Conservatives Might Not Have A More Potent Fear Response Than Liberals After All

By guest blogger Jesse Singal If you follow mainstream science coverage, you have likely heard by now that many scientists believe that the differences between liberals and conservatives aren’t just ideological, but biological or neurological. That is, these differences are driven by deeply-seated features of our bodies and minds which exist prior to any sort of conscious evaluation of a given issue. Lately, though, follow-up research has been poking some holes in this general theory. In November, for example, Emma Young wrote about findings which undermined past suggestions that conservatives are more readily disgusted than liberals. More broadly, as I wrote in 2018, there’s a burgeoning movement in social and political psychology to re-evaluate some of the strongest claims about liberal-conservative personality differences, with at least some evidence to suggest that the nature and magnitude of these differences has been overblown by shoddy or biased research. Now, a new study set to appear in the Journal of Politics and available in preprint here suggests that another key claim about liberal-conservative differences may be less sturdy than it appears. Many researchers have argued that people are more likely to endorse conservatism if they want to reduce feelings of threat in their lives, note the authors, led by Mathias Osmundsen at Aarhus University. “In this view, so-called ‘threat-sensitive’ individuals find the order inherent in a conservative ideology att...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Emotion guest blogger Methodological Political Replications Source Type: blogs