A neurocognitive model of ideological thinking

Abstract

Ideological behavior has traditionally been viewed as a product of social forces. Nonetheless, an emerging science suggests that ideological worldviews can also be understood in terms of neural and cognitive principles. The article proposes a neurocognitive model of ideological thinking, arguing that ideological worldviews may be manifestations of individuals’ perceptual and cognitive systems. This model makes two claims. First, there are neurocognitive antecedents to ideological thinking: the brain’s low-level neurocognitive dispositions influence its receptivity to ideological doctrines. Second, there are neurocognitive consequences to ideological engagement: strong exposure and adherence to ideological doctrines can shape perceptual and cognitive systems. This article details the neurocognitive model of ideological thinking and synthesizes the empirical evidence in support of its claims. The model postulates that there are bidirectional processes between the brain and the ideological environment, and so it can address the roles of situational and motivational factors in ideologically motivated action. This endeavor highlights that an interdisciplinary neurocognitive approach to ideologies can facilitate biologically informed accounts of the ideological brain and thus reveal who is most susceptible to extreme and authoritarian ideologies. By investigating the relationships between low-level perceptual processes and high-level ideological attitudes, we can develop a better grasp of our collective history as well as the mechanisms that may structure our political futures.

The psychological and socio-political consequences of infectious diseases: Authoritarianism, governance, and nonzoonotic (human-to-human) infection transmission

“…Notably, the cross-cultural analyses presented here show that historical pathogen prevalence still predicts contemporary ideological attitudes, and so if COVID-19 elevates the allure of authoritarian ideologies, the effects could be long-lasting. Authoritarian attitudes have bidirectional links with cognition and percep tion (e.g., Rollwage, Zmigrod, de-Wit, Dolan, & Fleming, 2019;Zmigrod, 2020Zmigrod, , 2021Zmigrod et al, 2018Zmigrod et al, , 2019Zmigrod et al, , 2020Zmigrod & Tsakiris, 2021), sociality (e.g., Adorno et al, 1950;Pettigrew, 2016), and political institutions (e.g., Solt, 2012;Stevens, Bishin, & Barr, 2006), and so individuals and societies need to be prepared for COVID-19 to have multidimensional psychological and political consequences.…”

A Psychology of Ideology: Unpacking the Psychological Structure of Ideological Thinking

“…However, scientists of ideological thinking will need to tackle difficult questions about why we observe correspondences between social attitudes and cognitive structure and what behavioral and neural mechanisms underpin these correspondences. This endeavor will involve the use of experimental paradigms, behavioral genetics, and longitudinal and developmental studies to inform a nuanced account of how neurocognitive susceptibilities are co-opted by ideologically prone contexts ( Zmigrod, 2021 ).…”

Distinguishing Partisan and Extremist Brains?: Research Paths Toward Neural Signatures of Violent Radicalism

“…Research on the biological underpinnings of dominance, risk-seeking, dogmatism, parochialism, dishonesty, machiavellianism, and other relevant traits has accrued a good amount of associations with extremism proneness, at different levels of neural analysis. Links that go from gene markers and neurohormones to brain subsystems [4,5,30,47,56,[63][64][65][66]. These interdependencies have already been used to improve the deployment of provisional but increasingly detailed depictions.…”