Are All Conservatives Alike? A Study of the Psychological Correlates of Cultural and Economic Conservatism

Crowson, H. Michael

doi:10.3200/jrl.143.5.449-463

Cited by 104 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…More specifically, in Experiment 3 participants were asked to complete the very same task presented in Experiment 2 and their need for closure and need for cognition were also assessed. Moreover, in Experiment 3 the measure of political ideology comprised items related to both social and economic issues [28], [29]. We predicted that, as demonstrated in Experiment 2, conservatives, as compared to liberals, would be more likely attracted by negative stimuli, and would thus be faster to detect a probe appearing in the same spatial location of such negative stimuli, even when other specific individual differences (i.e., need for closure and need for cognition) are taken under control.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Automatic Conservative: Ideology-Based Attentional Asymmetries in the Processing of Valenced Information

2011

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Research has widely explored the differences between conservatives and liberals, and it has been also recently demonstrated that conservatives display different reactions toward valenced stimuli. However, previous studies have not yet fully illuminated the cognitive underpinnings of these differences. In the current work, we argued that political ideology is related to selective attention processes, so that negative stimuli are more likely to automatically grab the attention of conservatives as compared to liberals. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated that negative (vs. positive) information impaired the performance of conservatives, more than liberals, in an Emotional Stroop Task. This finding was confirmed in Experiment 2 and in Experiment 3 employing a Dot-Probe Task, demonstrating that threatening stimuli were more likely to attract the attention of conservatives. Overall, results support the conclusion that people embracing conservative views of the world display an automatic selective attention for negative stimuli.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Automatic Conservative: Ideology-Based Attentional Asymmetries in the Processing of Valenced Information

2011

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“…In particular, it is unclear whether our findings are attributable to cultural (social) conservatism, economic conservatism, or both. This ambiguity is important given that cultural and economic conservatism tend to be only weakly correlated and to display differing personality correlates (Crowson, 2009). It is also possible that our measure of conservatism served as a proxy for social dominance orientation, viz., a preference for social group inequality (Pratto et al, 1994), a trait that is moderately correlated with, but separable from, conservatism.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Correlates of psychopathic personality traits in everyday life: results from a large community survey

Lilienfeld¹,

Latzman²,

Watts³

et al. 2014

Front. Psychol.

112

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Although the traits of psychopathic personality (psychopathy) have received extensive attention from researchers in forensic psychology, psychopathology, and personality psychology, the relations of these traits to aspects of everyday functioning are poorly understood. Using a large internet survey of members of the general population (N = 3388), we examined the association between psychopathic traits, as measured by a brief but well-validated self-report measure, and occupational choice, political orientation, religious affiliation, and geographical residence. Psychopathic traits, especially those linked to fearless dominance, were positively and moderately associated with holding leadership and management positions, as well as high-risk occupations. In addition, psychopathic traits were positively associated with political conservatism, lack of belief in God, and living in Europe as opposed to the United States, although the magnitudes of these statistical effects were generally small in magnitude. Our findings offer preliminary evidence that psychopathic personality traits display meaningful response penetration into daily functioning, and raise provocative questions for future research.

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“…Research in this area has also garnered some legitimate criticism on scientific grounds. Some of the more thoughtful questions and criticisms have come from members of ISPP, including the following: 1)What about rigidity of the left, especially in Central/Eastern Europe, given its history of dogmatic leadership and totalitarian socialism (Golec de Zavala, & Van Bergh, ; Greenberg & Jonas, )? 2)Are needs to reduce uncertainty and threat associated with authoritarianism—or ideological extremism in general—rather than political conservatism per se (Crowson, Thoma, & Hestevold, ; Greenberg & Jonas, ; van Prooijen, Krouwel, Boiten, & Eendebak, )? 3)Aren't the psychological correlates of social versus economic conservatism very different from one another (Crowson, ; Feldman & Johnston, ; Malka, Soto, Inzlicht, & Lelkes, )? 4)Could it be that the “true” effect sizes between psychological and political variables are much weaker than Jost et al () suggested (Jussim et al, ; Van Hiel et al, )? 5)Aren't ideological differences confined to subjective, self‐report measures that mean little when it comes to actual behavior (Kahan, ; Van Hiel et al, )? 6)Aren't liberals just as biased as conservatives when it comes to motivated social cognition (Conway et al, ; Crawford, ; Kahan, ), and just as prejudiced, too (Brandt, Reyna, Chambers, Crawford, & Wetherell, ; Chambers, Schlenker, & Collisson, )? …”

Section: Political Ideology As Motivated Social Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ideological Asymmetries and the Essence of Political Psychology

Jost

2017

Political Psychology

530

540

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Individuals are not merely passive vessels of whatever beliefs and opinions they have been exposed to; rather, they are attracted to belief systems that resonate with their own psychological needs and interests, including epistemic, existential, and relational needs to attain certainty, security, and social belongingness. Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway () demonstrated that needs to manage uncertainty and threat were associated with core values of political conservatism, namely respect for tradition and acceptance of inequality. Since 2003 there have been far more studies on the psychology of left‐right ideology than in the preceding half century, and their empirical yield helps to address lingering questions and criticisms. We have identified 181 studies of epistemic motivation (involving 130,000 individual participants) and nearly 100 studies of existential motivation (involving 360,000 participants). These databases, which are much larger and more heterogeneous than those used in previous meta‐analyses, confirm that significant ideological asymmetries exist with respect to dogmatism, cognitive/perceptual rigidity, personal needs for order/structure/closure, integrative complexity, tolerance of ambiguity/uncertainty, need for cognition, cognitive reflection, self‐deception, and subjective perceptions of threat. Exposure to objectively threatening circumstances—such as terrorist attacks, governmental warnings, and shifts in racial demography—contribute to modest “conservative shifts” in public opinion. There are also ideological asymmetries in relational motivation, including the desire to share reality, perceptions of within‐group consensus, collective self‐efficacy, homogeneity of social networks, and the tendency to trust the government more when one's own political party is in power. Although some object to the very notion that there are meaningful psychological differences between leftists and rightists, the identification of “elective affinities” between cognitive‐motivational processes and contents of specific belief systems is essential to the study of political psychology. Political psychologists may contribute to the development of a good society not by downplaying ideological differences or advocating “Swiss‐style neutrality” when it comes to human values, but by investigating such phenomena critically, even—or perhaps especially—when there is pressure in society to view them uncritically.

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Are All Conservatives Alike? A Study of the Psychological Correlates of Cultural and Economic Conservatism

Cited by 104 publications

References 25 publications

The Automatic Conservative: Ideology-Based Attentional Asymmetries in the Processing of Valenced Information

The Automatic Conservative: Ideology-Based Attentional Asymmetries in the Processing of Valenced Information

Correlates of psychopathic personality traits in everyday life: results from a large community survey

Ideological Asymmetries and the Essence of Political Psychology

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