Political cognition and its normative implications for the "democratic experiment": Theory, evidence, and controversy.

Lavine, Howard; Jost, John T.; Lodge, Milton

doi:10.1037/14341-023

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Although political polarization may yield some benefits, such as easily identifiable parties characterized by highly divergent policy platforms from which citizens can choose (Lavine, Jost, & Lodge, 2015) or assurance that controversial issues will be thoroughly scrutinized by individuals having opposing motivated preconceptions (Zaller, 1992), increased political polarization has several downsides. Political polarization underlies significant repercussions for interest representation, political integration, and social stability (Baldassarri & Gelman, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

More Polarized but More Independent

Twenge

Honeycutt

Prišlin

et al. 2016

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

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In three nationally representative surveys of U.S. residents (N = 10 million) from 1970 to 2015, more Americans in the early 2010s (vs. previous decades) identified as Independent, including when age effects were controlled. More in the early 2010s (vs. previous decades) expressed polarized political views, including stronger political party affiliation or more extreme ideological self-categorization (liberal vs. conservative) with fewer identifying as moderate. The correlation between party affiliation and ideological views grew stronger over time. The overall trend since the 1970s was toward more Americans identifying as Republican or conservative. Older adults were more likely to identify as conservative and Republican. More Millennials (born 1980-1994) identify as conservative than either GenXers or Boomers did at the same age, and fewer are Democrats compared with Boomers. These trends are discussed in the context of social identification processes and their implications for the political dynamics in the United States.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

More Polarized but More Independent

Twenge

Honeycutt

Prišlin

et al. 2016

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

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“…A significant challenge to rational choice models of political decision making, which assume that voters process politically relevant information more or less accurately, and, by extension, normative theories of democratic functioning is posed by strong behavioral evidence of motivated reasoning and partisan bias in the political domain (see Lavine, Jost, & Lodge, in press). This evidence indicates that political information processing is prone to a host of self‐serving, group‐serving, and system‐serving biases (Jost, Hennes, & Lavine, ), such as tendencies to defend and bolster preexisting beliefs and opinions in the face of contradictory evidence (Taber & Lodge, ).…”

Section: The Existence Of Partisan Bias and Motivated Political Cognimentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Neuroscience: The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

Jost¹,

Nam

Amodio³

et al. 2014

Political Psychology

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The emergence of political neuroscience-an interdisciplinary venture involving political science, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience-has piqued the interests of scholars as well as the mass public. In this chapter, we review evidence pertaining to four areas of inquiry that have generated most of the research in political neuroscience to date: (1) racial prejudice and intergroup relations; (2) the existence of partisan bias and motivated political cognition; (3) the nature of left-right differences in political orientation; and (4) the dimensional structure of political attitudes. Although these topics are well-known to political psychologists, the application of models and methods from neuroscience has renewed interest in each of them and yielded novel insights. There is reason to believe that many other areas of political psychology await similarly promising renewals and that innovative methods will continue to advance our understanding of the physiological processes involved in political cognition, evaluation, judgment, and behavior. We address limitations, criticisms, and potential pitfalls of existing work-including the "chicken-and-egg problem"-and propose an ambitious agenda for the next generation of research in political neuroscience.KEY WORDS: political neuroscience, racial prejudice, partisanship, ideology "It is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal." -AristotleOne of the most trenchant social and political psychologists of the twentieth century, William J. McGuire (1993), observed that the "politics and psychology relationship has been lively and Advances in Political Psychology, Vol. 35, Suppl. 1, 2014 doi: 10.1111 long-lasting as interdisciplinary affairs go, its longevity fostered by frequent shiftings of its popular topics, methods, and theories" (p. 363; see also Jost & Hardin, 2011). As in all sustainable relationships, psychology and political science have, for the most part, changed together rather than grown apart (e.g., see Huddy, Sears, & Levy, 2013;McGuire, 1993; Sears, Huddy, & Jervis, 2003). Perhaps it was inevitable, then, that political scientists would come to share psychologists' enthusiasm for the models and methods of neuroscience, including the use of electroencephalography (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and other measures of the central and peripheral nervous system (e.g., Amodio, Jost, Master, & Yee, 2007;Carmen, 2007;Fowler & Schreiber, 2008;Schreiber et al., 2013;Smith, Oxley, Hibbing, Alford, & Hibbing, 2011b;Taber & Young, 2013;Theodoridis & Nelson, 2012). Political neuroscience is an interdisciplinary venture that tackles questions of mutual interest to political scientists and psychologists by drawing, at least in part, on the theories, methods, and assumptions of biology, especially neuroscience. The application of neuroscience to political topics offers a powerful set of research methods that promises to integrate multiple levels of analysis. As E. O. Wilson (1998) wrote in Consilience: The Unity of ...

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Political cognition and its normative implications for the "democratic experiment": Theory, evidence, and controversy.

Cited by 2 publications

References 185 publications

More Polarized but More Independent

More Polarized but More Independent

Political Neuroscience: The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

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