The Psychophysiology of Political Ideology: Replications, Reanalysis and Recommendations

Osmundsen, Mathias; Hendry, David F.; Laustsen, Lasse; Smith, Kevin B.; Petersen, Michael Bang

doi:10.31234/osf.io/49hfg

Cited by 18 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“… 14 The alpha reliability scores are 0.08 for reactions to disgusting photos and 0.22 for reactions to threatening photos. These results are analogous to those reported in Osmundsen et al (Forthcoming; 0.12); see also the weak correlations in Figure 1 of Bakker et al (2020). However, see our comment in footnote 11.…”

supporting

confidence: 91%

“…Third, we readily acknowledge the possibility that the physiological variables examined here may or may not be indicative of deep-seated predispositions in information processing. There is at present some debate about whether physiological responses to photos should be regarded as predispositional (Bakker et al 2020; Osmundsen et al Forthcoming). Recent work suggests that responses to video or photo stimuli capture some combination of deep-seated predispositional and more time- and context-varying responses (Soroka et al 2019), a suggestion echoed in work looking at headline selection tasks in panel survey experiments (Bachleda et al 2020).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Concerns have been raised about the comparability of this study to previous work (Peterson, Smith, and Hibbing 2016). That said, two forthcoming papers are also largely unable to replicate the link between electrodermal responses to disgusting/threatening images and conservative political beliefs with samples of American, Danish, and Dutch individuals (Bakker et al 2020; Osmundsen et al Forthcoming).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Are right-leaning citizens more sensitive to negative information across the globe? Recent work has suggested that past US results do not easily replicate (Bakker et al 2020; Osmundsen et al Forthcoming). In this paper, we examine the relationship between political ideology and negativity biases in physiological reactions with massive cross-national experimental data.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Negativity Biases and Political Ideology: A Comparative Test across 17 Countries

2020

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There is a considerable body of work across the social sciences suggesting negativity biases in human attentiveness and decision-making. Recent research suggests that individual variation in negativity biases is correlated with political ideology: persons who have stronger physiological reactions to negative stimuli, this work argues, hold more conservative attitudes. However, such results have mostly been encountered in the United States. Does the link between psychophysiological negativity biases and political ideology apply elsewhere? We answer this question with the most extensive cross-national psychophysiological study to date. Respondents across 17 countries and six continents were exposed to negative and positive televised news reports and static images. Sensors tracked participants’ skin conductance, and a survey captured their left–right political orientation. Analyses performed at three levels of aggregation—respondent-as-a-case, stimuli-as-a-case, and second-by-second time-series—fail to find strong support for the link between negativity biases and political ideology.

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supporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Negativity Biases and Political Ideology: A Comparative Test across 17 Countries

2020

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“…Though the findings reviewed above suggest a general tendency for needs for security and certainty-which reflect a kind of psychological 'rigidity'-to go with the politics of the right, Van Hiel, Onraet, and DePauw (2010) and Van Hiel, Onraet, Crowson, and Roets (2016) find that Psychological differences and political differences -7 'objective' behavioral measures of intolerance of ambiguity and rigidity that assess participants' ability to perform cognitive operations requiring flexibility and attention to multiple, inter-related aspects of a problem are more weakly related to conservatism than 'subjective' self-report measures that explicitly ask participants to indicate how well various statements describe them (e.g., "I enjoy having a clear and structured mode of life"; Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). Reinforcing this, recent studies have failed to replicate earlier results (e.g., Oxley et al, 2008) indicating a correlation between political preferences and strong physiological responses to objective tasks in which participants are exposed to threatening stimuli (Bakker, Schumacher, Gothreau, & Arceneaux, 2020;Osmundsen et al, 2020;Smith & Warren, 2020).…”

Section: The Psychological Bases Of Political Differencesmentioning

confidence: 97%

When Do Psychological Differences Predict Political Differences? Engagement and the Psychological Bases of Political Polarization

Federico

2020

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"Top down" and "bottom up" perspectives on political polarization have unfolded on largely parallel tracks, without speaking too extensively to one another. In part, this is due to their roots in different disciplines: the top-down perspective has its origins in political science, whereas the bottom-up perspective comes out of personality and social psychology. Though the accounts of polarization offered by political scientists and psychologists are sometimes presented as antagonistic in their implications, they need not be. In this chapter, I review research aimed at integrating the top-down and bottom-up accounts of political differences in mass publics in an effort to develop a hybrid perspective on the bases of political polarization. Like the bottom-up psychological approach, the model I present argues that people are systematically attracted to different positions on the basis of individual differences in needs for security and certainty. However, like the top-down approach, it also contends that the tendency for those with different psychological dispositions to adopt polarized political preferences depends on exposure to elite political signals that provide information about the content and meaning of different ideological, partisan, and issue orientations—exposure which is likely to be more pronounced among politically-engaged citizens.

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Clinical symptoms of anxiety disorders as predictors of political attitudes: A prospective cohort study

2021

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C onservative political ideologies have been suggested to correlate with elevated sensitivity to threat. However, it is unclear whether the associations between threat sensitivity and political attitudes can be observed with clinical measures of mental health. We examined how anxiety disorders predicted attitudes on several political issues. Participants were 7253 individuals from the 1958 British Birth Cohort study. Symptoms of generalised anxiety disorder, phobia and panic were assessed in a clinical interview at age 44, and opinions about political issues were self-reported by the participants 6 years later. Anxiety symptoms were associated with higher concerns about economic inequality, preservation of the environment, distrust in politics and lower work ethic. No associations were observed with racist or authoritarian attitudes, or support for traditional family values. We also assessed how political attitudes at ages 33 and 42 predicted anxiety disorder symptoms at age 44, revealing a possible bidirectional association between concern for economic inequality and anxiety disorder symptoms. These findings do not support an association between conservative political attitudes and elevated threat sensitivity. Rather, elevated anxiety may increase concerns about social inequality and the environment.

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The Psychophysiology of Political Ideology: Replications, Reanalysis and Recommendations

Cited by 18 publications

References 12 publications

Negativity Biases and Political Ideology: A Comparative Test across 17 Countries

Negativity Biases and Political Ideology: A Comparative Test across 17 Countries

When Do Psychological Differences Predict Political Differences? Engagement and the Psychological Bases of Political Polarization

Clinical symptoms of anxiety disorders as predictors of political attitudes: A prospective cohort study

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