Social Traditionalism and Economic Conservatism: Two Conservative Political Ideologies in the United States

Johnson, Stephen D.; Tamney, Joseph B.

doi:10.1080/00224540109600549

Cited by 56 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…We found that, pooled across nations, high NSC predicted conservative position on cultural attitudes, as well as right-wing self-identification, but that it slightly predicted left-wing economic attitudes. This pattern is consistent with the findings of several previous studies that have examined NSC's separate relations with sociocultural and economic attitudes (e.g., Feldman & Johnston, 2014;Johnson & Tamney, 2001;Johnston, 2013). Thus, far from underlying a broad-based conservative ideology, NSC predicted a configuration of attitudes that is socioculturally right wing but that leans to the left in the economic domain.…”

Section: Nsc's Menu-independent Influence On Left-wing Economic Attitsupporting

confidence: 91%

Rigidity of the Economic Right? Menu-Independent and Menu-Dependent Influences of Psychological Dispositions on Political Attitudes

Malka

Soto

2015

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

100

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Contemporary political conflict in the United States and many other nations is organized around a right-left, or conservative-liberal, dimension. The substance of this conflict concerns two key issue domains. One is the sociocultural domain, with the right in favor of enforcing traditional social norms and the left promoting progressive social policies. But at least as central to right-left conflict is the economic domain (e.g., Benoit & Laver, 2006;Poole & Rosenthal, 2011), with the right supporting free markets and low levels of redistributive social welfare provision, and the left supporting relatively strong redistributive and regulatory economic intervention.Reflecting the prominence of the right-left dimension in politics, much research has investigated its psychological origins. One particular core idea, dubbed the "rigidity of the right" hypothesis, underlies much of this work. This hypothesis proposes that psychological characteristics having to do with needs for security and certainty (NSC)-such as social conformity, intolerance of ambiguity, threat sensitivity, and needs for order, structure, and security-attract people to a broad-based right-wing ideology (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003).In this article, we argue that the rigidity of the right model is incomplete in that NSC characteristics do not, on average, predict the right-wing economic views that are central to conservative ideology in much of the world. We propose an alternative model that more fully accounts for the extant findings, which we refer to as the MenuIndependent and -Dependent Influence (MIDI) model. In this model, NSC attracts people to right-wing sociocultural views, but the economic attitudes stemming from NSC are the complex result of potentially competing dispositional and discursive influences. The MIDI model, as we discuss below, has important implications for understanding the interplay of background characteristics, social context, and political conflict. The Rigidity of the Right ModelAccording to the rigidity of the right model, psychological characteristics associated with high NSC push people toward a broad-based right-wing ideology, including both traditional sociocultural attitudes and free-market 556340C DPXXX10.1177/0963721414556340Malka, SotoRigidity of the Economic Right? research-article2015 AbstractThe rigidity of the right model posits that psychological needs for security and certainty (NSC) attract people to a broad right-wing ideology that includes both sociocultural and economic political attitudes. We review evidence that NSC characteristics do not consistently predict economically right-wing preferences and propose the Menu-Independent and -Dependent Influence (MIDI) model as an alternative account of disposition-politics relations. In this model, NSC naturally attracts people to socioculturally conservative attitudes, but its effects on economic attitudes are the net outcome of potentially competing dispositional and discursive influences. We review evidence in support of the MIDI model...

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Section: Nsc's Menu-independent Influence On Left-wing Economic Attitsupporting

confidence: 91%

Rigidity of the Economic Right? Menu-Independent and Menu-Dependent Influences of Psychological Dispositions on Political Attitudes

Malka

Soto

2015

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

100

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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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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“…Research on the psychological correlates of economic conservatism has been much more sporadic than that associated with cultural conservatism, RWA, and SDO. However, the evidence that does exist suggests that economic conservatism relates positively with need for closure (Kossowska and Van Hiel 2003)-again in Western samples-and negatively (though not significantly) with dogmatism (Johnson and Tamney 2001;Ray 1973). Moreover, measures of economic conservatism have been shown to correlate positively with SDO (Cornelis and Van Hiel 2006;.…”

Section: Economic Conservatism and Disability-related Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 86%

Predicting dispositions toward inclusion of students with disabilities: the role of conservative ideology and discomfort with disability

Brandes

Crowson

2008

Soc Psychol Educ

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Within the published empirical record, a limited number of investigations exist that study the association between socio-political ideologies of preservice teachers and their attitudes toward disability-related matters within schools. To the extent that individual socio-political ideology and discomfort with disability remain mostly unexplored, this state of affairs may unwittingly compromise the capacity of future educators to assist students with special needs. The purpose of our study was to test relationships between preservice teachers' conservative ideologies and discomfort with disability on the one hand and perceived negative attitudes toward students with disabilities and opposition to inclusion on the other. Our correlational findings indicate that preservice educators who report being higher in social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, economic and cultural conservatism, and discomfort with disabilities are more likely to oppose inclusion and to hold negative attitudes toward students with disabilities. Regression analyses revealed that social dominance orientation and discomfort with disability were stronger predictors of negative attitudes toward students with disabilities and opposition to inclusion than cultural conservatism/right-wing authoritarianism. These findings lend support to teacher preparation programs assisting preservice teachers in understanding (a) their attitudes toward inclusion and students with disabilities and (b) the impact their dispositions may have on their future effectiveness in supporting these students in their efforts to become productive and independent members of society.

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Social Traditionalism and Economic Conservatism: Two Conservative Political Ideologies in the United States

Cited by 56 publications

References 20 publications

Rigidity of the Economic Right? Menu-Independent and Menu-Dependent Influences of Psychological Dispositions on Political Attitudes

Rigidity of the Economic Right? Menu-Independent and Menu-Dependent Influences of Psychological Dispositions on Political Attitudes

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

Predicting dispositions toward inclusion of students with disabilities: the role of conservative ideology and discomfort with disability

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