A New Measure of Conservatism*

Wilson, Glenn D.; Patterson, John R.

doi:10.1111/j.2044-8260.1968.tb00568.x

Cited by 505 publications

(276 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Following the target detection task, participants were asked to complete two batteries of survey items: a modification of the well-known Wilson-Patterson Inventory (Wilson & Patterson, 1968) and a newer "Society Works Best" collection of items. The Wilson-Patterson Inventory asked respondents to indicate whether they agreed or disagreed with a number of "hot-button" topics (e.g., abortion, gay marriage).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The politics of attention: gaze-cuing effects are moderated by political temperament

Dodd

Hibbing

Smith

2010

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Gaze cues lead to reflexive shifts of attention even when those gaze cues do not predict target location. Although this general effect has been repeatedly demonstrated, not all individuals orient to gaze in an identical manner. For example, the magnitude of gaze-cuing effects have been reduced or eliminated in populations such as those scoring high on the Autism-Spectrum Quotient and in males relative to females (since males exhibit more autismlike traits). In the present study, we examined whether gaze cue effects would be moderated by political temperament, given that those on the political right tend to be more supportive of individualism-and less likely to be influenced by others-than those on the left. We found standard gaze-cuing effects across all subjects but systematic differences in these effects by political temperament. Liberals exhibited a very large gaze-cuing effect, whereas conservatives showed no such effect at various stimulus onset asynchronies.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The politics of attention: gaze-cuing effects are moderated by political temperament

Dodd

Hibbing

Smith

2010

Atten Percept Psychophys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…These 24 statements expressed a typical Republican or Democratic view of 12 topics (in the partisan conditions). The content of the statements were issues derived from the Wilson-Paterson Conservatism Scale (Wilson & Patterson, 1968), and modified to represent topical policy debates. The topics were: health care, the Iraq war, domestic surveillance, teaching evolution, gay marriage, welfare, stem-cell research, immigration, gun control, separation of church and state, global warming, and taxation (see Supplementary Online Materials).…”

Section: Statementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constituents of political cognition: Race, party politics, and the alliance detection system

et al. 2015

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!Research suggests that the mind contains a set of adaptations for detecting alliances: an alliance detection system, which monitors for, encodes, and stores alliance information and then modifies the activation of stored alliance categories according to how likely they will predict behavior within a particular social interaction. Previous studies have established the activation of this system when exposed to explicit competition or cooperation between individuals. In the current studies we examine if shared political opinions produce these same effects. In particular, (1) if participants will spontaneously categorize individuals according to the parties they support, even when explicit cooperation and antagonism are absent, and (2) if party support is sufficiently powerful to decrease participants' categorization by an orthogonal but typically-diagnostic alliance cue (in this case the target's race). Evidence was found for both: Participants spontaneously and implicitly kept track of who supported which party, and when party cross-cut race-such that the race of targets was not predictive of party support-categorization by race was dramatically reduced. To verify that these results reflected the operation of a cognitive system for modifying the activation of alliance categories, and not just socially-relevant categories in general, an identical set of studies was also conducted with in which party was either crossed with sex or age (neither of which is predicted to be primarily an alliance category). As predicted, categorization by party occurred to the same degree, and there was no reduction in either categorization by sex or by age. All effects were replicated across two sets of between-subjects conditions. These studies provide the first direct empirical evidence that party politics engages the mind's systems for detecting alliances and establish two important social categorization phenomena: (1) that categorization by age is, like sex, not affected by alliance information and (2) that political contexts can reduce the degree to which individuals are represented in terms of their race.!

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“…To provide additional internal validation for the scale in the present sample, we related authoritarianism to endorsement of 10 of Wilson and Patterson's (1968) topics in their conservatism scale (which follows a simple "yes, no, uncertain" format). Authoritarianism was related to 7 of these items: evolution theory, disarmament, and mixed marriage, with endorsers of these concepts scoring as less authoritarian than nonendorsers (p < .01); and apartheid, censorship, strict rules, and Bible truth, with endorsers scoring as more authoritarian (p < .01, except in the case of apartheid, with p < .05).…”

Section: Predictorsmentioning

confidence: 99%