Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T05:31:53.955Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Will the real fundamental difference underlying ideology please stand up?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2014

Matt Motyl
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904. [email protected]://people.virginia.edu/~msm6sw/
Ravi Iyer
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089. [email protected]

Abstract

Negativity bias explains many ideological differences, yet does not explain research such as conservatives' greater life satisfaction. Conservatives live in safer communities, perhaps to escape negative emotions, yet display numerous other community preferences unrelated to negativity. This tendency toward cognitive consistency can explain both these phenomena and many of the phenomena described in the target article.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bishop, B. (2008) The big sort: Why the clustering of like-minded America is tearing us apart. Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt.Google Scholar
Craik, K. H. (2000) The lived day of an individual: A person-environment perspective. In: Person-environment psychology: New directions and perspectives, 2nd ed., ed. Bruce, W. W., Craik, K. H. & Price, R. H., pp. 233–66. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gilbert, D. T., Pinel, E. C., Wilson, T. D., Blumberg, S. J. & Wheatley, T. P. (1998) Immune neglect: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75(3):617.Google Scholar
Graham, J., Haidt, J., Koleva, S., Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Wojcik, S. & Ditto, P. H. (2013) Moral foundations theory: The pragmatic validity of moral pluralism. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 47:55130.Google Scholar
Graham, J., Iyer, R. & Motyl, M. (in preparation) Ideology is a fundamental way individuals differ.Google Scholar
Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D. A., Iyer, R. & Haidt, J. (2012b) Disgust sensitivity, political conservatism, and voting. Social Psychological and Personality Science 3(5):537–44.Google Scholar
Iyer, R. (2012) How coherence defines conservatism. YourMorals.org blog. Available at: http://www.yourmorals.org/blog/2012/09/how-coherence-defines-conservatism/.Google Scholar
Kesebir, P., Phillips, E., Anson, J., Pyszczynski, T. & Motyl, M. (under review) Ideological consistency across the ideological divide: Ordinarily liberals are more attitudinally consistent, but under threat conservatives are more attitudinally consistent. University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (2002) Moral politics: How liberals and conservatives think. University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, B. & Ditto, P. H. (2013) What dilemma? Moral evaluation shapes factual belief. Social Psychological and Personality Science 4(3):316–23.Google Scholar
Monroe, B. & Read, R. (2008) A general connectionist model of attitude structure and change: The ACS (Attitudes as Constraint Satisfaction) model.Psychological Review 115(3):733–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Oishi, S., Trawalter, S. & Nosek, B. A. (2014) How ideological migration geographically segregates groups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 51:114.Google Scholar
Napier, J. L. & Jost, J. T. (2008) Why are conservatives happier than liberals? Psychological Science 19(6):565–72.Google Scholar
Onraet, E., Van Hiel, A. & Dhont, K. (2013) The relationship between right-wing ideological attitudes and psychological well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 39:509–22.Google Scholar
Oxley, D. R., Smith, K. B., Alford, J. R., Hibbing, M. V., Miller, J. L., Scalora, M., Hatemi, P. K. & Hibbing, J. R. (2008) Political attitudes vary with physiological traits. Science 321(5896):1667–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rentfrow, P. J., Gosling, S. D. & Potter, J. (2008) A theory of the emergence, persistence, and expression of geographic variation in psychological characteristics. Perspectives on Psychological Science 3:339–69.Google Scholar
Schlenker, B. R., Chambers, J. R. & Le, B. M. (2012) Conservatives are happier than liberals, but why? Political ideology, personality, and life satisfaction. Journal of Research in Personality 46(2):127–46.Google Scholar
Simon, D., Snow, C. & Read, S. (2004) The redux of cognitive consistency theories: Evidence judgments by Constraint Satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 86:814–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Skitka, L. J., Mullen, E., Griffin, T., Hutchinson, S. & Chamberlin, B. (2002) Dispositions, ideological scripts, or motivated correction? Understanding ideological differences in attributions for social problems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83:470–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tetlock, P. E. (1983) Cognitive style and political ideology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45:118–26.Google Scholar
Tetlock, P. E. & Mitchell, G. (1993) Liberal and conservative approaches to justice: Conflicting psychological portraits. In: Psychological perspectives on justice; Theory and Applications, ed. Mellers, B. A. & Baron, J., pp. 234–55. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wisneski, D. C., Lytle, B. L. & Skitka, L. J. (2009) Gut reactions: Moral conviction, religiosity, and trust in authority. Psychological Science 20:1059–63.Google Scholar
Wojcik, S., Ditto, P. H., Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Koleva, S., Graham, J. & Haidt, J. (2013) Conservative self-enhancement and the happiness gap. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar