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UCBerkely News ^
22 July 2003 | Kathleen Maclay

Researchers help define what makes a political conservative

By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations | 22 July 2003

BERKELEY - Politically conservative agendas may range from supporting
the Vietnam War to upholding traditional moral and religious values to
opposing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations?

Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature
about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of
political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for
inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked
to political conservatism include:

* Fear and aggression
* Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
* Uncertainty avoidance
* Need for cognitive closure
* Terror management

"From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of
contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents,
either independently or in combination," the researchers wrote in an
article, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition,"
recently published in the American Psychological Association's
Psychological Bulletin.

Assistant Professor Jack Glaser of the University of California,
Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy and Visiting Professor
Frank Sulloway of UC Berkeley joined lead author, Associate Professor
John Jost of Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, and
Professor Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland at College
Park, to analyze the literature on conservatism.

The psychologists sought patterns among 88 samples, involving 22,818
participants, taken from journal articles, books and conference
papers. The material originating from 12 countries included speeches
and interviews given by politicians, opinions and verdicts rendered by
judges, as well as experimental, field and survey studies.

Ten meta-analytic calculations performed on the material - which
included various types of literature and approaches from different
countries and groups - yielded consistent, common threads, Glaser
said.

The avoidance of uncertainty, for example, as well as the striving for
certainty, are particularly tied to one key dimension of conservative
thought - the resistance to change or hanging onto the status quo,
they said.

The terror management feature of conservatism can be seen in
post-Sept. 11 America, where many people appear to shun and even
punish outsiders and those who threaten the status of cherished world
views, they wrote.

Concerns with fear and threat, likewise, can be linked to a second key
dimension of conservatism - an endorsement of inequality, a view
reflected in the Indian caste system, South African apartheid and the
conservative, segregationist politics of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond
(R-South S.C.).

Disparate conservatives share a resistance to change and acceptance of
inequality, the authors said. Hitler, Mussolini, and former President
Ronald Reagan were individuals, but all were right-wing conservatives
because they preached a return to an idealized past and condoned
inequality in some form. Talk host Rush Limbaugh can be described the
same way.

This research marks the first synthesis of a vast amount of
information about conservatism, and the result is an "elegant and
unifying explanation" for political conservatism under the rubric of
motivated social cognition, said Sulloway. That entails the tendency
of people's attitudinal preferences on policy matters to be explained
by individual needs based on personality, social interests or
existential needs.

The researchers' analytical methods allowed them to determine the
effects for each class of factors and revealed "more pluralistic and
nuanced understanding of the source of conservatism," Sulloway said.

While most people resist change, Glaser said, liberals appear to have
a higher tolerance for change than conservatives do.

As for conservatives' penchant for accepting inequality, he said, one
contemporary example is liberals' general endorsement of extending
rights and liberties to disadvantaged minorities such as gays and
lesbians, compared to conservatives' opposing position.

The researchers said that conservative ideologies, like virtually all
belief systems, develop in part because they satisfy some
psychological needs, but that "does not mean that conservatism is
pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false,
irrational, or unprincipled."

They also stressed that their findings are not judgmental.

"In many cases, including mass politics, 'liberal' traits may be
liabilities, and being intolerant of ambiguity, high on the need for
closure, or low in cognitive complexity might be associated with such
generally valued characteristics as personal commitment and unwavering
loyalty," the researchers wrote.

This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the
familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic
cliches and stereotypes, the researchers advised.

The latest debate about the possibility that the Bush administration
ignored intelligence information that discounted reports of Iraq
buying nuclear material from Africa may be linked to the conservative
intolerance for ambiguity and or need for closure, said Glaser.

"For a variety of psychological reasons, then, right-wing populism may
have more consistent appeal than left-wing populism, especially in
times of potential crisis and instability," he said.

Glaser acknowledged that the team's exclusive assessment of the
psychological motivations of political conservatism might be viewed as
a partisan exercise. However, he said, there is a host of information
available about conservatism, but not about liberalism.

The researchers conceded cases of left-wing ideologues, such as
Stalin, Khrushchev or Castro, who, once in power, steadfastly resisted
change, allegedly in the name of egalitarianism.

Yet, they noted that some of these figures might be considered
politically conservative in the context of the systems that they
defended. The researchers noted that Stalin, for example, was
concerned about defending and preserving the existing Soviet system.

Although they concluded that conservatives are less "integratively
complex" than others are, Glaser said, "it doesn't mean that they're
simple-minded."

Conservatives don't feel the need to jump through complex,
intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their
positions, he said. "They are more comfortable seeing and stating
things in black and white in ways that would make liberals squirm,"
Glaser said.

He pointed as an example to a 2001 trip to Italy, where President
George W. Bush was asked to explain himself. The Republican president
told assembled world leaders, "I know what I believe and I believe
what I believe is right." And in 2002, Bush told a British reporter,
"Look, my job isn't to nuance."

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml


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The Bush Regime: "A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be
the first against the wall when the revolution comes."

UC BERKELEY STUDY -

What do Hitler, Mussolini, Reagan and Rush Limbaugh Have in common....