Lib/Con writeup



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Lib/Con writeup 6/28/10 update
Bill McConochie

Political Psychology Research, Inc.

71 E. 15th Ave.

Eugene, Or. 97401

541-686-9934

Bill@PPRI.com



Politicalpsychologyresearch.com

Research report: Sixty-four Psychological Facets of

Conservative and Liberal Worldviews.
William A. McConochie, Ph.D
Abstract: Sixty-four psychological traits are measured along ten dimensions of political discourse and are shown to correlate as expected with conservative and liberal political preferences. Five-item scales of primitive tribal views also provide reliable measures that correlate as predicted with hypothesized political orientation, consonant with theory that the conservative worldview evolved in the species to serve an in-group protection function and the liberal worldview evolved to serve an in-group promotion function.
Background. More than five decades of research has documented a wide variety of psychological traits characteristic of conservative and liberal political orientations.
In a series of articles over the past few years John Jost and co-authors have reviewed this body of research, providing comprehensive reference lists. An article on political ideologies was provided in 2003 (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski & Sulloway, 2003). Conservatism has been related to Right Wing Authoritarianism, uncertainty avoidance, religious beliefs, pro-death penalty attitudes, and anti-abortion attitudes. Studies have shown conservative political agendas and related traits such as Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) to correlate with endorsement of social privilege or elitism, a preference for a hierarchical social community, social dominance, endorsement of large financial differences between social classes, desires for certainty, fear of change, fear of radicalism, harsh punishment of deviants, endorsement of aggression, promotion of war, opposition to civil rights, idealization of authority figures, focus on authoritarian religious values, religious orthodoxy, intolerance of ambiguity, rule-following, need for
Acknowledgement: I am very grateful to Professor David Leung, M.S., Lane Community college, who provided student subjects for this study.
closure and cognitive structure, pro-capitalist attitudes, racial prejudice, homophobia, victim blaming, endorsement of covert government activities, opposition to
environmentalism, opposition to abortion rights and opposition to "diversity on university campuses". RWA is also associated with opposition to civilian gun control laws and desires for reducing freedom of speech and of the press. Other traits associated with conservatism include mental rigidity, dogmatism, close-mindedness and cognitive simplicity versus "cognitive complexity".
These relationships appear on several different continents, suggesting that they are universal human characteristics, not a function of culture.
Theories have been offered to explain the various clusters of conservative traits. Frenkel-Brunsik proposed a theory of ambiguity intolerance. Wilson hypothesized that conservatism is a mechanism for handling environmental uncertainty, "uncertainty avoidance", with activities including militarism. Rokeach focused on closed-mindedness as opposed to open-mindedness to characterize conservative thinking. Tomkins proposed a theory of left-wing versus right-wing polarity, assuming that ideological predilections permeate nearly every domain of a person's life. Webster and Kruglanski have focused on "need for closure". They posit that conservatives tend to engage in stereotyping, resist persuasive influence, and reject opinion deviates.
Higgins has proposed a regulatory focus oriented to two goals. One is termed "promotion" that is focused on individual citizen hopes and aspirations and is associated with the liberal political orientation. The other goal, "prevention", is associated with the conservative orientation and is focused on safety, avoidance of threat and avoidance of change.
Social Dominance theory is grounded in part in biological theory. It reflects beliefs that men should dominate over women, whites over blacks, upper social classes over lower ones, etc. Altemeyer sees the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) as reflecting an "alpha animal" (alpha male) orientation.
System justification theories explain political beliefs as seeking to justify underlying attitudes such as prejudice, superiority and dominance of out-groups. To the extent that such theory includes a belief in defense of the status quo, it may help explain the presence of conservative political attitudes even among lower class members.
Jost and his colleagues posit fear as the central underlying element of conservatism. They point out that while threat in many instances increases a move of citizen attitudes to the right, this is not universally so, suggesting that factors other that social or cultural influences predispose citizens to their conservative or liberal orientations. If liberals do not move to the right when threatened, their attitudes would appear to be grounded in something more fundamental than current circumstances.
Jost et al more generally postulate that human beliefs, such as political philosophies, are deduced from sets of underlying, more basic beliefs or premises and are related to psychological needs, values and motivations.
More recently Jost discusses specifically the history of the study of political ideology (Jost, 2006). He points out that the left-right, liberal/conservative distinction between political attitudes has been a useful concept for more that 200 years and has been used constructively in many cultural contexts. Liberalism is associated with concerns for social equality, aid to the disadvantaged, promotion of change for improvement in society, and tolerance of dissent. Liberals tend to be higher on Openness (more open-minded), a basic personality trait.
Conservatism is associated with the belief that people are unequal, due unequal rewards, and that order and authority are important to stable society. Conservatives also tend to be more rigid in their thinking and more close-minded. They prefer relatively simple, unambiguous and familiar art, poems and songs. They tend to see the world as a dangerous place and fear crime, terrorism and death. They tend to condemn others, for example persons they consider sexually unconventional. They tend to be more dogmatic than liberals. They are higher on Conscientiousness, another basic personality trait.
Jost posits that a citizen can shift in liberal or conservative attitudes, for example more toward conservative ones under fears of death or threat, a phenomenon that has been empirically demonstrated. On the other hand, he also cites studies that document the considerable stability of conservative and liberal ideologies in citizens and that these ideologies clearly underlie voting for liberal and conservative candidates for national leadership. Differences between liberals and conservatives on the basic personality traits of Openness and Conscientiousness also appear to reflect fundamental, perhaps biological differences.
Conservatives tend to have more organizing supplies, such as laundry baskets, in their bedrooms, while liberals have more maps and travel documents. Even early childhood traits tend to predict later political ideologies. Expressiveness, self-restraint, resiliency and impulsiveness are associated with liberalism in adulthood. Inhibition, indecisiveness, fearfulness and rigidity are associated with adult conservatism. Twin studies show greater similarity in political attitudes of identical versus fraternal twins, further suggesting biological origins of these political ideologies.
Jost concludes this article by encouraging more studies, based on the assumption that ideological differences do exist between people and can be studied scientifically.

In 2008 Jost with others further review research on political ideologies and offer their theory that the key element of ideological differences is liberals tending to advocate social change toward greater equality among people versus resistance to such change in conservatives (Jost, Nosek & Gosling, 2008).

They point out that there has been resistance to psychological explanations of ideologies, perhaps because of a fear of implicit challenge to the rationality of political beliefs, just as persons of religious faiths might resist psychological explanations or studies of religion. The authors are undeterred and assert that evidence documents good reason to assume that psychological traits of many sorts underlie political ideologies.
Specifically, the evidence by 2008 documented liberal ideologies as associated with preferences for flexibility, rebelliousness, chaos, feminism, welfare, social security, universal health care, remedying social injustices, equal rights, egalitarian attitudes, environmentalism, creativity, novel and different experiences, diversity, poetry, Asian food, jazz music, travel and foreign films.
Conservative ideology is associated with preferences for order, adherence to tradition, conformity, stability, justification of current economic systems, convention,

exclusive in-groups such as fraternities and sororities, prayer, religious people, sport utility vehicles, big corporations, rich people, military, and promotion of economic inequality between groups.


Data such as this has been found consistently across many countries and continents, further suggesting that the basic “left” - “right” dichotomy may be a fundamental characteristic of the human species in general.
The authors note that death anxiety and concern for system threat are among the most characteristic psychological traits or issues associated with conservatism.
They cite opinion that the left/right political ideology model exists in all societies.
In 2009 Jost, Federico and Napier again review the field of political ideology, reviewing data on the traits of liberals and conservatives and reviewing various theoretical efforts to explain facets of political ideology (Jost, Federico & Napier, 2009). They point out that political scientists tend to explain ideologies from a "top down" perspective, while psychologists take a "bottom up" perspective. Political scientists tend to explain ideologies as the products of political elites who supposedly craft ideologies and present them competitively to electorates in the interest of getting votes.
Psychologists, in contrast document through research the many psychological traits that correlate with political ideologies, implying that citizens tend toward one or another political ideology for many psychological trait reasons independent of persuasive messages from elites.

 

          In reviewing the traditional left-right ideological positions they note that the conservative view has been associated by research studies with several broad orientations, including maintaining the status quo, order, capitalism, nationalism and fascism.  The liberal view has been associated with progressiveness, system change, equality, protest, socialism and communism.



          There is evidence to raise the possibility that these two orientations are not simply opposite ends of a bi-polar dimension but to some extent represent independent factors. "…it is possible for people to be socially liberal and economically conservative." (Pg. 313). 

          Universality of the conservative/liberal concept is suggested by consistent research findings across as many as 41 of 44 countries in one study (p. 313). 

 

          The authors quote Sniderman & Bullock (p. 317), raising the question why some citizens are predisposed to side with left ideologies and some with right



 

          The authors then quote research that suggests biological substrates for some political attitudes in the form of twin studies and traits of children that predict adult political preferences (p. 318).  The twin studies yield an estimate that 40 to 50% of attitudes are genetically based. 

 

          Research by Skitka and others is cited (p. 319) that leads Skitka to opine that it is easier for liberals to temporarily move to the right than it is for conservatives to move to the left, suggesting that conservatives tend to hold their political views more rigidly.  Specifically, research has shown that reminders of death can induce both liberals and conservatives to move more to the right, characterized by greater stereotyping, hostility, aggression and clinging to religious beliefs.



 

          Conservatives are especially concerned with in-group status, prejudice and discrimination against out-groups, authority, racism and "purity". 

 

         Jost et al in conclusion call for psychologists to seek further scientific explanations for political ideology differences, reminding that political behavior has extremely important consequences for nations and the world in general.



Beyond philosophy, sociology, political science and psychology: Biological, evolutionary theory.

The above literature review provides explanations of political behavior via "top down" theory of political scientists and other disciplines and "bottom up" theory of psychologists. Possible biological origins or roots of human political behavior are hinted at by various data: the universality of conservative and liberal orientations, common findings across many cultures on traits associated with these two orientations, differences on psychological traits that are as much as 50% genetically based (Big Five Openness and Conscientiousness, and cognitive complexity/intelligence?), and twin studies and childhood/adulthood trait consistencies.

Psychological theories based on concepts such as that of Jost et al that liberals tend to advocate social change toward greater equality among people versus resistance to such change in conservatives still leave unanswered the question of why some humans advocate social change and some resist such change. Or why some humans have a penchant for militarism as a response to threat while others do not, a la Wilson. Or why, as Higgins proposed, some humans tend to promote hopes and aspirations while others focus on preventing change, threat and danger.

It is reasonable to ask what functions these two basic political orientations serve not just current groups of humans but humans as a species. One answer is provided in theory by biologist Randy Thornhill and colleagues. Thornhill, at the University of New Mexico, has developed with others a theory based on the frequency of various human behaviors and institutions around the world (Thornhill, Fincher & Aran, 2009).  They find that the closer communities are to the equator the higher the frequency of conservative governments, different religions, different languages and war.

 

In addition, the closer one gets to the equator the more disease pathogens there are. These biologists offer the theory that the conservative political worldview, a cluster of psychological traits, evolved in the human species as a mechanism to promote protection of in-groups.  Specifically, it protects an in-group from disease pathogens in neighboring groups against which the in-group does not yet have immunity.



 

Presumably, groups of humans that had members who were fearful of neighbors and kept them at a distance by united militant activity were less likely to be overwhelmed by their neighbors' diseases. Other human groups or primate, hominid groups that were less fearful were more easily invaded by or otherwise exposed to neighbors and their disease pathogens too quickly to build immunities to their diseases and were killed by illness. Thus, groups did not have to understand disease or disease pathogens per se to benefit from the fearful/militarism/in-group elitism mechanism. They were protected by it indirectly by its tendency to keep them away from foreign diseases.

More specifically, groups that tended to bow to authoritarian leaders of this fearful, bellicose disposition, were better isolationists than groups that did not. So, a cluster of leadership preference, religious and other complementary traits evolved to serve this in-group protection mechanism. These included preserving the in-group's own language and culture as sacred and unique, and their religion as unique and favoring them as their god's chosen people. They crafted their religion to support a bellicose foreign policy, reinforced by blind obedience to authority.

Thus, those groups that had members who were rather quick to fear out-groups and keep them at a distance by war justified by a desire to preserve the status quo (religion, language, etc.) were better protected from neighboring pathogens and thus survived better than human groups that did not have such members.

 

Thornhill's conservative mechanism of protecting the in-group from disease pathogens is perhaps most dramatically evident in the history of native American peoples, who were diminished by European diseases more than my European military might per se.  They lacked the military technology to adequately defend themselves against the incursion of Europeans and their diseases.



 

This theory was particularly interesting to the present author because it seemed to dovetail with two human trait factors or clusters revealed in a series of his studies conducted since 2003 (McConochie, 2008a, b).  The first factor seems to correspond with the biologists' conservative worldview. This factor is characterized by endorsement of warmongering, violence-proneness, authoritarianism, fundamentalist religious thinking, competition and favoring government that serves one's special interest group.

An authoritarian social structure is required in military activities; citizens must be willing to suspend personal judgment and obey leadership blindly to participate efficiently in war. 

An evolutionary protection/promotion theory.

The present author posits that the conservative worldview is a mechanism for protecting in-groups not just from disease pathogens, but also from threats in general from outside groups, such as attempts to overwhelm with war to gain land, females or natural resources. 

 

          The biological theory of Thornhill et al had to be broadened to explain the presence of the present author's second cluster of psychological traits. This cluster includes kindly religious beliefs (a factor separate from fundamentalism), and endorsement of a peaceful foreign policy, human rights and sustainable policies and programs.  It includes endorsement of government serving not special interest groups but citizens as members of the community overall. This factor represents a type of humans who tend to be cooperative, kind, and comfortable with differences in ideas and traditions, such as those in religious beliefs.  This cluster of traits seems to reflect the liberal political worldview.  



 

The present author posits that the liberal worldview also serves the in-group, but by a different mechanism. It serves not by distancing from neighboring groups but by promoting gradual peaceful interaction with neighboring groups to benefit from the opportunities of trade, including trade in goods and services, trade in technologies and trade in genetic materials that eventually will impart immunities to the in-group against the disease pathogens of neighboring groups. 

 

This broadened theory then sees both the liberal and conservative worldviews has having had complementary survival value for human groups specifically and for the species in general.


More precisely then the present theory holds that there are two psychological trait clusters including, political attitudes, that correspond to two species survival functions, an in-group protection function and an in-group promotion function:
1. Protection from threats function. Protection is provided by defending the status quo in language, religious beliefs and social hierarchy, and by keeping neighboring groups at a distance by military activity. Powerful groups promote this system by establishing a social hierarchy that enables them to dominate less powerful groups. This dominance hierarchy is promoted not only between local and neighboring groups (tribes, nations) but also with one's own local group (family, clan, tribe or nation). Powerful groups demand blind obedience to their authoritarian political and religious leadership, justifying this with various arguments, including a divine right to lead, devotion to the "Motherland", male dominance arguments, etc.
2. Promotion or taking advantage of opportunities function. The in-group's interests are promoted via dialogue, trade, and cooperative interaction with neighboring groups, and discovery of new information and modes for doing things in general, as by promoting and respecting creative innovation by any members of a relatively well-educated, healthy, and politically empowered citizenry.
General hypotheses generated by this theory are:
1. Human groups that had members of both of the two above dispositions were more likely to survive than groups that did not
2. The dozens of psychological traits found by prior researchers to correspond to liberal and conservative political orientations represent several identifiable dimensions of common political discourse (economic policy, preferred government types, foreign policy, attitudes toward disadvantaged citizens, etc.). It is possible to create reliable and valid measures of these psychological traits with a comprehensive range of politically relevant content. These traits will cluster into two factors or groups statistically, one representing the conservative worldview and another representing the liberal worldview. These clusters will be consonant in content with what have been referred to by observers such as sociologists and psychologists as “political ideologies”.

3. These clusters will relate statistically to preferences for conservative and liberal political orientation specifically in a manner consistent with prior research (as summarized above by Jost, et al).


4. These clusters will be anchored by traits in two clusters found by prior researchers and by the present author such as authoritarianism a la Altemeyer & Hunsberger (1992), religious fundamentalism a la Altemeyer & Hunsberger (1992) and Saucier & Skrzypinska (2006), Saucier (2000), Social Disenfranchisement a la Eidelson (Eidelson & Eidelson, 2003), Social Dominance Orientation a la Pratto and Sidanius (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth & Malle, 1994), and militarism. Specifically, trait measures developed and used by the present author in several prior studies will include measures of violence-proneness, warmongering endorsement, endorsement of religious fundamentalism, authoritarianism and authoritarian governments on the "anti-social" side. On the "pro-social" side, will be measures of human rights endorsement, and endorsement of kindly religious beliefs, public democracy, sustainability and a positive and helpful foreign policy. These two clusters will be found to correspond to the conservative and liberal dimensions of political discourse respectively.
5. Additional "miscellaneous" questionnaire measures will correlate as expected with conservative and liberal political orientation. Those items related to fear of disease pathogens and other elements of the protective/promotional evolutionary theory of political worldviews will correlate with liberal and conservative orientations as predicted, with fearful items correlating with the conservative worldview and travel, trust and interaction items correlating with the liberal worldview.
6. Research data that reflects biological and primitive tribal culture worldviews will correlate in such a manner as to support theory that the conservative/anti-social trait factor evolved in the species to serve an in-group protection mechanism and the liberal/pro-social trait factor an in-group promotion mechanism. Specifically, the data will support “protection” as protecting against disease pathogens from neighboring human groups and “promotion” as promoting peaceful and cooperative interactions with neighboring groups to benefit from trade of goods, services and genetic material (that will impart immunity to neighboring disease pathogens).

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