individual diff- political attitudes and irrationality Flashcards
political attitudes
-right wing authoritarianism
-3 factors
-history
-was associated with studies in socio and psyc after world war 2
-conservatism -70s and 80s
-social dominance theory 90s
left wing authoritarianism
history
-long perceived to be the ‘loch ness monster’ so essentially non existent
-studys began after 2010
authoritarianism
what did theordore adorno say about authoritarianism
-theordore adorno 1950 sdefined it as
- excessive conformity
-intolerance of others
-rigid and stereotyped patterns of thoughts
-(submissive behaviour towards authority)
psychodynamic definition of authoratarianism
-an authoritarian individual directs their aggression towards other social groups in order to resolve feelings of personal weakness
how do we measure authoritarianism?
-how we measure
-limitations
-first scale developed by adorno 1950 : F scale (facism scale)
-suggests things like : ‘the businessman and the manufacturer are much more important to society than the artist and the professor’ and you would agree or disagree
-criticised for being based on myths and old fashioned viewpoints
right wing authoritarianism
altmeyers
- altermeyer 1966,1999
-accept abuses of power of government
-prejudiced on racial,ethnic,nationalist and sexual grounds
-cause and inflame intergroup conflict
-fearful
-self righteous
-accept insufficent evidence to support their beliefs
-conform to the opinion of others
-beleive they have no personal failings
-punitive attitudes (would punish if they believe something is wrong)
-trust authorities too much
-dogmatic
right wing authoritarianism scale developed by altmeryer
RWAS is the scale
-scale has very strongly disagree-very strongly agree (1-9 point scale)
-‘a women’s place should be wherever she wants to be. the days when women are submissive to their husbands and social conventions belong strictly in the past’ (obviously someone who is right wing would disagree with this)
-‘there is no one right way to live life; everybody has to create their own way. (would negatively feed right wing
altmeyers conceptulisation of rwa
-called tripartite conceptualisation: aggression, submission, conventionalism
problems with right wing authoritariaisms
-double standards and inconsistencies
:insistence on rights of majority when part of the majority , however insist on rights of the minority when part of the minority
-claiming censorship of own ideas but censoring ideas of others
-highlighting differences in cognitive processes in authoritarian (perceiving and dealing with information)
personality (big five)
-right wing authoritarianism strongly positively correlated with conscientiousness
-but negative correlation with openness to experience
conservatism
-wilson patterson 1968
wilson patterson 1968 developed the attitude inventory
concepts within conservatism
-religion puritanism
(adherence for church authority,fundeamentalism)
-anti hedonism
(people whp have social persmissiveness, tendancy to view pleasurable things as wrong)
(opposing sexual freedom,drinking alcohol..)
-militarism-punitiveness
(willingness to protect the nation and its values)
ethnocentrism-intolerance
(racial superiority)
conservatism builds on right wing authoritarianism
social dominance orientation
rosa parks
segregation laws
-1s December 1955 rosa parks bus segregation (was told to move for a white man)
-December 1956 the us supreme court decided that bus segregation violated the constitution
-although this seems a long time ago, we still have inequality in civil rights nowadays - some groups maintain social dominance
social dominance theory
-social dominance is maintained because
-humans are predisposed to form social hierarchies
these hierarchies manifest as oppression
-eg sexism racism, prejudiced
-based on social hierarchy
what maintains social dominance
-individual discrimination (eg racist comments,employements preferences based on gender)
-institutional discrimination (eg established clubs based on ability or interest from which specific groups are excluded)
-behavioural asymmetry (favouring members of outgroup, internalisation of stereotypes)
how can we measure social dominance orientation
-Pratto et al. (1996): Social Dominance Orientation Scale (1= Very negative to 7 = Very positive)
* “Some groups of people are simply not the equals of others”
* “This country would be better off if we cared less about how equal all people are”
* “To get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on others”
* Another measure of right-wing attitudes
left wing authoritarianism
Stone (p.14, 1980): The Myth of Left-Wing Authoritarianism
* “It seems a waste of time to continue to test a hypothesis with so little support as left-wing authoritarianism…
* Largely based on findings that leftists scored low on dogmatism
why has left wing authoritarianism been overlooked?
Original authoritarianism research was a reaction to far-right ideology (fascism) mainly focusing on social conservatism
- Overreliance on WEIRD samples (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic)
- A handful of studies looking at authoritarianism in post-socialist countries(Eastern Europe)
left wing authoritarianism
costello et al 2002 : clarifying the structure and nature of left wing authoritarianism
Core markers of authoritarianism symmetrical across the spectrum
:* Dogmatism
* Cognitive rigidity
* Prejudice
* Lethal partisanship
* Left-wing authoritarianism: The revolutionary personality
* The present establishment should be overthrown
* Main difference between “winged-ness”: orientation towards the present hierarchy
measuring left wing authoritarianism
- LWA scale (Costello et al., 2022)
- “The rich should be stripped of their belongings and status” (Anti-hierarchical Aggression)
- “Radical and progressive moral values can save our society” (Anti-conventionalism)
- “When we spend all our time protecting the right to “free speech” we’re protecting the rights of sexists, racists, and homophobes at the cost of marginalized people” (Top-down Censorship)
personality and left wing (big five)
-negative correlations with agreeableness, conscientiousness, -openess to experience
-positive correlations with extraversion
commonality in both right and left wing authoritarianism
-preference for social uniformity
-prejudice towards different others
-willingness to wield group authority to coerce behaviour
-cognitive rigidity
-aggression and punitiveness towards perceived enemies
-outsized concern for hierarchy
-moral absolutism
-political violence
rwa and lwa differences
rwa
-higher confirmatory thinking
-higher dogmatism
-higher cognitive rigidity
-lower openness
-lower belief in science
-political violence to support the system (police brutality)
lwa
-higher negative affect
-higher neuroticism
-higher preferences for state control
-higher beliefs in determinism
-higher beliefs in dangerous world
-higher partisan violence
-higher moral disengagement
-higher political intolerance
-political violence against the system (violent protests)
zmigrod et al 2021 exp
looked at individual differences based on the extremes of political spectrum, by looking at cognitive functioning
-do individuals who are on the political spectrum left to right, differ in their cognitive abilities
-look at graphs
-top one shows cognitive flexibility as measure by remote association test
-we can see highest cognitive flexibility can be found on the slight left of the political spectrum
-individuals who hold liberal political views show highest cognitive flexibility
-other two graphs show accuracy on the Wisconsin sorting card test
-need to be flexible to be able to flexible in your thinking
-as we go lower on the accuracy there is higher confidence in decision to die for the group
-this correlation shows willingness to engage in aggression up to giving yourself up for views
-parallel for both side of the political spectrum
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