Are Conservatives More Sensitive to Threat than Liberals? It Depends on How We Define Threat and Conservatism

Crawford, Jarret T.

doi:10.1521/soco.2017.35.4.354

Cited by 113 publications

(129 citation statements)

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“…Oxley et al (), for example, predicted that physiological responsiveness to threatening images and unexpected noise would predict political positions reflecting concern “with protecting the interests of the participants' group, defined as the United States in mid‐2007, from threats” (p. 1668). Though this study is often cited as evidence that threat sensitivity predicts political conservatism (e.g., Jost & Amodio, , p. 60; see Crawford, ), Oxley et al () asserted that “we do not label these collections of policy positions as either ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ because we measure only one aspect of ideologies and exclude other aspects such as positions on economic issues” (p. 1668). Indeed, while Oxley et al () found relationships between threat sensitivity and an attitude index involving conservative cultural and defense‐related positions (e.g., abortion, immigration, Patriot Act, warrantless searches), they found no such relationship with economic conservatism.…”

Section: The Psychological Bases Of Political Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…And, as we discuss below, Petruscu and Parkinson (2014) found that disgust manipulations also lead to left-wing economic preferences. Clearly, type of threat matters, as does political attitude domain (Crawford, 2017;Kettle & Salerno, 2017;Lambert et al, 2010).…”

Section: Asymmetry In the Issue Correlates Of Other Forms Of Threat Smentioning

confidence: 99%

“… As scholars have pointed out, it is important to attend closely to the measures and manipulations used in research on threat and political attitudes (Crawford, ; Malka et al, ; Reyna, ; Tritt, Peterson, Page‐Gould, & Inzlicht, ). For example, in unpublished data, Gosling and Pennebaker () report positive, significant correlations between fears of terrorism and ISIS and economic conservatism (see Jost, Stern, et al, ).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Contingent, Contextual Nature of the Relationship Between Needs for Security and Certainty and Political Preferences: Evidence and Implications

Federico

Malka

2018

Political Psychology

149

226

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Research on the dispositional origins of political preferences is flourishing, and the primary conclusion drawn from this work is that stronger needs for security and certainty attract people to a broad-based politically conservative ideology. Though this literature covers much ground, most integrative assessments of it have paid insufficient attention to the presence and implications of contingencies in the relationship between dispositional attributes and political attitudes. In this article, we review research showing that relationships between needs for security and certainty and political preferences vary considerably-sometimes to the point of directional shifts-on the basis of (1) issue domain and (2) contextual factors governing the content and volume of political discourse individuals are exposed to. On the basis of this evidence, we argue that relationships between dispositional attributes and political preferences vary in the extent to which they reflect an organic functional resonance between dispositions and preferences or identity-expressive motivation to adopt a political attitude merely because it is discursively packaged with other need-congruent attitudes. We contend that such a distinction is critical to gaining a realistic understanding of the origins and nature of ideological belief systems, and we consequently recommend an increased focus on issue-based and contextual variation in relationships between dispositions and political preferences.KEY WORDS: political preferences, ideology, needs for security and certainty, political expertise Why do individuals' political preferences lean to the left or to the right? To put it mildly, a great amount of social-scientific ink has been spilled addressing this question. Some perspectives suggest that political preferences are a function of interests associated with the positions of the social groups one belongs to, with members of more powerful groups adopting more conservative views (e.g., Bobo, 1999;Huber & Form, 1973;Kluegel & Smith, 1986; Marx & Engels, 1846/1970Runciman, 1966;Sears & Funk, 1991;Sidanius & Pratto, 1999;Weeden & Kurzban, 2014). Other approaches have focused more closely on social relationships, with a sizable body of research suggesting that people adopt the political attitudes and beliefs that are normative in the reference groups with which they identify (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, & McPhee, 1954;Merton, 1957;Newcomb, 1943) or common within their families or social networks (Huckfeldt, Johnson, & Sprague, 2004;Jennings & Niemi, 1981; Advances in Political Psychology, Vol. 39, Suppl. 1, 2018 doi: 10.1111 bs_bs_banner Jost, Ledgerwood, & Hardin, 2008;Sears & Levy, 2003). Last but not least, research in political science zeroes in on the role of political parties, arguing that individuals acquire the preferences enunciated by the leaders of the parties they identify with (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960;Goren, 2005;Lenz, 2013;Zaller, 1992). Approaches like these share a common thread: They focus on the social or contextua...

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Section: The Psychological Bases Of Political Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Asymmetry In the Issue Correlates Of Other Forms Of Threat Smentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Contingent, Contextual Nature of the Relationship Between Needs for Security and Certainty and Political Preferences: Evidence and Implications

Federico

Malka

2018

Political Psychology

149

226

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“…There is an extensive literature documenting the association between right-wing ideology and threat (see Jost, Stern, Rule, & Sterling, 2017 for meta-analytic results; see also Hibbing, Smith & Alford, 2014). However, this relation varies by factors such as ideological dimension and threat type (for recent discussions, see Choma & Hodson, 2017;Crawford, 2017;Federico & Malka, 2018). There is a robust connection between RWA with threat and fear concepts.…”

Section: Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Right‐Wing Ideology as a Predictor of Collective Action: A Test Across Four Political Issue Domains

Choma

Hodson

Jagayat

et al. 2019

Political Psychology

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Despite a vast literature documenting motivations for collective action, the role of sociopolitical ideologies, including right‐wing ideologies, in predicting collective action is underresearched. Literature on right‐wing ideological beliefs suggests that those higher in right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) or social dominance orientation (SDO) hold specific attitudes or endorse specific policies, in part, because of factors such as perceived fear‐based threat or empathy. In the present research, structural equation modeling (SEM) was run on pooled data from a diverse Canadian university sample and two American adult samples (total N = 1,469). Participants completed measures of RWA, SDO, fear‐based threat, empathy, and domain‐specific collective action. Results showed that RWA and SDO both related positively to collective action targeting societal moral breakdown but negatively to collective action aimed at equalizing race relations or fighting climate change. Whereas the indirect effects of right‐wing ideologies via fear‐based threat or empathy were significant in all four domains for SDO, the indirect effect of RWA was only significant in the climate change domain. Implications are discussed.

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“…These attitudes define different aspects of social life and concern toward various topics. However, many researchers classify political attitudes as being between conservative and liberal issues (Crawford, 2017;Jost, Federico, & Napier, 2009). Studies have shown that political attitudes are predicted by individual and situational factors (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003).…”

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confidence: 99%

The effect of mortality salience on the attitudes toward state control: The case of Russia

Prusova

Gulevich

2019

Int J Psychol

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Our study examined the effects of mortality salience (MS) on attitudes toward state control in different domains in Russia. Using the theory of Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition (CMSC) and the Terror Management Theory (TMT), we put forward two alternative hypotheses. Based on the CMSC, MS would enhance the approval of state control in different spheres, while, in line with TMT, the MS effect would be dependent on pre‐existing views. The participants in the study were 450 Russian students who completed a questionnaire to measure attitudes toward state control in six spheres of life (the economy, the mass media, political parties, social organisations, science and education). After a week, they were randomly assigned one of three conditions—MS, frightening, and a neutral condition—and again completed the questionnaire on political attitudes. Our results showed that MS mostly provokes “control shifting,” confirming the CMSC's hypothesis. However, a separate analysis conducted among people with different pre‐existing political attitudes has revealed that “control shifting” is more pronounced for freedom‐oriented participants. We discuss these findings in line with alternative views on the nature of the MS effect and specifics of socio‐political context.

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Are Conservatives More Sensitive to Threat than Liberals? It Depends on How We Define Threat and Conservatism

Cited by 113 publications

References 89 publications

The Contingent, Contextual Nature of the Relationship Between Needs for Security and Certainty and Political Preferences: Evidence and Implications

The Contingent, Contextual Nature of the Relationship Between Needs for Security and Certainty and Political Preferences: Evidence and Implications

Right‐Wing Ideology as a Predictor of Collective Action: A Test Across Four Political Issue Domains

The effect of mortality salience on the attitudes toward state control: The case of Russia

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