Ideology: Psychological Similarities and Differences Across the Ideological Spectrum Reexamined.

A key debate in the psychology of ideology is whether leftists and rightists are psychologically similar or different. A long-standing view holds that left-wing and right-wing people are meaningfully different from one another across a whole host of basic personality and cognitive features. Scholars have recently pushed back, suggesting that left-wing and right-wing people are more psychologically similar than distinct. We review evidence regarding the psychological profiles of left-wing and right-wing people across a wide variety of domains, including their dispositions (values, personality, cognitive rigidity, threat-sensitivity, and authoritarianism), information processing (motivated reasoning and susceptibility to misinformation), and their interpersonal perceptions and behaviors (empathy, prejudice, stereotyping, and violence). Our review paints a nuanced picture: People across the ideological divide are much more similar than scholars sometimes appreciate. And yet, they differ-to varying degrees-in their personality, values, and (perhaps most importantly) in the groups and causes they prioritize, with important implications for downstream attitudes and behavior in the world.

Registered report protocol: Stress testing predictive models of ideological prejudice.

In this registered report, we propose to stress-test existing models for predicting the ideology-prejudice association, which varies in size and direction across target groups. Previous models of this relationship use the perceived ideology, status, and choice in group membership of target groups to predict the ideology-prejudice association across target groups. These analyses show that models using only the perceived ideology of the target group are more accurate and parsimonious in predicting the ideology-prejudice association than models using perceived status, choice, and all of the characteristics in a single model. Here, we stress-test the original models by testing the models' predictive utility with new measures of explicit prejudice, a comparative operationalization of prejudice, the Implicit Association Test, and additional target groups. In Study 1, we propose to directly test the previous models using an absolute measure of prejudice that closely resembles the measure used in the original study. This will tell us if the models replicate with distinct, yet conceptually similar measures of prejudice. In Study 2, we propose to develop new ideology-prejudice models for a comparative operationalization of prejudice using both explicit measures and the Implicit Association Test. We will then test these new models using data from the Ideology 2.0 project collected by Project Implicit. We do not have full access to this data yet, but upon acceptance of our Stage 1 registered report, we will gain access to the complete dataset. Currently, we have access to an exploratory subset of the data that we use to demonstrate the feasibility of the study, but its limited number of target groups prevents conclusions from being made.

When the specter of the past haunts current groups: Psychological antecedents of historical blame.

Groups have committed historical wrongs (e.g., genocide, slavery). We investigated why people blame current groups who were not involved in the original historical wrong for the actions of their predecessors who committed these wrongs and are no longer alive. Current models of individual and group blame overlook the dimension of time and therefore have difficulty explaining this phenomenon using their existing criteria like causality, intentionality, or preventability. We hypothesized that factors that help psychologically bridge the past and present, like perceiving higher (a) connectedness between past and present perpetrator groups, (b) continued privilege of perpetrator groups, (c) continued harm of victim groups, and (d) unfulfilled forward obligations of perpetrator groups would facilitate higher blame judgments against current groups for the past. In two repeated-measures surveys using real events (N1 = 518, N2 = 495) and two conjoint experiments using hypothetical events (N3 = 598, N4 = 605), we find correlational and causal evidence for our hypotheses. These factors link present groups to their past and cause more historical blame and support for compensation policies. This work brings the dimension of time into theories of blame, uncovers overlooked criteria for blame judgments, and questions the assumptions of existing blame models. Additionally, it helps us understand the psychological processes undergirding intergroup relations and historical narratives mired in historical conflict. Our work provides psychological insight into the debates on intergenerational justice by suggesting methods people can use to ameliorate the psychological legacies of historical wrongs and atrocities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Person-specific priorities in solitude.

OBJECTIVE: People value solitude in varying degrees. Theories and studies suggest that people's appreciation of solitude varies considerably across persons (e.g., an introverted person may value solitude more than an extraverted person), and solitude experiences (i.e., on average, people may value some functions of solitude, e.g., privacy, more than other functions, e.g., self-discovery). What are the unique contributions of these two sources? METHOD: We surveyed a quota-based sample of 501 US residents about their perceived importance of a diverse set of 22 solitude functions. RESULTS: Variance component analysis reveals that both sources contributed to the variability of perceived importance of solitude (person: 22%; solitude function: 15%). Crucially, individual idiosyncratic preferences (person-by-solitude function interaction) had a substantial impact (46%). Further analyses explored the role of personality traits, showing that different functions of solitude hold varying importance for different people. For example, neurotic individuals prioritize emotion regulation, introverted individuals value relaxation, and conscientious individuals find solitude important for productivity. CONCLUSIONS: People value solitude for idiosyncratic reasons. Scientific inquiries on solitude must consider the fit between a person's characteristics and the specific functions a solitary experience affords. This research suggests that crafting or enhancing positive solitude experiences requires a personalized approach.

Intraindividual Changes in Political Identity Strength (But Not Direction) Are Associated With Political Animosity in the United States and the Netherlands.

We test if within-person changes in political identities are associated with within-person changes in political animosity in two longitudinal studies (United States N = 552, Waves = 26; Netherlands N = 1,670, Waves = 12). Typical studies examine cross-sectional associations without assessing within-person change. Our work provides a stronger test of the relationship. We find that within-person changes in the strength of people's ideological and partisan identities are associated with increased political animosity. We found no such associations with within-person changes in identity direction. These patterns were robust to covariates and emerged in both studies. In addition to these average effects, we found substantial heterogeneity across participants in the associations among identity strength, identity direction, and political animosity. We did not find robust and replicable moderators for this heterogeneity. These findings suggest that identity strength (but not identity direction) is a key, if heterogenous, factor in changes in political animosity.

Ideology Strength Versus Party Identity Strength: Ideology Strength Is the Key Predictor of Attitude Stability.

We investigate the relationship between attitude instability and both party identity strength and ideology strength. We test the explorative hypotheses that higher party identity strength (H1) and ideology strength (H2) predict more attitude stability using intensive longitudinal data collected in the United States every 2 weeks over 1 year (Study 1, N = 552) and in the Netherlands over 6 months (Study 2, N = 1,670). We found mixed support for H1: In the United States, there was no association between party identity strength and attitude stability. In the Netherlands, people with stronger party identity had more stable attitudes. We found stronger support for H2: Individuals with a stronger ideology than average had more stable attitudes in the United States and the Netherlands. The context-dependent nature of relations is discussed.

The Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic Made People Feel Threatened, but Had a Limited Impact on Political Attitudes in the United States.

We investigated if the COVID-19 pandemic's onset caused changes in political attitudes. Influential theories predict that the pandemic's onset will cause people to adopt more conservative attitudes, more culturally conservative attitudes, or more extreme attitudes. We comprehensively tested the external validity of these predictions by estimating the causal effect of the pandemic's onset on 84 political attitudes and eight perceived threats using fine-grained repeated cross-sectional data (Study 1, N = 232,684) and panel data (Study 2, N = 552) collected in the United States. Although the pandemic's onset caused feelings of threat, the onset only caused limited attitude change (six conservative shifts, four extremity shifts, 12 liberal shifts, 62 no change). Prominent theories of threat and politics did not make accurate predictions for this major societal threat. Our results highlight the necessity of testing psychological theories' predictive powers in real-life circumstances.

Affective Polarization and Political Belief Systems: The Role of Political Identity and the Content and Structure of Political Beliefs.

We investigate the extent that political identity, political belief content (i.e., attitude stances), and political belief system structure (i.e., relations among attitudes) differences are associated with affective polarization (i.e., viewing ingroup partisans positively and outgroup partisans negatively) in two multinational, cross-sectional studies (Study 1 N = 4,152, Study 2 N = 29,994). First, we found a large, positive association between political identity and group liking-participants liked their ingroup substantially more than their outgroup. Second, political belief system content and structure had opposite associations with group liking: Sharing similar belief system content with an outgroup was associated with more outgroup liking, but similarity with the ingroup was associated with less ingroup liking. The opposite pattern was found for political belief system structure. Thus, affective polarization was greatest when belief system content similarity was low and structure similarity was high.

Deciding what to replicate: A decision model for replication study selection under resource and knowledge constraints.

Robust scientific knowledge is contingent upon replication of original findings. However, replicating researchers are constrained by resources, and will almost always have to choose one replication effort to focus on from a set of potential candidates. To select a candidate efficiently in these cases, we need methods for deciding which out of all candidates considered would be the most useful to replicate, given some overall goal researchers wish to achieve. In this article we assume that the overall goal researchers wish to achieve is to maximize the utility gained by conducting the replication study. We then propose a general rule for study selection in replication research based on the replication value of the set of claims considered for replication. The replication value of a claim is defined as the maximum expected utility we could gain by conducting a replication of the claim, and is a function of (a) the value of being certain about the claim, and (b) uncertainty about the claim based on current evidence. We formalize this definition in terms of a causal decision model, utilizing concepts from decision theory and causal graph modeling. We discuss the validity of using replication value as a measure of expected utility gain, and we suggest approaches for deriving quantitative estimates of replication value. Our goal in this article is not to define concrete guidelines for study selection, but to provide the necessary theoretical foundations on which such concrete guidelines could be built. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Not every dissatisfaction is the same: The impact of electoral regret, disappointment, and anger on subsequent electoral behavior.

We investigate varieties of dissatisfaction by examining how the similar, yet distinct emotions of regret, disappointment, and anger are related to electoral behavior. In a 2-wave longitudinal study conducted around the UK General Election of 2017 (N1 = 817, N2 = 768), we measured these emotions in response to 3 levels of electoral decision-making (individual party preference, individual electoral participation, and election results) and tested the relationship between these emotions and electoral behaviors. We find that party switching in 2017 is associated with regret about the party preference in 2015 and the regret about those election results, but not with other emotions. Similarly, we also find that the regret about party preference in 2017 is associated with future party switching intentions. Disappointment with the decision to vote in the 2015 General Election is negatively associated with voting in 2017; and the same is true for the anger about participants' party choice. These results suggest that distinct dissatisfaction-related emotions might have distinct consequences for electoral behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The complicated but solvable threat-politics relationship.

Popular models on the threat-politics association suggest that threats cause right-wing political preferences. Failed replications, crossnational variation, and examples of threats causing left-wing preferences suggest this relationship is more complicated. We introduce a model of the reciprocal threat-politics relationship that reconciles prior conflicting findings and raises new questions.

Measuring the belief system of a person.

Theories of belief system structure and dynamics assume that belief systems are a person-level construct. However, measures of belief system structure do not measure the structure of person-level belief systems and instead measure aggregated belief system structure (e.g., the belief system in a particular country). In this paper, I show that a measure of conceptual similarity between attitudes and identities of a belief system works as a valid, reliable, flexible, and efficient measure of person-level belief system structure in the United States. In Studies 1 (N = 387), 2 (N = 389), and 3 (N = 598), I show conceptual similarity judgments are reliable and are related to measures of political engagement, political knowledge, attitude consistency, and preference congruence as predicted by computational models of belief system dynamics. In Studies 4 (N = 981) and 5 (N = 983), I show that conceptual similarity judgments are affected by partisan frames and that changes in conceptual similarity judgments are associated with attitude change as predicted by computational models of belief system dynamics. Conceptual similarity judgments can be used with a variety of attitudes and identities in easy to administer studies. It provides a tool to fill an empirical gap identified by theories of belief system dynamics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Moral Frames Are Persuasive and Moralize Attitudes; Nonmoral Frames Are Persuasive and De-Moralize Attitudes.

Moral framing and reframing strategies persuade people holding moralized attitudes (i.e., attitudes having a moral basis). However, these strategies may have unintended side effects: They have the potential to moralize people's attitudes further and as a consequence lower their willingness to compromise on issues. Across three experimental studies with adult U.S. participants (Study 1: N = 2,151, Study 2: N = 1,590, Study 3: N = 1,015), we used persuasion messages (moral, nonmoral, and control) that opposed new big-data technologies (crime-surveillance technologies and hiring algorithms). We consistently found that moral frames were persuasive and moralized people's attitudes, whereas nonmoral frames were persuasive and de-moralized people's attitudes. Moral frames also lowered people's willingness to compromise and reduced behavioral indicators of compromise. Exploratory analyses suggest that feelings of anger and disgust may drive moralization, whereas perceiving the technologies to be financially costly may drive de-moralization. The findings imply that use of moral frames can increase and entrench moral divides rather than bridge them.

Between-person methods provide limited insight about within-person belief systems.

Belief systems are individual-level phenomena that describe the interrelationships of the political attitudes of a person. However, the modal study of the structure of political ideologies and beliefs uses cross-sectional survey data to estimate what is central to the belief system or the dimensionality of the belief system, aggregating across many people. Cross-sectional data, however, are ill-suited to the task of studying individual-level phenomena because they contain an unobservable mixture of within-person and between-person variation. In this project, we use longitudinal datasets from the Netherlands (representative) and the United States (convenience), spanning between 6 months and 10 years, to we ask whether between-subjects methods can help us understand the within-person structure of belief systems. First, we use Bayesian STARTS models (Lüdtke et al., 2018) to assess what type of variance cross-sectional studies are likely tapping into. We find that variability in measures of ideology and political beliefs is primarily due to stable between-person differences, with relatively smaller amounts of variation due to within-person differences. Second, we estimate between-person, within-person, and cross-sectional correlations between all items in our study and find that between-person correlations are larger and in some cases differ in their direction from within-person correlations. Furthermore, cross-sectional correlations are most similar to between-person correlations. Taken together, these findings indicate that the modal study may help describe differences between people, but is ill-suited to tell us about the structure of individuals' belief systems. New methods are necessary for a complete understanding of political belief systems that clarify both between- and within-person processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Mapping principal dimensions of prejudice in the United States.

Research is often guided by maps of elementary dimensions, such as core traits, foundations of morality, and principal stereotype dimensions. Yet, there is no comprehensive map of prejudice dimensions. A major limiter of developing a prejudice map is the ad hoc sampling of target groups. We used a broad and largely theory-agnostic selection of groups to derive a map of principal dimensions of expressed prejudice in contemporary American society. Across a series of exploratory and confirmatory studies, we found three principal factors: Prejudice against marginalized groups, prejudice against privileged/conservative groups, and prejudice against unconventional groups (with some inverse loadings for conservative groups). We documented distinct correlates for each factor, in terms of social identifications, perceived threats, personality, and behavioral manifestations. We discuss how the current map integrates several lines of research, and point to novel and underexplored insights about prejudice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Ecological dimensions explain the past but do not predict future changes in trust.

Concerns about declining trust and rising cynicism are recurrent in academic research and the media. Yet, prior studies focused on explaining, rather than predicting, temporal changes in trust. We tested prediction models of trust change across (up to) 98 countries over six measurement waves (from 1981 to 2014). We tested whether different ecological predictors (e.g., pathogen prevalence, population diversity, inequality) explain the past and predict future trust levels across countries. We used societal growth curve models to disentangle between- from within-country effects and evaluated the accuracy of the models' out-of-sample predictions using the train-test split method: We used data from 1981-2009 to "train" the models and obtain predictions of trust for the period of 2010-2014. None of our models was more accurate in predicting future trust than a simpler baseline model. Moreover, we did not observe a universal decline in trust. Instead, temporal changes in trust were country-specific, highlighting the locality of cultural change. Most ecological predictors were correlated with between-country differences in trust. Only resource availability and moral opinion polarization were associated with within-country changes in trust: Countries that became less wealthy and more morally polarized over time also became less trustful. These results highlight important differences between explanatory and predictive models and suggest that ecological theories of trust might be of limited use when predicting future cultural shifts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Evaluating Belief System Networks as a Theory of Political Belief System Dynamics.

A theory of political belief system dynamics should incorporate causal connections between elements of the belief system and the possibility that belief systems are influenced by exogenous factors. These necessary components can be satisfied by conceptualizing an individual's belief system as a network of causally connected attitudes and identities which, via the interactions between the elements and the push of exogenous influences, produces the disparate phenomena in the belief systems literature. We implement this belief systems as networks theory in a dynamic Ising model and demonstrate that the theory can integrate at least six otherwise unrelated phenomenon in the political belief systems literature, including work on attitude consistency, cross-pressures, spillover effects, partisan cues, and ideological differences in attitude consensus. Our findings suggest that belief systems are not just one thing, but emerge from the interactions between the attitudes and identities in the belief system. All code is available: https://osf.io/aswy8/?view_only=99aff77909094bddabb5d382f6db2622.

An emerging consensus in palaeoanthropology: demography was the main factor responsible for the disappearance of Neanderthals.

The causes of Neanderthal disappearance about 40,000 years ago remain highly contested. Over a dozen serious hypotheses are currently endorsed to explain this enigmatic event. Given the relatively large number of contending explanations and the relatively large number of participants in the debate, it is unclear how strongly each contender is supported by the research community. What does the community actually believe about the demise of Neanderthals? To address this question, we conducted a survey among practicing palaeo-anthropologists (total number of respondents = 216). It appears that received wisdom is that demography was the principal cause of the demise of Neanderthals. In contrast, there is no received wisdom about the role that environmental factors and competition with modern humans played in the extinction process; the research community is deeply divided about these issues. Finally, we tested the hypothesis that palaeo-anthropologists' stand in the debate co-varies with their socio-political views and attitudes. We found no evidence for such a correlation.