Jost, John T.; Glaser, Jack; Kruglanski, Arie W.; Sulloway, Frank J.
Psychological Bulletin, Vol 129(3), May 2003, 339-375. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.339
Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure, regulatory focus, terror management), and ideological rationalization (social dominance, system justification). A meta-analysis (88 samples, 12 countries, 22,818 cases) confirms that several psychological variables predict political conservatism: death anxiety (weighted mean r=.50); system instability (.47); dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity (.34); openness to experience (-.32); uncertainty tolerance (-.27); needs for order, structure, and closure (.26); integrative complexity (-.20); fear of threat and loss (.18); and self-esteem (-.09). The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality and is motivated by needs that vary situationally and dispositionally to manage uncertainty and threat.
Conclusions:
What Have We Learned?
Understanding the psychological underpinnings of conservatism
has for centuries posed a challenge for historians, philosophers,
and social scientists. By now, hundreds of empirical investigations
have been carried out worldwide, and at least three types of
theories have been offered to explicate the psychological bases of
conservative and right-wing ideologies. Our contribution here has
been to review and summarize this work and to integrate it within
the ambitious and broad framework of motivated social cognition
(see Figure 1). In doing so, we have drawn a number of conclusions, which should be made explicit in order to better understand
the various ways in which political conservatism may be thought
of as a form of motivated social cognition.
An important conclusion that follows from our analysis is that
political attitudes and beliefs possess a strong motivational basis
(e.g., Duckitt, 2001; Dunning, 1999; Fiske & Taylor, 1991;
Kruglanski, 1996; Kunda, 1990). Conservative ideologies, like
virtually all other belief systems, are adopted in part because they
satisfy various psychological needs. To say that ideological belief
systems have a strong motivational basis is not to say that they are
unprincipled, unwarranted, or unresponsive to reason or evidence.
Although the (partial) causes of ideological beliefs may be motivational, the reasons (and rationalizations) whereby individuals
justify those beliefs to themselves and others are assessed according to informational criteria (Kruglanski, 1989, 1999).
Many different theoretical accounts of conservatism over the
past 50 years have stressed motivational underpinnings, but they
have identified different needs as critical. Our review brings these
diverse accounts together for the first time. Variables significantly
associated with conservatism, we now know, include fear and
aggression (Adorno et al., 1950; Altemeyer, 1998; Lavine et al.,
1999), dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity (Fibert & Ressler,
1998; Frenkel-Brunswik, 1948; Rokeach, 1960; Sidanius, 1978),
uncertainty avoidance (McGregor et al., 2001; Sorrentino &
Roney, 1986; Wilson, 1973b), need for cognitive closure (Golec,
2001; Jost et al., 1999; Kemmelmeier, 1997; Kruglanski & Webster, 1996), personal need for structure (Altemeyer, 1998; Schaller
et al., 1995; Smith & Gordon, 1998), terror management
(Dechesne et al., 2000; Greenberg et al., 1990, 1992; Wilson,
1973d), group-based dominance (Pratto et al., 1994; Sidanius,
1993; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), and system justification (Jost &
Banaji, 1994; Jost et al., 2001; Jost & Thompson, 2000). From our
perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing
to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination.
The socially constructed nature of human belief systems (see
Jost & Kruglanski, 2002) makes it unlikely that a complete explanation of conservative ideology could ever be provided in terms of
a single motivational syndrome. Ideologies, like other social representations, may be thought of as possessing a core and a periphery (Abric, 2001), and each may be fueled by separate motivational concerns. The most that can be expected of a general
psychological analysis is for it to partially explain the core of
political conservatism because the peripheral aspects are by definition highly protean and driven by historically changing, local
contexts.
We regard political conservatism as an ideological belief system
that is significantly (but not completely) related to motivational
concerns having to do with the psychological management of
uncertainty and fear. Specifically, the avoidance of uncertainty
(and the striving for certainty) may be particularly tied to one core
dimension of conservative thought, resistance to change (Wilson,
1973c). Similarly, concerns with fear and threat may be linked to
the second core dimension of conservatism, endorsement of inequality (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Although resistance to change
and support for inequality are conceptually distinguishable, we
have argued that they are psychologically interrelated, in part
because motives pertaining to uncertainty and threat are interrelated (e.g., Dechesne et al., 2000; McGregor et al., 2001; van den
Bos & Miedema, 2000).
In conclusion, our comprehensive review integrates several decades of research having to do with the psychological bases of
political conservatism. Most of what is known about the psychology of conservatism fits exceedingly well with theories of motivated social cognition. The integrative framework developed here
has implications for resolving historically controversial issues, and
we have argued that it has great generative potential for guiding
future work on the subject of conservatism. By attending to the
multiple, potentially reinforcing influences of epistemic, existential, and ideological motivations involved in political conservatism, we hope that future research strengthens understanding of
belief systems in general. It should also shed light on the nature of
relations between the micro and the macro, that is, on the reciprocal dynamics between the needs of individual and group actors
on one hand and the complex characteristics of social and political
systems, institutions, and organizations on the other.
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