Beliefs and Attitudes 1

Conservatives features

Highly active defensive systems

1) Anxiety/fear

2) Disgust

Liberals features

‘Open-minded’, reward-oriented, more intelligent

Defensive systems evolved to protect us against threats

Large agents - anxiety/fear

Small organisms - disgust

Authoritarian personality scale - Adorno

Adorno et al. (1950)

AP v influenced by upbringing and socioeconomic context.

Designed the California F scale - F for fascism

Adorno v interested in right-wing fondness for astrology - thought irrational, antiscientific, anti-intellectual thinking underlies authoritarianism

Criticisms with California F scale - Altemeyer (1996, 1999)

Pointed out deficiencies in California F scale - said was old fashioned and insufficiently captures modern political attitudes. Was really right wing authoritarianism

Right wing authoritarianism scale - Altemeyer

Altemeyer (1997) - version of right wing authoritarianism scale, more in date.

There are features in model that reflect both:

a) Personality (punitive attitudes, prejudiced on racist grounds)

b) Cognitive ability (dogmatic, accept insufficient evidence to support beliefs)

Testing right wing authoritarianism instruments - Meloen et al. (1996)

Tested Adorno, Lederer and Altemeyer scales of right-wing authoritarianism.

All scales have similar relations with the main variables they are supposed to predict.

Strongly predict right-wing social political stances.

Moderately predict sympathy for right-wing political parties.

Political beliefs in the big 5 - Carney et al. (2008)

Meta-analysis

Liberals: more openness, more extraverted

Conservatives: more conscientious, more neurotic, less openness

Jost et al. (2003) 👕- motivated social-cognitive approach

Conservatives driven by specific psychological needs to manage uncertainty and threat - stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality.

Conservatism correlates with more active systems focused on self-protection and disease avoidance - aversion

Liberalism correlates with more active systems focused on social and other rewards - appetitive

Jost et al. (2003) 👕- motivated social-cognitive approach. Conservatism correlates

Conservatism positively correlated with:

• Dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity

• Needs for order, structure and closure.

Conservatism negatively correlated with:

• General sensation seeking

• Valuing imaginativeness

• Openness

• Self-esteem

Dodd et al. (2012) 🦹 - link between personality and politics? Study 1 - physiological response

Right wingers more aroused by aversive images

Left wingers more aroused by appetitive images 

People who care more about politics are likely to find visible political figures to be appetitive/aversive:

Liberals responded more to ideologically similar (appetitive) politicians while conservatives responded more to ideologically dissimilar (aversive) politicians.

Conservatism more characterised by its aversive bent, than liberalism by its appetitive bent.

Dodd et al. (2012) 🦹 - link between personality and politics? Study 2 - attentional patterns

Gaze time at appetitive and aversive images/

Both groups pay more attention to aversive images.

Conservatives have a greater ‘aversion bias’

Conservative defensive personality

Conservatives are more easily disgusted and threatened.

Conservative defensive personality: threat - Oxley et al. (2008)

Asked level of support for protective policies e.g. military spending, death penalty, immigration, gay marriage

High support group (conservatives) had higher physiological responses to visual and auditory threat stimuli.

BUT this study not replicated

Right-wing media

Aversive oriented, ‘threatened’, ‘defensive’, more active Gray’s BIS.

Right-wing people more sensitive to these stories

Conservative defensive personality: disgust - Inbar et al. (2008)

Participants higher in disgust were:

• More opposed to gay marriage

• More opposed to abortion

• More likely to think that tax cuts are good for economy

• More disgusted by ‘people on handouts’

Conservative defensive personality: disgust - Smith et al. (2011)

Physiological disgust correlated with political conservatism.

Physiological and self-report disgust correlated with political conservatism and anti-gay marriage stance.

Physiological and self-report disgust were not significantly correlated.

• Partly because women over-reporting and men under-reporting disgust

Conservative defensive personality: Disgust - to body odour - Tullio Liuzza et al. (2018)

Body odour disgust sensitivity (BODS) positively related to authoritarianism.

BODS positively related to Trump support.

Conservative defensive personality: Disgust - to carcasses - Ahn et al. (2014)

Trained brain network with animal carcass pics and correlated to political scores.

Good BOLD response distinction between liberals and conservatives even from one visual image

Conservatives more easily disgusted and threatened.

Amodio et al. (2007) 🐳 - conflict monitoring - error-related negativity (ERN)

Time-locked to response, v clear negative activity 44ms after an incorrect response

Reflects conflict between habitual tendency (Go) and alternative (inhibit Go)

Larger the ERN on No-Go = more liberal (liberal brains have a stronger signal to error)

Dorsal anterior cingulate is source of ERN

Amodio et al. (2007) 🐳 - conflict monitoring - No-Go N2

Time locked to stimulus, peaks 200ms after No-Go

Larger No-Go N2 = more liberal

Amodio et al. (2007) 🐳 - conflict monitoring - behavioural response

More liberal = better accuracy on No-Go trials

Medium correlation – not as strong as what getting from the brain signal

Conflict monitoring definition

“a general mechanism for detecting when one’s habitual response tendency is mismatched with responses required by the current situation”.

Kanai et al. (2011) 🧠- liberals’ open mind and conservatives defensiveness - main results

Larger anterior cingulate = more liberal

Larger right amygdala = more conservative

Larger ACC = higher tolerance to uncertainty and conflict. Larger amygdala = more sensitive to fear

Kanai et al. (2011) 🧠- liberals’ open mind and conservatives defensiveness - whole brain analysis

More lenient stat criterion found increased conservatism = increased grey matter volume in left insula and right entorinal cortex.

No sig correlations with liberalism.

Kanai et al. (2011) 🧠- liberals’ open mind and conservatives defensiveness - to what extent can you infer political orientation if you are informed about size of someone’s anterior cingulate and right amygdala?

‘Leave one out’ algorithm trained on the sample

Algorithm can deduce if someone from this sample is v liberal or conservative with 71.6% accuracy.

Kanai et al. (2011) 🧠- liberals’ open mind and conservatives defensiveness - conclusions

Neural processes implicated here are likely to reflect complex processes of formation of political attitudes, rather than direct representation of political opinions.

These neural correlates may reflect emotional/cognitive traits of individuals that influence their inclination to certain political orientations.