( M = 20,98; SD = 3,72). Study 2: 494 people (35,6% of men, 64,4% of women) from 17 to 49 years old ( M = 20,00; SD = 1,52).
Measurements. Indonesian-language versions of the scales of religious fundamentalism ideology by Muluk and colleagues, violent extremist attitude by Nivette and colleagues, nonviolent direct action by Brown and colleagues, and sensitivity to injustice by Schmitt and colleagues.
Results. Study 1 showed specific patterns of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses. There are differences in the respondents' responses to conflicts between and within religions. These differences are caused by ideology orientation towards religion and perception of injustice towards their groups. Study 2 confirmed Study 1 that religious fundamentalism predicts both violent and nonviolent behavior. Also, perceived injustice of victims moderates the effect of religious fundamentalism to violent behavior. Meanwhile, perceived injustice of perpetrators predicts only nonviolent behavior.
Conclusions. There is a significant effect of religious-based ideology and perceived injustice on conflict-related behavior in the Sundanese Muslim context.</p
Political polarization is a barrier to enacting policy solutions to global issues. Social psychology has a rich history of studying polarization, and there is an important opportunity to define and refine its contributions to the present political realities. We do so in the context of one of the most pressing modern issues: climate change. We synthesize the literature on political polarization and its applications to climate change, and we propose lines of further research and intervention design. We focus on polarization in the United States, examining other countries when literature was available. The polarization literature emphasizes two types of mechanisms of political polarization: (1) individual-level psychological processes related to political ideology and (2) group-level psychological processes related to partisan identification. Interventions that address group-level processes can be more effective than those that address individual-level processes. Accordingly, we emphasize the promise of interventions leveraging superordinate identities, correcting misperceived norms, and having trusted leaders communicate about climate change. Behavioral interventions like these that are grounded in scientific research are one of our most promising tools to achieve the behavioral wedge that we need to address climate change and to make progress on other policy issues.
As the majority of the research has focused on the association between the Big Five and political orientations in terms of social attitudes, or a combination of social and economic attitudes, this chapter highlights the research that examines the association between personality and economic attitudes, as somewhat different findings are sometimes uncovered.KeywordsPersonalityTrait theoryBig FiveExtraversionAgreeablenessCompassionPolitenessNeuroticismPolitical orientationsLeft-wingRight-wing
A short‐term obstacle to united political action to fight climate change in various countries is opposition to pro‐environmental policies among conservatives. Three preregistered studies test the hypothesis that because conservatives have a higher need for closure than liberals (Hypothesis 1), framing pro‐environmental policies in a way that appeals to the need for closure, reduces conservatives’ opposition to these policies (Hypothesis 2). Study 1 confirms Hypothesis 1. Next, two studies test Hypothesis 2 and find that conservatives are less opposed to pro‐environmental policies proposed by a politician (Study 2) or an NGO (Study 3) if these policies are framed in a way that appeals to the need for closure, while the opposite is the case for liberals. Across these two studies, we also test the underlying process but find no evidence for the idea that differences in need for closure mediate the effect (Hypothesis 3a). Instead, the effect is primarily driven by inferences about group membership and ingroup bias (Hypothesis 3b, non‐preregistered). That is, these data suggest that framing policies to appeal to closure needs reduces conservatives’ opposition because they infer that the policy is proposed by a fellow conservative.
The simplification of the political landscape in terms of ‘left’ and ‘right’ is common across most democracies, if not most of the world. This would suggest that the terminology has a shared core meaning in different political contexts. While no such stable element has been established in the political science literature, various potential dividing lines that may form the core meaning have been proposed. This paper is the most extensive comparative study to our knowledge that evaluates these proposals by studying responses to open‐ended survey questions on what voters associate with the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’. Data from eight different democratic political contexts are analysed using quantitative text analysis methods. The results demonstrate varied support for the different explanations. Evidence is found in all contexts for the hypothesis that acceptance of inequality divides left‐ from right‐wing politics. That the left‐right dimension is a divide between those for and against government intervention in the economy, or between those for change and against change, is mostly congruent with our findings. We find less evidence that either secular/religious divisions, or different conceptions of equality, consistently differentiate left from right. Our findings point towards the existence of a context‐independent underlying dimension of left‐right competition.
This paper examines the effects of education and cognitive sophistication on willingness to extend civil liberties to nonconformist
groups. We conducted secondary analysis of the 1984 General Society Survey data. The results show that there is a strong tolerance
dimension that cuts across groups and types of actions. We found strong positive effects of education on a multiple target
group tolerance scale that included both left-wing and right-wing groups. A substantial fraction of the education effect on
tolerance is mediated by cognitive sophistication. The effects of education on tolerance are strong even when a person has
negative feelings toward the target group. This paper helps identify why and when (e.g., cognitive sophistication and dislike
of a target group) education enhances political tolerance. We discuss the implications of the research for debates on the
education-tolerance relationship.
A meta-analysis by J. T. Jost, J. Glaser, A. W. Kruglanski, and F. J. Sulloway (2003) concluded that political conservatism is partially motivated by the management of uncertainty and threat. In this reply to J. Greenberg and E. Jonas (2003), conceptual issues are clarified, numerous political anomalies are explained, and alleged counterexamples are incorporated with a dynamic model that takes into account differences between "young" and "old" movements. Studies directly pitting the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis against the ideological extremity hypothesis demonstrate strong support for the former. Medium to large effect sizes describe relations between political conservatism and dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity; lack of openness to experience; uncertainty avoidance; personal needs for order, structure, and closure; fear of death; and system threat. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
According to Morris Fiorina, Americans are moderate, tolerant, and ambivalent in their political attitudes. This has always been true and it is, if anything, more true today than in the past. The culture war is almost entirely an elite phenomenon, driven by a small group of activists on the left and right who exert influence far out of proportion to their numbers. It is the elites and activists who are polarized, not the public. In this study we use data from the American National Election Studies and national exit polls to test five major claims made by Fiorina about the state of public opinion in the United States. This evidence indicates that while some of the claims of culture war proponents are overstated, there are deep divisions in America between Democrats and Republicans, between red state voters and blue state voters, and between religious voters and secular voters. These divisions are not confined to a small minority of elected officials and activists - they involve a large segment of the public and they are likely to increase in the future as a result of long-term trends affecting American society.
The issue of international terrorism has figured frequently in recent political debates and media coverage. In the present
paper, we explore the question of how the salience of the concept of international terrorism affects the system-justifying
tendencies of public opinion. On the basis of Terror Management Theory and System Justification Theory it was hypothesized
that terrorism salience would lead to increased system justification. Four experiments with student and non-student adult
samples support the hypothesis, yielding a medium-sized average effect of d=0.47. Across variations in the intensity of focal death-related thoughts, the effect was not subject to boundary conditions
typical of mortality salience effects. Social and political psychological implications are discussed.
http://implicit.harvard.edu/ was created to provide experience with the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a procedure designed to measure social knowledge that may operate outside awareness or control. Significant by-products of the website's existence are large datasets contributed to by the site's many visitors. This article summarises data from more than 2.5 million completed IATs and self-reports across 17 topics obtained between July 2000 and May 2006. In addition to reinforcing several published findings with a heterogeneous sample, the data help to establish that: (a) implicit preferences and stereotypes are pervasive across demographic groups and topics, (b) as with self-report, there is substantial inter-individual variability in implicit attitudes and stereotypes, (c) variations in gender, ethnicity, age, and political orientation predict variation in implicit and explicit measures, and (d) implicit and explicit attitudes and stereotypes are related, but distinct. Psychology Accepted Manuscript
Presenting an impressive model based on a large body of evidence, J. T. Jost, J. Glaser, A.W. Kruglanski, and F. J. Sulloway (2003) proposed that political conservatism uniquely serves epistemic, existential, and ideological needs driven by fears and uncertainties. The authors offer an alternative view based on conceptual considerations, historical events, features of communist ideology and practice, and additional social science research not reviewed by Jost et al. (2003). First, the authors take issue with Jost et al.'s (2003) description of the two core components of political conservatism. Second, they propose that the motives in the model are equally well served by rigid adherence to any extreme ideology regardless of whether it is right wing or left wing.
This collection of papers by William J. McGuire reports research on the phenomenal self, revealing how we selectively perceive ourselves and other complex stimuli in terms of distinctive or atypical features, often noticing what is missing rather than what is there. The content, structure, and processing of thought systems surrounding the self and other complex stimuli are shown to function by balancing logical consistency, realistic coping, and hedonic gratification. Attitude change and social influence processes are described, with particular attention given to the personality correlates of persuasability, how beliefs can be immunized against persuasion, how persuasive communications affect beliefs, and how people can be persuaded by Socratic questioning that does not give them new information but rather directs their attention to information they already have. Also reported are findings on language and thought, psychology and history, and techniques of creative thinking in psychology and other fields.
Although over the past few decades liberal/conservative self-identifications have often played a part in studies of belief systems, they have seldom been the focus of research. Recently, however, several studies have suggested that such identifications play a significant role in voting behavior and political perception. Implicit in this research, however, are two tenuous assumptions: that liberal/conservative identifications are bipolar in meaning and that underlying this bipolarity is cognitive meaning based on political issues. In this paper, we develop a model of ideological identifications that emphasizes their symbolic and nondimensional origins and nature. Based on the 1976 and 1978 National Election Studies, our empirical analysis reveals strong support for the model. Specifically, ideological identifications are found to have largely symbolic meanings, a fact that helps to explain some of the findings concerning the relationship of the liberal/conservative continuum to political perception and behavior.
Does conservative political thought have a place in America today? The answer to this question depends upon the general nature of conservatism as an ideology: its distinguishing characteristics, its substance, and the conditions under which it arises. By ideology I mean a system of ideas concerned with the distribution of political and social values and acquiesced in by a significant social group. Interpretations of the role and relevance of conservative thought on the contemporary scene vary greatly. Underlying the debate, however, are three broad and conflicting conceptions of the nature of conservatism as an ideology. This essay deals with the relative merits of these concepts.
Comparison of the findings from a 1979 sample of faculty members of the honorific academies and a 1977 national survey of American professors indicates that the former are more liberal politically than the latter, including those at the most distinguished institutions. This result is in line with a body of theory which suggests that intellectual creativity is associated with critical social views, and with earlier research which found that scholarly status among faculty generally is correlated with liberal political orientations. The relationship inverts, however, for questions bearing on the self-interest of academic achievers both within and outside of the university.
It is noted with regard to the submissive personality, it is visualized that this personality structure, observable in early adulthood and better explained by social learning than by psychoanalytic theory, is thought to be developed during adolescence from earlier training in obedience, conventionalism, and aggression, as modified by the individual's subsequent experiences. On the other hand, in context to authoritarian personality, authoritarians harbor many double standards and hypocrisies, without realizing it. This chapter illustrates a part of an investigation of general public opinion concerning a variety of social issues. Adult authoritarians tend to be highly ethnocentric and users of the “consensual validation pill” (Newcomb, 1961). They travel in tight circles of like-minded people, they often think their views are commonly held in society, that they are the “Moral Majority” or the “Silent Majority.” Certain kinds of religious training have sometimes helped produce their ethnocentrism and authoritarianism.
Potentially traumatic events evoke a wide range of responses and outcomes. From a motivated so- cial cognitive approach to ideology, system-threatening events such as 9/11 should increase psy- chological needs to manage uncertainty and threat and, therefore, the appeal of politically conser- vative opinions. We investigated "conservative shift" among high-exposure survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks (n = 45) and its relationship to coping and adjustment. Results indicated that Democrats and Independents (as well as Republicans) were more likely to shift toward conserva- tism and away from liberalism following 9/11. Despite its prevalence, we found relatively little evidence that embracing conservatism was related to improved well-being as measured either in terms of survivors' mental health symptoms or friends-relatives' ratings of their psychological adjustment. On the contrary, political conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism, and conserva- tive shift were generally associated with the following: chronically elevated levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, desire for revenge and militarism, cyni- cism, and decreased use of humor. Conservative shift was also associated with increased religios- ity, patriotism, and the perception that the events of 9/11 created new interests and opportunities, suggesting that it may contain some adaptive (as well as maladaptive) features.
This study investigates the possibility that government-issued terror warnings could increase support for the president. This contention is supported anecdotally by the large increase in presidential approval immediately following the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001. Additionally, social identity theory suggests that fear of external attacks leads to increased support for standing leaders. To evaluate this proposition, I conducted several time-series analyses on the relationship between government-issued terror warnings reported in the Washington Post between February 2001 and May 2004, and Gallup poll data on Americans' opinions of President George W. Bush. Across several regression models, results showed a consistent, positive relationship between terror warnings and presidential approval. I also found that government-issued terror warnings increased support for President Bush's handling of the economy. Analyses intended to determine the duration of these effects were inconclusive.
In this chapter, we have sought to integrate insights from and contribute to the further development of a long and distinguished tradition of analyzing the psychological basis of political ideology. As ideological animals, human beings suffuse the world with socially constructed meanings. The various theories described in this chapter are in general agreement with Marx, Freud, Becker, and many others that meaning systems can be said to reflect underlying need states. In this way, ideologies are socially and psychologically constructed, but they are not constructed arbitrarily. The available evidence to date supports the utility of distinguishing among different types of ideological belief systems in terms of how well they satisfy and resonate with a variety of psychological needs pertaining to the management of uncertainty and threat. Ideologies, in this sense, should be judged (at least partially) in terms of how successfully they resolve for their adherents the basic questions and strains of human living. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Reviews measures of particular political attitudes by focusing on the central concept in the study of politics, political ideology. The author reviews 15 separate scales measuring this construct, 3 of which attempt to cover the spectrum most broadly, 6 of which appear more tied to research on authoritarianism, 3 of which are more directed to radicalism and the "left" extreme of the ideological spectrum, and 3 of which examine the "right" end of the spectrum. Knight provides an extensive review of the vast number of single liberal–conservative items used by most survey organizations. Although they may not yield agreement on what proportion of the country is liberal or conservative, these different organizational measures all seem to show that there has been no simple, consistent shift to the right or to the left over the last quarter century. The author concludes the chapter with a useful summary guide concerning which aspects of ideology each of the 15 scales does (or does not) address. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Subjects with some religious affiliation are more prejudiced than those without affiliation, but no significant difference between Protestants and Catholics. There is a low but significant negative relation of intelligence and education to ethnocentrism. Interviews threw light on parental relations, childhood, conception of self, and dynamics and organization of personality. Projective techniques are described and results analyzed. 63 interviews are analyzed qualitatively for prejudice, political and economic ideas, religious ideology and syndromes among high and low scorers. The development of two contrasting cases is given. Criminality and antidemocratic trends in prison inmates and a study of clinic patients complete the investigation of the authoritarian personality pattern. 121 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
By ideology we mean here any organized set of ideas about which human beings are at once both articulate and passionate and about which they are least certain. The foundations of mathematics, the philosophy of science, metaphysics, theology, epistemology, the theory of value, ethics, aesthetics, jurisprudence, government, theory of education, and, finally, theories about child rearing, more recently called socialization—these have all evoked the most coherent and passionate controversy. When the same ideas are firmly established and incorporated into the fabric of a science or tested and found wanting, they cease to constitute an ideology in the sense in which we are using the term. At the growing edge of the frontier of all sciences there necessarily is a maximum of uncertainty, and what is lacking in evidence is filled by passion and faith and by hatred and scorn for the disbelievers. Science will never be free of ideology, though yesterday's ideology is today's fact or fiction. Ideology appears in many domains, but it is found in its purest form in those controversies which are centuries old, which have never ceased to find true believers, whether the issue is joined in mathematics, in aesthetics, or in politics. Over and over again, whether theorists address themselves to one or another of these domains, they appear to become polarized on the same issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Adopting a multidimensional approach to the measurement and conceptualization of “social dominance orientation” (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994), we argue for the existence of two related ideological factors, one that measures general opposition to equality (OEQ) and another that measures support for group-based dominance (GBD). Because of status differences between European and African Americans, it was hypothesized that the two factors would be differentially related to each other and to variables of psychological well-being, ethnocentrism, and social policy attitudes. Integrating results from four studies involving 1675 research participants, we found that (a) a correlated two-factor solution of the 16-item SDO scale provided a better comparative fit than a one-factor solution; (b) the two factors were more highly intercorrelated for European American than for African American respondents; (c) OEQ was related negatively to self-esteem and ethnocentrism for African Americans, but it was related positively to self-esteem and ethnocentrism for European Americans; (d) GBD related positively to ethnocentrism for both groups; (e) attitudes toward conservative social policy and affirmative action were predicted more by OEQ than by GBD for both groups; (f) the relation between OEQ and neuroticism was positive for African Americans but negative for European Americans, whereas the relation between GBD and neuroticism was positive for European Americans but negative for African Americans; and (g) economic system justification was related to OEQ but not GBD, and it also predicted political conservatism and racial attitudes.
Ideology has been the subject of a surprising amount of attention during the last half of the twentieth century. Although it has been argued that the term has been “thoroughly muddied by diverse uses” (Converse 1964, 207), an empirical investigation of the pages of the Review reveals substantial convergence among political scientists over time on a core definition. This essay traces the use of the concept in the Review since its launch in 1906. It reveals changing fashions in the connotation of the term, but suggests an underlying agreement on the essential components—coherence, stability and contrast—and underlines the centrality of the concept of ideology in political science.
A quasi-experimental study on the effects of terrorism on racial prejudice and ideological orientation is presented. Two independent samples were contacted before and after the Islamic terrorist attacks against railways in Madrid (11 March 2004). Anti-Arab and anti-Semite prejudices, authoritarianism and ideological orientations (liberal against conservative) were evaluated. Results showed that those terrorist attacks provoked changes in a reactionary and conservative direction: stronger prejudices not only against the target group (Arabs), but against another uninvolved group (Jewish); an increase in authoritarianism; stronger attachment to traditional conservative values, and a reduction in the attachment to liberal values. The results are interpreted in terms of the System-Justification Theory, the Motivated Social Cognition model of Conservatism and the Right-Wing Authoritarianism. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
hy do people think and act politically in the manner they do? Despite the foundational nature of this question, answers are unfortu- nately incomplete and unnecessarily tentative, largely because political scientists do not take seriously the possibility of nonenvironmental influences. The sug- gestion that people could be born with political pre- dispositions strikes many as far-fetched, odd, even perverse. However, researchers in other disciplines—- notably behavioral genetics—-have uncovered a sub- stantial heritable component for many social attitudes and behaviors and it seems unlikely that political atti- tudes and behaviors are completely immune from such forces. In this article, we combine relevant findings in behavioral genetics with our own analysis of data on a large sample of twins to test the hypothesis that, con- trary to the assumptions embedded in political science research, political attitudes have genetic as well as en- vironmental causes. 1
According to system justification theory, there is a psychological motive to defend and justify the status quo. There are both dispositional antecedents (e.g., need for closure, openness to experience) and situational antecedents (e.g., system threat, mortality salience) of the tendency to embrace system-justifying ideologies. Consequences of system justification sometimes differ for members of advantaged versus disadvantaged groups, with the former experiencing increased and the latter decreased self-esteem, well-being, and in-group favoritism. In accordance with the palliative function of system justification, endorsement of such ideologies is associated with reduced negative affect for everyone, as well as weakened support for social change and redistribution of resources.
Although skeptics continue to doubt that most people are “ideological,” evidence suggests that meaningful left-right differences do exist and that they may be rooted in basic personality dispositions, that is, relatively stable individual differences in psychological needs, motives, and orientations toward the world. Seventy-five years of theory and research on personality and political orientation has produced a long list of dispositions, traits, and behaviors. Applying a theory of ideology as motivated social cognition and a “Big Five” framework, we find that two traits, Openness to New Experiences and Conscientiousness, parsimoniously capture many of the ways in which individual differences underlying political orientation have been conceptualized. In three studies we investigate the relationship between personality and political orientation using multiple domains and measurement techniques, including: self-reported personality assessment; nonverbal behavior in the context of social interaction; and personal possessions and the characteristics of living and working spaces. We obtained consistent and converging evidence that personality differences between liberals and conservatives are robust, replicable, and behaviorally significant, especially with respect to social (vs. economic) dimensions of ideology. In general, liberals are more open-minded, creative, curious, and novelty seeking, whereas conservatives are more orderly, conventional, and better organized.
Most theories in social and political psychology stress self-interest, intergroup conflict, ethnocentrism, homophily, ingroup bias, outgroup antipathy, dominance, and resistance. System justification theory is influenced by these perspectives—including social identity and social dominance theories—but it departs from them in several respects. Advocates of system justification theory argue that (a) there is a general ideological motive to justify the existing social order, (b) this motive is at least partially responsible for the internalization of inferiority among members of disadvantaged groups, (c) it is observed most readily at an implicit, nonconscious level of awareness and (d) paradoxically, it is sometimes strongest among those who are most harmed by the status quo. This article reviews and integrates 10 years of research on 20 hypotheses derived from a system justification perspective, focusing on the phenomenon of implicit outgroup favoritism among members of disadvantaged groups (including African Americans, the elderly, and gays/lesbians) and its relation to political ideology (especially liberalism-conservatism).
An experiment was conducted to assess the effect of a subtle reminder of death on voting intentions for the 2004 U.S. presidential election. On the basis of terror management theory and previous research, we hypothesized that a mortality salience induction would increase support for President George W. Bush and decrease support for Senator John Kerry. In late September 2004, following a mortality salience or control induction, registered voters were asked which candidate they intended to vote for. In accord with predictions, Senator John Kerry received substantially more votes than George Bush in the control condition, but Bush was favored over Kerry following a reminder of death, suggesting that President Bush's re-election may have been facilitated by nonconscious concerns about mortality in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.
The present study reports on the personality attributes of nursery school children who two decades later were reliably stratified along a liberal/conservative dimension. An unprecedented analytical opportunity existed to evaluate how the political views of these young adults related to assessments of them when in nursery school, prior to their having become political beings. Preschool children who 20 years later were relatively liberal were characterized as: developing close relationships, self-reliant, energetic, somewhat dominating, relatively under-controlled, and resilient. Preschool children subsequently relatively conservative at age 23 were described as: feeling easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and relatively over-controlled and vulnerable. IQ during nursery school did not relate to subsequent liberalism/conservatism but did relate in subsequent decades. Personality correlates of liberalism/conservatism for the subjects as young adults were also reported: conservatives were described in terms congruent with previous formulations in the literature; liberals displayed personality commonalities but also manifested gender differences. Some implications of the results are briefly discussed.
According to previous research conducted mainly in the United States, psychological needs pertaining to the management of uncertainty and threat predict right-wing conservatism, operationally defined in terms of resistance to change and acceptance of inequality. In this study, we analyze data from 19 countries included in the European Social Survey (ESS) to assess two sets of hypotheses: (1) that traditionalism (an aspect of resistance to change) and acceptance of inequality would be positively associated with right (versus left) orientation, and (2) that rule-following (an aspect of the need for order), high need for security, and low need for openness to experience would be associated with right (versus left) orientation, adjusting for quadratic effects associated with ideological extremity. In addition, we determine the extent to which the pattern of relations among needs, values, and political orientation was similar in Eastern and Western European contexts. Results from regression and structural equation models indicate that traditionalism and, to a lesser extent, rule-following predict right-wing conservatism in both regions, whereas acceptance of inequality predicts right-wing orientation in the West only. Although openness to experience was associated with preferences for greater equality in both regions, it was associated with left-wing orientation in Western Europe and right-wing orientation in Eastern Europe. Needs for security, conversely, were associated with right-wing orientation in Western Europe and left-wing orientation in Eastern Europe. Thus, we find evidence of both universal and context-specific effects in our analysis of the cognitive and motivational antecedents of left-right political orientation.
The Varieties of Religious Experience : a Study in Human Nature / William James Note: The University of Adelaide Library eBooks @ Adelaide.