PSYCH 317: The Evolution of Politics

Political ideology

A set of stable interrelated beliefs and attitudes that organise views on political and social issues.

Liberalism

Associated with social change, equality, challenging existing social arrangements, and expanding rights and opportunities.

Conservatism

Associated with stability, tradition, social order, and justification of existing inequalities such as income differences.

Political ideology and behaviour

An individual's ideological position influences voting, political participation, campaigning, policy support, and activism

Rural voting patterns

Rural areas tend to support more conservative parties such as National.

Urban voting patterns

Urban areas tend to support more progressive parties such as Labour.

End of Ideology perspective

The argument that political attitudes are unstable, logically inconsistent, and not deeply connected to personality or psychology.

Political views lack stability

People's political attitudes can change over time and may not remain consistent.

Political views are logically inconsistent

Individuals can simultaneously hold conflicting political beliefs.

Political views are unrelated to psychology and behaviour

Political attitudes were argued to not reflect deep aspects of personality and were viewed as oversimplified.

Converse (1964)

Argued that political ideologies are learned rather than rooted in personality and that ideology mainly exists among highly educated and politically engaged individuals.

Converse's view of ideological consistency

Individuals learn which political attitudes belong together rather than developing them from personality traits.

Jost's perspective

Political ideology is learned but constrained by underlying psychological predispositions that make some beliefs more appealing than others.

Psychological constraints on ideology

People do not learn a random collection of beliefs; social learning is guided by pre-existing psychological tendencies.

Biological underpinnings of political ideology

The idea that political attitudes are partly influenced by biological and psychological factors.

Heritability of political ideology

Political attitudes show genetic influences with heritability estimates ranging from approximately 0.18–0.41.

Twin studies

Research comparing genetically identical individuals to separate genetic and environmental influences on political attitudes.

Childhood predictors of political ideology

Certain behavioural traits observed in childhood can predict political attitudes later in adulthood.

Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)

A brain region involved in conflict monitoring and cognitive flexibility; greater grey matter volume is associated with lower conservatism.

Right amygdala

A brain region involved in threat detection and emotional processing; greater grey matter volume is associated with higher conservatism.

Physiological correlates of ideology

Stronger physiological responses to threatening stimuli are associated with support for socially protective and conservative policies.

Startle reflex study

Researchers measured blink intensity after a startling noise and found stronger reactions were associated with greater support for protective policies.

Evolutionary approaches to political ideology

Explanations suggesting political differences arise from evolved psychological mechanisms related to cooperation

Moral Foundations Theory (MFT)

Jonathan Haidt's theory that humans possess evolved moral foundations that guide moral judgments and enable cooperation.

Jonathan Haidt

The psychologist who developed Moral Foundations Theory.

Core assumption of MFT

Humans possess innate and relatively independent moral foundations upon which cultures build moral systems.

Individualising foundations

Moral foundations that focus on the welfare and rights of individuals.

Binding foundations

Moral foundations that focus on groups, social cohesion, and collective order.

Care vs Harm

A moral foundation concerned with compassion and preventing suffering

• evolved from mechanisms that motivated care for offspring and kin.

Fairness vs Cheating

A moral foundation concerned with justice and reciprocity

• evolved to support cooperation among unrelated individuals.

Loyalty vs Betrayal

A moral foundation concerned with group membership and loyalty

• evolved because group cooperation provides benefits.

Authority vs Subversion

A moral foundation concerned with respect for authority and social hierarchy

• evolved for navigating dominance relationships.

Purity vs Degradation (Sanctity)

A moral foundation concerned with avoiding contamination and maintaining purity

• evolved to protect against pathogens and disease.

Liberals and moral foundations

Liberals tend to prioritise Care/Harm and Fairness/Cheating more than the binding foundations.

Conservatives and moral foundations

Conservatives tend to endorse all five moral foundations relatively equally.

Conservative advantage hypothesis

The idea that conservatives may connect with more voters because they appeal to a broader range of moral concerns than liberals.

Modularity critique of MFT (Suhler & Churchland, 2011),

The claim that the idea of innate and independent moral modules is not biologically realistic.

Alternative cooperation models (Curry et al., 2019)

The argument that morality may be better explained through solutions to cooperation problems and that the number of foundations is arbitrary.

Cultural critique of MFT (Iurino & Saucier 2020)

The argument that moral foundations surveys may measure different constructs across different cultures.

Stability critique of MFT (Smith et al., 2017)l.

Evidence suggesting moral foundations are not highly heritable, are not stable over time, and do not predict future ideological changes.

Negativity bias

The tendency for negative information and events to have a stronger psychological impact than positive information and events.

Adaptive value of negativity bias

Greater attention to negative information can reduce costly mistakes and improve survival.

Error Management Theory

The theory that humans evolved biases that minimise costly errors, particularly false negatives involving threats.

False negative

Failing to detect a real threat when one exists.

Threat sensitivity and conservatism

Conservatives generally show stronger physiological and psychological reactions to threatening stimuli.

Liberals and threat sensitivity

Liberals typically show less sensitivity and less variation in responses to threatening stimuli.

Replication crisis in negativity bias research

Many findings linking conservatism to threat sensitivity have failed to replicate in larger studies.

Why negativity bias is linked to conservatism

Increased sensitivity to threats promotes self-protection, security seeking, and risk-averse policies.

Conservative policies associated with negativity bias

Military spending, criminal punishment, anti-immigration policies, and support for traditional social norms.

Behavioural immune system

A set of evolved psychological mechanisms that help individuals avoid pathogens before infection occurs.

Purpose of the behavioural immune system

To act as a first line of defence because physiological immune responses are metabolically costly and reactive.

Disgust

The primary emotion underlying the behavioural immune system that motivates avoidance of contamination and disease.

Typical disgust elicitors

Faeces, urine, blood, vomit, snot, corpses, signs of infection, spoiled foods, rotten flesh, mould, and organic decay.

Reliable signals of disease

Environmental cues such as infection, decay, bodily waste, and spoiled food that indicate pathogen risk.

Disgust sensitivity

The degree to which individuals experience disgust in response to potential contamination cues.

Cultural variation in disgust sensitivity

Most variation occurs within cultures rather than between cultures.

Liberals and disgust sensitivity

Liberals generally show lower levels of disgust sensitivity.

Conservatives and disgust sensitivity

Conservatives generally show higher levels of disgust sensitivity.

Disease-avoidance explanation of conservatism

Conservative attitudes may partly arise from evolved mechanisms designed to avoid pathogens and contamination.

Disgust and immigration attitudes

Outgroups may be unconsciously perceived as potential sources of unfamiliar pathogens, contributing to anti-immigration attitudes.

Disgust and sexual attitudes

Behaviours perceived as increasing disease transmission risk may evoke disgust and contribute to conservative views on sexual promiscuity.

Misapplication of disgust responses

Disease-avoidance mechanisms may be applied to social issues that pose no genuine pathogen threat.

Disgust predicts social conservatism

Disgust sensitivity is more strongly related to social attitudes such as immigration and sexual morality than to economic issues.

Disgust and taxation

Disgust sensitivity does not strongly predict attitudes toward taxation or other economic policies.

Three major evolutionary approaches to political

• Moral Foundations Theory

• Negativity Bias (Error Management Theory)

• Behavioural Immune System/Disgust Sensitivity.

Overall evolutionary explanation of political ideology

Political differences may arise partly from evolved psychological mechanisms related to cooperation, threat detection, risk management, and disease avoidance that shape moral judgments and social attitudes.