Ideological asymmetries in conformity, desire for shared reality, and the spread of misinformation

Current Opinion in Psychology

Volumn 23, Issue , 2018, Pages 77-83

  Jost, John T ^a   van der Linden, Sander ^b   Panagopoulos, Costas ^c   Hardin, Curtis D ^d  

^a NEW YORK UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

^c NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^d CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ATTITUDE; EGO; EUROPE; GROUP PROCESS; HUMAN; INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION; MOTIVATION; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY;

ATTITUDE; COMMUNICATION; EUROPE; GROUP PROCESSES; HUMANS; MOTIVATION; REALITY TESTING; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL CONFORMITY;

EID: 85042913345     PISSN: 2352250X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.01.003     Document Type: Review

References (50)

1. Berger, P.L., Luckmann, T., The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. 1966, Doubleday, Garden City, NY.
2. Jost, J.T., Becker, J., Osborne, D., Badaan, V., Missing in (collective) action: ideology, system justification, and the motivational antecedents of two types of protest behavior. Curr Direct Psychol Sci 26 (2017), 99–108.
3. Hardin, C.D., Higgins, E.T., Shared reality: how social verification makes the subjective objective. Sorrentino, R.M., Higgins, E.T., (eds.) Handbook of Motivation and Cognition, Vol. 3: The Interpersonal Context, 1996, Guilford Press, New York, 28–84.
4. Hardin, C.D., Conley, T.D., A relational approach to cognition: shared experience and relationship affirmation in social cognition. Moskowitz, G.B., (eds.) Cognitive Social Psychology: The Princeton Symposium on the Legacy and Future of Social Cognition, 2001, Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 3–17.
5. Hogg, M.A., Uncertainty, social identity, and ideology. Thye, S., Lawler, E., (eds.) Social Identification in Groups, 2005, Elsevier, San Diego, CA, 203–229.
6. Heine, S.J., Proulx, T., Vohs, K.D., The meaning maintenance model: on the coherence of social motivations. Personal Soc Psychol Rev 10 (2006), 88–110.
7. Anson, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., Political ideology in the 21st century: a terror management perspective on maintenance and change of the status quo. Jost, J., Kay, A., Thorisdottir, H., (eds.) Social and Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification, 2009, Oxford University Press, New York, 210–240.
8. Cornwell, J.F., Franks, B., Higgins, E.T., Shared reality makes life meaningful: are we really going in the right direction?. Motiv Sci 3 (2017), 260–274 Advances the argument that the relational and epistemic functions of shared reality render the individual's life story meaningful, worthwhile, and morally right. This results not only in the strengthening of ingroup relationships and attitudes but also the tendency to dismiss, demean, and reject outgroups and incompatible attitudes as morally wrong.
9. Hennes, E.P., Nam, H.H., Stern, C., Jost, J.T., Not all ideologies are created equal: epistemic, existential, and relational needs predict system-justifying attitudes. Soc Cogn 30 (2012), 669–688.
10. Jost, J.T., Hawkins, C.B., Nosek, B.A., Hennes, E.P., Stern, C., Gosling, S.D., Graham, J., Belief in a just God (and a just society): a system justification perspective on religious ideology. J Theoret Philos Psychol 34 (2014), 56–81.
11. Jost, J.T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A.W., Sulloway, F.J., Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychol Bull 129 (2003), 339–375.
12. Jost, J.T., Ideological asymmetries and the essence of political psychology. Pol Psychol 38 (2017), 167–208.
13. Jost, J.T., Sterling, J., Stern, C., Getting closure on conservatism, or the politics of epistemic and existential motivation. Kopetz, C.E., Fishbach, A., (eds.) The Motivation–Cognition Interface; From the Lab to the Real World: A Festschrift in Honor of Arie W. Kruglanski, 2018, Routledge/Taylor & Francis, New York, 56–87 A meta-analysis of research involving 181 distinct samples and 133,796 participants revealed that the endorsement of conservative ideology is positively associated with uncertainty avoidance, intolerance of ambiguity, perceptual and cognitive rigidity, dogmatism, intuitive thinking, and personal needs for order, structure, and cognitive closure. It is also negatively associated with need for cognition.
14. Jost, J.T., Stern, C., Rule, N.O., Sterling, J., The politics of fear: is there an ideological asymmetry in existential motivation?. Soc Cogn 35 (2017), 324–353 A meta-analysis of research involving 134 different samples and 369,525 participants from 16 countries revealed that mortality salience primes are associated with conservative ideological outcomes, that there is a significant association between subjective perceptions of threat and conservatism, and that exposure to objectively threatening circumstances, such as terrorist attacks, was associated with a ‘conservative shift’ at individual and aggregate levels of analysis.
15. Jost, J.T., Ledgerwood, A., Hardin, C.D., Shared reality, system justification, and the relational basis of ideological beliefs. Soc Person Psychol Compass 2 (2008), 171–186.
16. Mikulincer, M., Florian, V., Exploring individual differences in reactions to mortality salience: does attachment style regulate terror management mechanisms?. J Person Soc Psychol 79 (2000), 260–273.
17. Saroglou, V., Delpierre, V., Dernelle, R., Values and religiosity: a meta-analysis of studies using Schwartz's model. Person Indiv Diff 37 (2004), 721–734.
18. Jost, J.T., Basevich, E., Dickson, E.S., Noorbaloochi, S., The place of values in a world of politics: personality, motivation, and ideology. Brosch, T., Sander, D., (eds.) Handbook of Value: Perspectives from Economics, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Psychology, and Sociology, 2016, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 351–374.
19. Caprara, G.V., Schwartz, S., Capanna, C., Vecchione, M., Barbaranelli, C., Personality and politics: values, traits, and political choice. Pol Psychol 27 (2006), 1–28.
20. Schwartz, S.H., Caprara, G.V., Vecchione, M., Basic personal values, core political values, and voting: a longitudinal analysis. Pol Psychol 31 (2010), 421–452.
21. Piurko, Y., Schwartz, S.H., Davidov, E., Basic personal values and the meaning of left-right political orientations in 20 countries. Pol Psychol 32 (2011), 537–561.
22. Stern, C., West, T.V., Jost, J.T., Rule, N.O., “Ditto heads” do conservatives perceive greater consensus within their ranks than liberals?. Personal Soc Psychol Bull 40 (2014), 1162–1177.
23. Pinel, E.C., Long, A.E., Murdoch, E., Helm, P., A prisoner of one's own mind: identifying and understanding existential isolation. Personal Indiv Diff 105 (2017), 54–63 A measure of existential isolation is developed and validated. Evidence of convergent and divergent validity is provided in relation to other psychological constructs, such as loneliness, need for belonging, and ‘Big Five’ personality dimensions. The measure exhibits stability over two weeks and is responsive to manipulations of cognitive salience.
24. Jost, J.T., Langer, M., Badaan, V., Azevedo, F., Etchezahar, E., Ungaretti, J., Hennes, E., Ideology and the limits of self-interest: system justification motivation and conservative advantages in mass politics. Trans Iss Psychol Sci 3 (2017), e1–e26 Evidence from the U.S. and Argentina indicates that chronically heightened epistemic, existential, and relational motives to reduce uncertainty, threat, and social discord are positively associated with the endorsement of conservative ideology and system-justifying attitudes.
25. Lerner, M.J., The belief in a just world. Lerner, M., (eds.) The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion, 1980, Springer US, 9–30.
26. Stern, C., West, T.V., Schmitt, P.G., The liberal illusion of uniqueness. Psychol Sci 25 (2014), 137–144.
27. Rabinowitz, M., Latella, L., Stern, C., Jost, J.T., Beliefs about childhood vaccination in the United States: political ideology, false consensus, and the illusion of uniqueness. PLoS ONE, 11, 2016, e0158382 An online survey of 367 U.S. indicated that liberals were more likely than conservatives to endorse pro-vaccination statements and to regard them as ‘facts’ (rather than ‘beliefs’). In addition, conservatives overestimated the proportion of like-minded others who agreed with them, whereas liberals underestimated the proportion of others who agreed with them.
28. Hess, Y.D., Ledgerwood, A., Bolstering system-justifying beliefs in response to social exclusion. Group Process Intergr Rel 17 (2014), 494–508.
29. Cheung, R.M., Noel, S., Hardin, C.D., Adopting the system-justifying attitudes of others: effects of trivial interpersonal connections in the context of social inclusion and exclusion. Soc Cogn 29 (2011), 255–269.
30. Aydin, N., Fischer, P., Frey, D., Turning to God in the face of ostracism: effects of social exclusion on religiousness. Personal Soc Psychol Bull 36 (2010), 742–753.
31. Birgegard, A., Granqvist, P., The correspondence between attachment to parents and God: three experiments using subliminal separation cues. Personal Soc Psychol Bull 30 (2004), 1122–1135.
32. Magee, M.W., Hardin, C.D., In defense of religion: shared reality moderates the unconscious threat of evolution. Soc Cogn 28 (2010), 379–400.
33. Messing, S., Westwood, S.J., Selective exposure in the age of social media: endorsements trump partisan source affiliation when selecting news online. Commun Res 41 (2014), 1042–1063 A Facebook study compared the effects of online social cues and source credibility on selective exposure to online news content. For Republicans (but not Democrats), the impact of ideologically congenial source cues (e.g., Fox News) was attenuated in the absence of social cues (i.e., ‘likes’ or recommendations).
34. Jost, J.T., Krochik, M., Ideological differences in epistemic motivation: implications for attitude structure, depth of information processing, susceptibility to persuasion, and stereotyping. Adv Motiv Sci 1 (2014), 181–231.
35. Panagopoulos, C., van der Linden, S., Conformity to implicit social pressure: the role of political identity. Soc Infl 11 (2016), 177–184 In two large randomized field experiments on voting behavior in local U.S. elections, implicit social cues (images of watchful human eyes) significantly increased voter turn-out for Republicans but not Democrats.
36. Ludeke, S., Johnson, W., Bouchard, T.J., “Obedience to traditional authority:” a heritable factor underlying authoritarianism, conservatism and religiousness. Personal Indiv Diff 55 (2013), 375–380.
37. Lewandowsky, S., Gignac, G.E., Vaughan, S., The pivotal role of perceived scientific consensus in acceptance of science. Nature Clim Change 3 (2013), 399–404.
38. van der Linden, S.L., Leiserowitz, A.A., Feinberg, G.D., Maibach, E.W., The scientific consensus on climate change as a gateway belief: experimental evidence. PLoS ONE, 10, 2015, e0118489.
39. van der Linden, S., Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Scientific agreement can neutralize politicization of facts. Nat Hum Behav, 2018, 10.1038/s41562-017-0259-2 (in press) In a large, nationally representative experiment, some U.S. respondents were presented with a (true) descriptive group norm about expert agreement (‘97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening’), whereas others were not. Political conservatives were more likely than liberals to update their beliefs in response to the norm presented.
40. Boutyline, A., Willer, R., The social structure of political echo chambers: variation in ideological homophily in online networks. Pol Psychol 38 (2017), 551–569 An online study of more than 260,000 Twitter users revealed that those who followed more conservative sources (such as the Cato Institute) had more ideologically homogeneous online social networks than those who followed liberal sources (such as Amnesty International).
41. Barberá, P., Jost, J.T., Nagler, J., Tucker, J.A., Bonneau, R., Tweeting from left to right: is online political communication more than an echo chamber?. Psychol Sci 26 (2015), 1531–1542.
42. Marwick, A., Lewis, R., Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online. 2017, Data & Society Research Institute https://datasociety.net/pubs/oh/DataAndSociety_MediaManipulationAndDisinformationOnline.pdf.
43. Benkler, Y., Faris, R., Roberts, H., Zuckerman, E., Study: Breitbart-led right-wing media ecosystem altered broader media agenda. Columbia J Rev, 1, 2017, 7 https://www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-media-trump-harvard-study.php.
44. Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., Motivated rejection of science. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 25 (2016), 217–222.
45. Krekó, P., Conspiracy theory as collective motivated cognition. Bilewicz, M., Cichocka, A., (eds.) The Psychology of Conspiracy, 2015, Routledge, New York, NY, 62–76.
46. Douglas, K.M., Sutton, R.M., Cichocka, A., The psychology of conspiracy theories. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 26 (2017), 538–542.
47. Garrett, R.K., Weeks, B.E., Epistemic beliefs’ role in promoting misperceptions and conspiracist ideation. PLoS ONE, 12, 2017, e0184733 Three nationally representative studies involving more than 2000 participants demonstrate that belief in conspiracy theories and empirical falsehoods is predicted by individual difference measures of faith in one's intuition to discern fact from fiction, indifference to inconsistencies between empirical evidence and beliefs, and the assumption that ‘facts’ are a matter of politics rather than reality.
48. Miller, J.M., Saunders, K.L., Farhart, C.E., Conspiracy endorsement as motivated reasoning: the moderating roles of political knowledge and trust. Am J Pol Sci 60 (2016), 824–844.
49. Robbins, J., Brexit Voters and Britain First Supporters are More Likely to Believe Conspiracy Theories. 2017, International Business Times December 1, https://amp.ibtimes.co.uk/brexit-voters-britain-first-supporters-are-more-likely-believe-conspiracy-theories-1649106.
50. Grossmann, M., Hopkins, D.A., Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats. 2016, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.