1-s2.0-S1057740817300487-John T Jost Political Psychology 2017
1-s2.0-S1057740817300487-John T Jost Political Psychology 2017
1-s2.0-S1057740817300487-John T Jost Political Psychology 2017
John T. Jost
Department of Psychology
New York University
Acknowledgements: The writing of this article was supported in part by the National
Science Foundation (Award # BCS-1627691). I thank Jennifer Aaker, Ruthie Pliskin, Sharon
Shavitt, Steven Shepherd, Vishal Singh, and Hulda Thórisdóttir for providing extremely helpful
comments on an earlier draft.
© 2017. This manuscript version is made available under the Elsevier user license
http://www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/
1
Abstract
An abundance of research in political psychology demonstrates that leftists and rightists (or
liberals and conservatives) diverge from one another in terms of: (a) personality characteristics;
(b) cognitive processing styles; (c) motivational interests and concerns; (d) the prioritization of
personal values; and (e) neurological structures and physiological functions. In this article, I
summarize these findings and discuss some of their implications for persuasion, framing, and
satisfaction/dissatisfaction and politically motivated boycotts. I conclude that the theory and
asymmetries and the ways in which human behavior both reflects and gives rise to left-right
divergence in political orientation—not only in terms of beliefs, opinions, and values but also in
Western political life—has ancient origins pertaining to the concept of handedness. Laponce
(1981), for instance, recounted that in Medieval Europe the right was regarded as the “side of
God,” and “universally associated with the notion of privilege, dominance, and sacredness” (p.
10) as well as “liking for or acceptance of social and religious hierarchies” (p. 135). By contrast,
the “gauche,” “sinister” left was associated with the “equalization of conditions through the
The historical longevity of the left-right spatial metaphor in politics was practically
assured by the French Revolution, which lasted from 1789 to 1799. Supporters of the ancient
regime—which kept power in the hands of the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the Church—sat
on the right side of the French Parliament, whereas those who commiserated with the
revolutionaries occupied the left of the chamber. From then on, the right-wing label has
who vigorously opposed the French Revolution, and those of Barry Goldwater, William F.
Buckley Jr., and many others who resisted the New Deal and civil rights movements—that are
conservative, supportive of the status quo, and protective of tradition and hierarchy. Left-wing
views, by contrast, are associated with progressive social change and egalitarian ideals, as in
political movements inspired by liberalism, socialism, and Marxism (Bobbio, 1996; Inglehart,
My colleagues and I have drawn on historical and philosophical sources such as these to
propose that there are two core attitudinal dimensions that separate left and right (Jost, 2006,
2017; Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003a, 2003b; Jost, Nosek, & Gosling, 2008; Jost,
Federico, & Napier, 2009). The two dimensions are (a) advocating vs. resisting social change,
and (b) rejecting vs. accepting inequality (or hierarchy), and they are intertwined—at least in the
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Liberal democracies were built in opposition to older, hierarchical orders, in the name of
equality and individual rights. The shift in perspective was huge and difficult, because
up to then inequality had been understood as the natural order of things. The family, the
Church, social classes, even the animal kingdom were seen as hierarchies designed by
God. (Noël & Thérien, 2008, p. 17)
In seeking to understand why some people are drawn to conservative, rightist belief systems
that emphasize tradition and hierarchy, whereas others are drawn to liberal, leftist belief
systems that emphasize progress and equality, we have developed a theoretical model of
genealogy of “functional” perspectives (e.g., Smith, Bruner, & White, 1956), which assume that
individuals hold the attitudes they do because they resonate with underlying needs, interests,
and goals. In particular, our model is inspired by Max Weber’s account of elective affinities—the
“selective process” by which “ideas and their publics” are bound together through forces of
mutual attraction (Gerth & Mills, 1948/1970, p. 63; see also Jost et al., 2009).
The major insight is that people may be seduced by certain beliefs, opinions, and values
because of social and psychological forces that are not necessarily salient or obvious to them.
This way of thinking about political orientation and its relationship to social, cognitive, and
motivational factors is compatible with Itamar Simonson’s (2008) idea that there exist relatively
“stable, inherent preferences” that may remain dormant for long periods of time but
nevertheless come into play once an individual is exposed to stimuli that were formerly
unfamiliar. Ideological predispositions may help not only to explain the origins of individual
differences in the specific contents of dormant preferences but also why some people are more
eager than others to acquire certain types of experiences in the first place (e.g., Khan, Misra, &
Singh, 2013).
When it comes to Western political life, most social scientists agree that the left-right
dimension captures the “core currency of political exchange” (Noël & Thérien, 2008, p. 229).
Nevertheless, there are still some political scientists who hold fast to Philip Converse’s (1964)
skeptical notion (based on public opinion data from the 1950s) that, at least when it comes to
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American politics, most citizens are “little more than casual spectators”:
Parochial in interest, modest in intellect, and burdened by the demands and obligations of
everyday life, most citizens lack the wherewithal and motivation to grasp political matters
in a deep way. People are busy with more pressing things; politics is complicated and far
away. Ideology is not for them. (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017, p. 3)
Despite the remarkable staying power of the assumption that ordinary citizens are devoid or
“innocent” of ideology (see Jost, 2006), the evidence has been mounting for decades that the
issues that may be readily understood in left-right terms (e.g., Pew, 2014). Ideological conflict
and polarization, it should be noted, is far from unique to the United States. It has been shaping
Latin American politics for many years (Moraes, 2015) and is on the rise in Europe once again
(Groskopf, 2016). Optimists hold out hope that a scientific understanding of similarities and
differences between leftists and rightists will eventually help to overcome destructive forms of
ideological conflict and forge communication strategies that transcend purely parochial
concerns (Hibbing, Smith, & Alford, 2014), but this is by no means assured.
over the last 15 years demonstrating that liberals and conservatives diverge from one another in
terms of: (a) personality characteristics; (b) cognitive processing styles; (c) motivational interests
and concerns; (d) the prioritization of personal values; and (e) neurological structures and
physiological functions. In this target article, I briefly summarize the history of these five areas
of research and underscore the major empirical conclusions that have emerged thus far.
Although these research programs developed more or less independently, they tell a
remarkably consistent story about psychological differences between the left and right. In the
final section of the article, I speculate more freely about the implications of findings from
political psychology for the theory and practice of persuasion, judgment, decision-making,
The earliest accounts of personality differences between leftists and rightists focused on
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traits that are now associated with the syndrome of authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 2007).
Members of the Frankfurt School—including Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm, and Theodor W.
psychodynamic sensibilities of Sigmund Freud. Thus, Fromm (1947) saw parallels between
Freud’s description of the “anal character” and “conservative” tendencies focused on the
“preservation of what had been acquired” and the attainment of “security . . . based upon
hoarding and saving.” Fromm associated the conservative personality type with a “pedantic
orderliness” that could be “sterile and rigid” (Fromm, 1947, pp. 65-66), as well as positive
characteristics such as being careful, methodical, practical, loyal, orderly, and tenacious.
Adorno the social theorist teamed up with research psychologists Else Frenkel-
how intense frustration brought on by World War I and the Great Depression eventually gave
rise to the fascist conflagration throughout Europe. Adorno et al. (1950) emphasized unresolved
childhood conflicts with parents who—for cultural and historical reasons—adopted especially
harsh methods of discipline. These conflicts were aggravated by societal crises and led millions
to place their confidence in strong, charismatic dictators such as Mussolini and Hitler while
displacing hostility onto convenient scapegoats such as Jews, gypsies, leftists, and sexual
minorities. The net result was a personality structure that was anti-democratic, rigid,
Twenty years later, Glenn Wilson (1973) sought to understand affective and emotional
authoritarianism and intolerance of ambiguity. He argued that political orientation arose from
genetic factors such as anxiety, stimulus aversion, and intelligence, as well as environmental
factors, such as parental treatment, self-esteem, and social class. Longitudinal research reveals
that children who are fearful and inhibited are indeed more likely to become conservative
adults, especially if their parents emphasize the value of obedience (Block & Block, 2006; Fraley,
Griffin, Belsky, & Roisman, 2012). Even in adulthood, societal phenomena that elicit strong
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feelings of uncertainty and threat—such as crime, terrorism, immigration, and social protest—
tend to elicit a conservative shift in political attitudes (Berrebi & Klor, 2008; Bonanno & Jost,
2006; Craig & Richeson, 2014; Economou & Kollias, 2015; Green, Saarrasin, Baur, & Fasel, 2015;
Jost et al., 2003a; Schüller, 2015; Thórisdóttir & Jost, 2011; for a quantitative review, see Jost,
Most, if not all, of the personality characteristics associated with the left-right (or liberal-
framework of the “Big Five” model of personality, which provides a heuristic basis for
classifying distinct, relatively non-overlapping personality dimensions (e.g., Ozer & Benet-
Martínez, 2006). Carney, Jost, Gosling, and Potter (2008) pointed out that most of the traits
featured in social and psychological accounts of political ideology from the 1930s to the 2000s
correspond to one or more of the Big Five dimensions of openness to new experiences,
shown in Table 1, two personality dimensions clearly stand out from the others. Consistent with
what social theorists have argued for nearly a century, we find that openness is higher on the left,
personality and political orientation—nearly all of which were carried out after 2000. Most
studies were conducted in North America and Western Europe (as well as Poland, Turkey,
Israel, and New Zealand) and in total they included more than 70,000 research participants. The
evidence, whether based on surveys of university students (Carney et al., 2008), internet users
(Nosek & Hansen, 2008), or nationally representative samples (Gerber, Huber, Doherty,
Dowling, & Ha, 2010) is exceedingly clear. Openness and conscientiousness are the two
personality dimensions that are most strongly correlated with political orientation. Whereas
the facet of orderliness—is positively associated with the adoption of conservative and rightist
attitudes. With respect to agreeableness, one facet (compassion) is associated with a liberal
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DeYoung, Xu, & Peterson, 2010). No consistent ideological differences exist with respect to
extraversion or neuroticism. 1
One potential shortcoming is that all of this evidence comes from subjective, self-report
measures of personality traits. This means that the results could reflect ideological divergence
differences. To address this problem, Carney et al. (2008) explored more subtle, unobtrusive
differences in nonverbal behavior, such as the “behavioral residue” that people leave behind in
living and working spaces (see also Gosling, 2008). In one study, we investigated the
relationship between political orientation and the personal belongings found in bedrooms
Research assistants, who were unaware of the residents’ ideological proclivities, coded a wide
range of environmental stimuli using the Personal Living Space Cue Inventory, which involves
both global assessments (e.g., “clean” vs. “dirty,” “well-lit” vs “dark”) and an inventory of
specific content items (e.g., “ironing board,” “laundry basket”). Results, which are summarized
in Table 2, revealed that liberals’ bedrooms contained more art supplies, musical recordings,
movie tickets, and items pertaining to travel, such as maps and travel documents, as well as a
greater number and variety of books, including books about music, travel, feminism, and
calendars and postage stamps, as well as conventional decorations such as American flags,
sports memorabilia, and alcohol containers. Rooms occupied by conservatives were rated as
somewhat more neat, clean, fresh, organized, and well-lit, and they were more likely to contain
cleaning supplies and mending accessories such as laundry baskets and ironing boards.
Taken as a whole, the research literature in political psychology suggests that left-right
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Some researchers prefer the HEXACO model, which specifies six (rather than five) major factors of
personality; they find that liberals score higher than conservatives on honesty-humility (Chirumbolo &
Leone, 2010; Leone, Chirumbolo, & Desimoni, 2012).
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aesthetic tastes, leisure activities, and consumption preferences (DellaPosta, Shi, & Macy, 2015),
as well as romantic interests and dating behavior (Eastwick, Richeson, Son, & Finkel, 2009;
Klofstad, McDermott, & Hatemi, 2012). Even in terms of the “things they leave behind,” liberals
are more open-minded in pursuit of novelty, creativity, curiosity, and diversity, whereas
conservatives tend to be more conventional, neat, orderly, and organized (Carney et al., 2008).
The relationship between openness and liberalism appears to be mediated by cultural exposure,
so that individuals who are high in openness read more books, articles, and newspapers and see
a greater number and variety of films and videos, and these forms of cultural exposure foster a
more liberal political orientation (Xu, Mar, & Peterson, 2013). Consistent with personality
differences in openness and conscientiousness, liberals listen to a wider range of musical forms
and expose themselves to books and movies that may be considered “dark” or “alternative,”
such as science fiction, horror movies, and cult films, whereas conservatives prefer more
conventional forms of entertainment, such as soap operas, Westerns, romances, game shows,
reality television, cop shows, war movies, action adventures, and sporting events (Xu &
Peterson, 2017). The implications of these findings for the theory and practice of consumer
One of the most enduring scientific controversies in political psychology pertains to the
so-called “rigidity-of-the-right” hypothesis (Malka & Soto, 2015; Sidanius, 1985; Tetlock, 1989).
The hypothesis is typically traced back to Adorno et al.’s (1950) pioneering work on the
mindedness, and dogmatism were associated not only with the endorsement of proto-fascistic
statements but also with political-economic conservatism. Critics of The Authoritarian Personality
have claimed that liberals and leftists are just as dogmatic and rigid as rightists and point out
that left-wing regimes in the USSR, China, Cuba, and elsewhere embraced authoritarian tactics
and ideas (e.g., Eysenck, 1954). From a psychological perspective, it is important to recognize
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that historical observations about totalitarian political regimes do not (and cannot) establish
that—in the democratic “marketplace of ideas”—individuals who are drawn to liberal and
conservative viewpoints are equally rigid, dogmatic, and closed-minded (Stone & Smith, 1993).
research samples and over 22,000 research participants from 12 different countries produced
consistent support for the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis and no support for the alternative
hypothesis that cognitive rigidity would be as prevalent on the left as the right (Jost, et al. 2003a,
2003b). Specifically, intolerance of ambiguity and personal needs for order, structure, and
complexity, open-mindedness, and tolerance for uncertainty were positively associated with
liberal preferences. Importantly, these findings have been replicated and extended in a
variables (Jost, Sterling, & Stern, in press). Most of the studies included in the latter meta-
analysis were conducted in North America and Western Europe, but some were conducted in
Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and New Zealand. I have summarized the major results of this more
Since 2006 there have been 16 studies (and 29 tests) of the hypothesis that—on objective
measures such as the cognitive reflection test—liberals employ a more reflective, deliberative, and
analytical (vs. intuitive) thinking style, in comparison with conservatives. As shown in Figure 1,
participants), and the average effect size was statistically significant and negative, albeit modest
seem to engage in more heuristic, automatic, stereotypical thinking, whereas liberals engage in
more systematic, controlled, effortful thinking. This difference is consistent with other evidence
from the Jost, Sterling, and Stern (in press) meta-analysis, which revealed that liberals scored
higher than conservatives on need for cognition (sometimes referred to as enjoyment of thinking).
studies, and the average effect size was statistically significant. These findings are potentially
useful for designing effective marketing campaigns, insofar as individuals who score higher on
need for cognition engage in more systematic processing of persuasive messages, whereas those
who score lower tend to engage in heuristic processing (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).
Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler, and Fugelsang (2015) observed that intuitive (vs.
analytical) thinking styles and low need for cognition predicted the acceptance of statements
that were extremely vague and yet superficially meaningful. Following the philosopher Harry
Frankfurt, they dubbed this outcome variable “receptivity to pseudo-profound bullshit” and
growth of coherence, and of us.” Sterling, Jost, and Pennycook (2016) found that individuals
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stronger reliance on intuitive, heuristic-based cognitive processing and were more receptive to
bullshit. Another study yielded similar results: Those who identified as conservative and liked
Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio were more susceptible to pseudo-profound bullshit
than those who did not (Pfattheicher & Schindler, 2016). Taken as a whole, these findings may
help to explain why the U.S. market for “fake news” is more lucrative on the political right than
the left (Ingraham, 2016; Sydell, 2016). Rumors, misinformation, and conspiracy theories seem
to spread more rapidly and extensively throughout conservative (vs. liberal) online social
networks (e.g., Benkler, Faris, Roberts, & Zuckerman, 2017; Miller, Saunders, & Farhart, 2015).
perceptual and cognitive rigidity; dogmatism; personal needs for order, structure, and cognitive
closure; need for cognition; cognitive reflection; bullshit receptivity; and self-deception (see Jost,
2017; Jost, Sterling, et al., in press). As shown in Table 3, the results are quite consistent across
2
A helpful reader pointed out that pseudo-profound bullshit may be quite common in consumer
advertising and cited the Lincoln Motor Company commercials featuring Matthew McConaughey as one
example. These advertisements have been memorably parodied by Jim Carrey
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3eN9u5N2Q4) and Ellen DeGeneres
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K69chHMtrs4), among others.
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researchers have also directly manipulated cognitive style through inductions of mental
distraction, cognitive load, time pressure, threat, and alcohol intoxication. These interventions
seem to promote an affinity for hierarchy and/or conservative, right-wing opinions and labels
(Eidelman, Crandall, Goodman, & Blanchar, 2012; Friesen, Kay, Eibach, & Galinsky, 2014;
Hansson, Keating, & Terry, 1974; Lammers & Proulx, 2013; Rock & Janoff-Bulman, 2010; Rutjens
& Loseman, 2010; Skitka, Mullen, Griffin, Hutchinson, & Chamberlin, 2002; Thórisdóttir & Jost,
2011; Van Berkel, Crandall, Eidelman, & Blanchar, 2015). Experiments such as these are
extremely valuable because they demonstrate that a causal relationship exists between cognitive
processing style, on one hand, and left-right ideological preferences, on the other.
Cichocka, Bilewicz, Jost, Marrouch, and Witkowska (2016) hypothesized that ideological
differences in cognitive processing style would influence verbal behavior, such as preferences
other parts of speech, such as verbs and adjectives. For instance, noun phrases such as “Julia is a
Jew” and “Mohammed is a Syrian” convey more in terms of inductive potential and social
stereotyping, in comparison with similar adjective phrases such as “Julia is Jewish” and
“Mohammed is Syrian” (Carnaghi, Maass, Gresta, Bianchi, Cadinu, et al., 2008). The hypothesis
that political ideology would be related to grammatical preferences was upheld in three studies
carried out in very different sociolinguistic contexts (Cichocka, et al., 2016). In Poland, we
observed that social conservatives exhibited stronger noun preferences than social liberals, and
the need for structure mediated the effect of ideology on grammatical preferences. In a second
study, conducted in Lebanon, social conservatism was associated with a preference for the use
of nominal sentences in Arabic (which are comprised of nouns only) over verbal sentences
(which include verbs and adjectives). In a third study, major speeches given by more
conservative U.S. presidents were found to include a higher proportion of nouns, and this effect
linguistics blogger who compared radio addresses of Republican President George W. Bush in
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2008 and Democratic President Barack Obama in 2010. He found that Bush used 17% more
nouns than Obama, whereas Obama used more verbs, adverbs, and pronouns (Liberman, 2016).
Few speakers are consciously aware of their own grammatical choices, so this work provides
further evidence that ideological differences in cognitive processing style are not confined to
about human motivation—one that deserves prominence in an age in which violence motivated
by ideological extremism (especially right-wing extremism) appears to be on the rise in the U.S.
and elsewhere (Lee, Patterson, & Canon, 2015). How could people be so strongly inspired by a
shared system of beliefs, opinions, and values that they are willing to kill or be killed? The
novelist Arthur Koestler, who spent much of his early adulthood dodging Fascist and
Communist dictatorships, wrote: “Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that
individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant part in the human
tragedy, compared to the numbers massacred in unselfish loyalty to one’s tribe, nation, dynasty,
church, or political ideology” (1978, p. 14). It is a fact of human nature that people can be moved
by abstract systems of belief to commit atrocities as well as astonishing feats of altruism. But
what, specifically, is it about an ideology that renders it capable of motivating human behavior?
William Dember (1991) emphasized the epistemic function of reducing uncertainty (see also
Hogg, 2007). Others—like Ernest Becker (1973) and the proponents of terror management
motivating force because it confers existential security: a way of keeping death anxiety at bay
also serves the relational function of bringing people together (often in contradistinction to their
ideological adversaries) under the rubric of a common group categorization and a shared
understanding of social reality (Hardin & Higgins, 1996). In an effort to integrate these various
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perspectives on the motivational functions of ideology, Jost et al. (2009) suggested that ideology
inspires human activity because it draws on fundamental epistemic, existential, and relational
needs. That is, political and religious belief systems offer the promise of certainty, security, and
solidarity, although they may not address these needs in the same way or to the same extent.
serves epistemic, existential, and relational needs—provides the “motivational glue” that holds
the two dimensions of left-right ideology together (Jost, Federico, & Napier, 2013). To uphold
traditional institutions and arrangements, conservatives are moved to defend extant inequalities
as desirable, just, and necessary. Conversely, to bring about a more equal state of affairs,
progressives are driven to criticize existing institutions and practices. Or, as Laponce (1981) put
it: “Attachment to one’s privileges and to the hierarchical order is on the right; the desire to
bring down that order is on the left” (p. 51). A number of studies demonstrate that epistemic,
existential, and relational needs to reduce uncertainty, threat, and social discord are positively
For instance, a study by Hennes, Nam, Stern, and Jost (2012) revealed that people who
scored lower on need for cognition—that is, individuals who say that they do not enjoy thinking
very much—and people who scored higher on death anxiety and the need to share reality with
like-minded others were more politically conservative and endorsed system-justifying beliefs
more enthusiastically; were more likely to endorse conservative positions on issues such as
climate change, health care reform, and immigration policy; and were more supportive of the
Tea Party movement and less supportive of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Importantly, the
effects of epistemic, existential, and relational motives on political attitudes were mediated by
system justification (Hennes et al., 2012). These findings were conceptually replicated in the
context of Argentina, where university students who scored higher on the need for cognitive
closure, death anxiety, and the need to share reality were more likely to endorse system-
justifying beliefs and identify themselves as right-wing (vs. left-wing). System justification
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mediated the effects of epistemic, existential, and relational motives on political orientation and
support for conservative President Mauricio Macri (Jost, Langer, Badaan, Azevedo, Etchehezar,
As we will see later in this article, the fact that conservatives possess a stronger
motivation than liberals do to defend and justify the societal status quo helps to explain a
Fitzsimons, 2010; Cutright, Wu, Banfield, Kay, & Fitzsimons, 2011; Jung, Briley, Garbarino, &
Wynhausen, in press; Shepherd, Chartrand, & Fitzsimons, 2015). Over the years, there has been
tremendous interest in the phenomenon of “status quo bias” (and related concepts such as loss
and risk aversion) in behavioral decision theory (e.g., Kahneman, 2011; Moshinsky & Bar-Hillel,
2010; Thaler, 2015) and various applications in marketing, strategy, management, and
organizational behavior (e.g., Chernev, 2004; Hartman, Doane, & Woo, 1991; Kim &
Kankanhalli, 2009). This voluminous literature has yet to incorporate ideological factors—such
There is, moreover, mounting evidence that conservatives are quicker to apply group
stereotypes and more likely to devalue individuals who deviate from the stereotype, in
comparison with liberals (e.g., Stern, West, & Rule, 2015; see also Luguri, Napier, & Dovidio,
2012; Olivola, Sussman, Tsetsos, Kang, & Todorov, 2012). For example, conservatives are more
likely than liberals to assume that men with stereotypically feminine facial features—such as
long eyelashes, high cheekbones, and slender faces—are gay (Stern, West, Jost, & Rule, 2013).
Liberals also take longer when asked to categorize individuals as gay or straight, suggesting
that they may think more deeply about their judgments, in comparison with conservatives.
Under cognitive load, however, liberals are as likely as conservatives to use gender-inversion
cues when rendering sexual orientation judgments, presumably because they are unable to
engage in a secondary process of stereotype correction (see also Skitka et al., 2002). Liberals are
also less likely than conservatives to believe that gender-inversion stereotypes are valid cues
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about sexual orientation, and we observed that this ideological difference in beliefs about the
utility of stereotyping was mediated by the need for cognition (see Figure 3).
Krosch, Bernsten, Amodio, Jost, and Van Bavel (2013) identified another ideological
categorization, which implies that multiracial individuals are categorized according to their
most socially subordinated group membership. In three studies, we demonstrated that political
conservatives exhibited a lower statistical threshold than liberals for classifying ambiguous,
mixed-race faces as “Black.” The effect of ideology on stereotyping in this case was mediated
not by epistemic motivation but by system justification and the acceptance of inequality. We
hypothesized that insofar as conservatives are more motivated to maintain racial divisions that
are part of their own national system (as opposed to those that are not), the relationship
between conservatism and hypodescent would be stronger when U.S. participants classified
mixed-race faces that they believed were American (vs. Canadian). As illustrated in Figure 4,
conservatives exhibited a lower threshold for categorizing racially ambiguous faces as Black
when they were judging American, but not Canadian, faces. This finding suggests that racial
divisions that are part of the historical legacy of the United States—a motivation that is stronger
Stern et al. (2015) investigated the hypothesis that conservatives would not only rely
more heavily on stereotypes but would also be more likely than liberals to evaluate negatively
those individuals who deviate from the stereotype. Thus, in one study they observed that
conservatives evaluated masculine-looking gay men less favorably than feminine-looking gay
men, whereas liberals displayed no differences in evaluation. In another study, the researchers
created a novel stereotype in the laboratory, informing participants that members of one
(fictional) social group typically had moles on their face, whereas members of another group
negatively than stereotypical exemplars, but liberals did not. This ideological asymmetry
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occurred only when participants expected to encounter these groups again in the near future,
suggesting that there may be an epistemic, goal-oriented basis for conservative preferences for
stereotype-congruent targets. Findings such as these have potential ramifications for judgment
and decision-making in a variety of marketing contexts, especially given that some products
and services confirm preconceived, stereotypical notions whereas others do not (Goode, Dahl, &
Moreau, 2013). Racial, ethnic, and other group-based stereotypes come into play in some
advertising campaigns as well. There is, for instance, some evidence that conservatives
responded negatively to the inclusion of Arab and Muslim individuals in a highly publicized
Coca-Cola commercial, shifting their attitudes in the direction of the competition (Pepsi),
Although the study of individual differences in value priorities may be traced back to
the pioneering work of Henry Murray (1938), it took several decades before taxonomies of value
were applied to political psychology. Since the 1970s, there has been a good deal of research on
ideological differences in the expression of personal and social values. Major theoretical
distinctions are summarized in Table 4. Most, if not all, of these distinctions have been well
validated in empirical research (Jost, Basevich, Dickson, & Noorbaloochi, 2016), although there
are surely cross-cultural differences when it comes to the meaning and social significance of
One of the leading figures in this area, Milton Rokeach (1973) stressed the political
importance of two major values in particular: equality and freedom. He suggested that the four
Rokeach argued that supporters of capitalism value freedom but not equality, whereas
supporters of Communism value equality but not freedom. At the same time, liberals and
socialists value both freedom and equality, whereas fascists value neither (see also Tetlock,
1986). Braithwaite (1998) observed that rightists are more enthusiastic about values pertaining
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to security—including social order, national strength, and desire for social standing, whereas
leftists are more enthusiastic about values pertaining to harmony—including equality, pacifism,
The dominant approach to the cross-cultural study of human values is that of Shalom
Schwartz (2012). His taxonomy includes 10 ostensibly universal values, namely: power,
conformity, and security. These values are organized in terms of a circumplex model that
revolves around two underlying dimensions, which Schwartz identifies as openness to change
(stimulation, self-direction) versus conservation (conformity, security, and tradition) and self-
hedonism). Studies demonstrate a remarkable level of consistency across Western nations when
it comes to ideological divergence in the prioritization of specific values: liberals and leftists are
more likely to value benevolence and universalism, whereas conservatives and rightists are more
likely to value conformity, security, tradition, and power (e.g., Aspelund, Lindeman, & Verkasalo,
2013; Caprara, Schwartz, Capanna, Vecchione, & Barbaranelli, 2006; Jones, Noorbaloochi, Jost,
Bonneau, Nagler, & Tucker, in press; Jost et al., 2016; Piurko, Schwartz, & Davidov, 2011;
Schwartz, Caprara, & Vecchione, 2010). Findings such as these are readily interpretable in terms
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of Jost et al.’s (2003a, 2003b) theory of ideology as motivated social cognition. Because those on
the left are motivated to agitate for social change in the name of increased equality, they tend to
3
Graham, Haidt, and Nosek (2009) adopt the more grandiose language of “moral foundations” rather
than “personal values,” but their research program demonstrates ideological differences in the
prioritization of five specific values. Liberals place greater value than conservatives on issues of fairness
and avoidance of harm, whereas conservatives place greater (positive) value than liberals on ingroup loyalty,
obedience to authority, and purity. Consistent with an analysis of political ideology as motivated social
cognition (Jost et al., 2003a, 2003b)—these ideological differences in moral concerns are attributable, at
least in part, to the fact that conservatives have stronger epistemic, existential, and relational needs (Van
Leeuwen & Park, 2009) and score higher than liberals on right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance
orientation (Kugler, Jost, & Noorbaloochi, 2014).
4
Aspelund et al. (2013) obtained inconsistent results when they investigated the relationship between
ideology and value priorities in Central and Eastern Europe. The elective affinities model—which
assumes that there is a “marketplace” for ideology—applies much better to Western-style democracies in
which citizens are relatively free to choose parties and ideologies that correspond to their own
psychological needs than to other forms of government in which options are (or until recently were) fixed
by the social and political system.
18
devalue tradition, conformity, and power while prioritizing universalism and benevolence.
Because rightists are motivated to defend the status quo, they tend to devalue universalism and
benevolence while emphasizing tradition, conformity, security, and power (see also Jost et al.,
2016).
An elective affinities model would suggest that—by dint of nature as well as nurture—
orientations toward environmental stimuli as well as personality characteristics, and that these
lead people to gravitate toward ideas of the left or right if they are exposed to them (Jost et al.,
2009). At the level of personality traits, we have seen that conservatives are higher in
conscientiousness, whereas liberals are higher in openness to new experiences (Carney et al.,
2008). At the level of affect, cognition, and motivation, conservatives are more focused than
liberals on the reduction of uncertainty and threat, presumably because there is a natural
connection between the maintenance of tradition and hierarchy and the desire for order,
predictability, and control (Friesen et al., 2014; Jost et al.., 2003a, 2003b; Van Berkel et al., 2015).
structures and functions, especially when it comes to the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and
Drawing on the theory of political ideology as motivated social cognition, Amodio, Jost,
Master, and Yee (2007) hypothesized that liberals and conservatives would differ in terms of
were asked to respond quickly and accurately to a familiar (Go) stimulus, to the point that “Go”
responses became habitual. Every once in a while, however, a “No–Go” stimulus appeared; on
these trials, participants were instructed to withhold their habitual responses. As hypothesized,
ideology was associated with performance on the Go/No-Go task as well as patterns of brain
activity. Liberals were better than conservatives at withholding habitual responses (that is,
19
responding correctly on No-Go trials) and exhibited greater activity in the ACC on these trials.
These findings are consistent not only with the observation that there are ideological differences
in cognitive processing style, as discussed above, but also that liberals may be more
responses to threat, Oxley et al. (2008) exposed residents of Lincoln, Nebraska to a series of fear-
inducing and disgusting images (such as a bloody face or a maggot-infested wound) as well as
more neutral images (a bowl of fruit). They observed that more conservative participants
exhibited stronger skin conductance responses (SCRs)—that is, increased sweat gland activity
associated with arousal in the sympathetic nervous system—in response to threatening and
disgusting (but not neutral) images (see also Smith et al., 2011). Oxley and colleagues also
administered unexpected blasts of white noise and measured startle eyeblink responses—which
are associated with amygdala activity—and found that conservatives exhibited stronger blink
Kanai, Feilden, Firth, and Rees (2011) explored the relationship between ideology and
structural neuroanatomy. Specifically, they assessed regional brain volume in British university
students and observed significant correlations between ideology and grey matter volume in two
major neurological structures: the ACC and the right amygdala. Consistent with the activation
findings of Amodio et al. (2007), larger ACC volume was associated with greater liberalism.
Furthermore, larger right amygdala volume was associated with greater conservatism, a finding
that is compatible with the observations of Oxley et al. (2008). Insofar as the ACC is associated
with conflict monitoring and the amygdala is involved in responses to threat, this
neuroanatomical evidence is broadly consistent with behavioral evidence that liberals and
5
Weissflog, Choma, Dywan, van Noordt, and Segalowitz (2013) conceptually replicated the results of the
Amodio et al. (2007) study, demonstrating that liberalism, rejection of inequality, and lower scores on
right-wing authoritarianism were associated with greater ACC activity on No-Go trials.
20
Campbell-Meiklejohn, and Van Bavel (2017) investigated the relationship between system
justification and regional brain volume. In two U.S. samples, we observed that the brains of
individuals who scored higher on Kay and Jost’s (2003) general system justification scale had
more grey matter volume in the bilateral amygdalae. Insofar as system justification is a key
conservatism, these results provide further evidence that ideology is reflected in specific
There is, however, an important caveat that applies to this research as well as earlier
studies by Amodio et al. (2007) and Kanai et al. (2011), namely that the direction of causality is
differences, but it is also possible that embracing a specific ideology contributes to differences in
brain structure and function. We have referred to this as the “chicken-and-egg” problem in
political neuroscience (e.g., Jost et al., 2014). Just as learning how to juggle or meditate or drive a
taxi alters the structures of specific brain regions (as well as connections among brain regions), it
is conceivable that embracing an ideological perspective (and immersing oneself in either Fox
News or MSNBC) could affect the operation and organization of one’s brain. 6
I have now reviewed in some detail the major findings from five largely independent
processing styles and linguistic behavior, motivational interests and concerns, the prioritization
of personal values, and neurological structures and physiological functions. According to Noël
and Thérien (2008), the left-right “divide helps citizens integrate into coherent patterns their
6
Because political attitudes and cortical structures are not fully developed in humans until early
adulthood, the field of political neuroscience is in need of longitudinal studies designed to isolate causal
mechanisms by which changes in brain development affect political behavior (and vice versa).
21
attitudes and ideas about politics” (p. 55). I would go further: ideology helps citizens integrate a
wide range of direct and indirect reactions to the social world (some of which are manifestly
political and others of which are not) into patterns that mesh with their own personalities—
lifestyles. In this sense, ideology reflects and contributes to relatively stable, inherent
preferences that may be dormant or highly active (Simonson, 2008). This is not to say that the
organizational effects of ideology are socially desirable or even logically consistent; ideology
can lead people astray, and in many cases it courts confusion and misunderstanding (Jost, 2006).
With regard to “Big Five” personality characteristics, liberals are higher in openness to
orderliness, and politeness. These findings are remarkably consonant with theoretical hunches
dating all the way back to the 1930s, as we saw in Table 1 (Carney et al., 2008). With regard to
cognitive processing styles, we find that liberals are more tolerant of ambiguity and uncertainty
and score higher on need for cognition and integrative complexity. Conservatives, on the other
hand, exhibit more cognitive and perceptual rigidity as well as dogmatism and score higher on
personal needs for order, structure, and closure (Jost, 2017). From the perspective of dual
process theories of information processing, liberals exhibit a more reflective, deliberative, and
analytical thinking style, whereas conservatives exhibit an intuitive thinking style that is
presumably more reliant upon cognitive heuristics and shortcuts (Jost & Krochik, 2014),
to reduce uncertainty, threat, and social discord are positively associated with the endorsement
of conservative, system-justifying attitudes and are negatively associated with the endorsement
to defend and justify the societal status quo in the name of upholding tradition and hierarchy,
whereas liberals are motivated to criticize or challenge the status quo in the name of greater
equality (Jost, Langer, Badaan, et al., in press). These motivational differences are reflected in
22
In what may come as a surprise to some readers, ideological differences are also
instantiated at the level of neurological structures and functions. Most pertinent to our
discussion here, liberals and low system-justifiers exhibit more activation and larger brain
volume in the ACC, whereas conservatives and high system-justifiers exhibit larger brain
volume (and perhaps more activation) in the amygdala (Jost, Nam, et al., 2014). My review of
the literature echoes Hibbing et al.’s (2014) conclusion that “there is simply too much evidence
from too many sources to credibly argue that political attitudes and behaviors have no
contend that processes operating at different levels of analysis are not only linked but, in all
likelihood, mutually reinforcing (Jost et al., 2009). For instance, a person with an especially
active amygdala is likely to be threat-sensitive and eager to establish existential security; s/he is
likely to resist change, defend hierarchy, and justify the familiar status quo in the name of
conformity, security, and tradition. For this person, following rules and norms—being
conservative beliefs, opinions, and values. Or, to take another example, a person whose ACC is
especially active may be more likely to detect potentially conflicting pieces of information and
more motivated to process them in a relatively complex, integrative manner. He or she may be
relatively open to novelty, diversity, and change and driven to fight for social, economic, and
political equality, even if it means challenging the status quo. This individual may see things the
way the Greek poet C.P. Cavafy (1903) did: “He who hopes to grow in spirit will have to
transcend obedience and respect. He will hold to some laws but he will mostly violate both law
The implications of recent research in political psychology for the study of consumer
23
cognitive processing style, motivational concerns, personal values, and neurological structures
and functions, then it makes little sense to treat them homogeneously when devising and
implementing marketing strategies and tactics. There are, in other words, tremendous
opportunities for ideological market segmentation (Larsen, Wright, & Busbin, 1991) and the
customers and business partners (see Global Strategy Group, 2014). The relevance of political
messaging on behalf of electoral candidates and parties or steering social mobilization efforts on
asymmetries should also inform any sophisticated understanding of lifestyle choices as well as
judgments and decisions about consumer products and services (e.g., Crockett & Wallendorf,
2004; Fernandes & Ordabayeva, 2014; Holt, 2004; Jung et al., in press; Khan et al., 2013).
It is easier and more practical than ever before to incorporate ideological variables in
which include declarations of partisan affiliation—are made publicly available (Brown, 2015),
and so is every campaign contribution in the U.S. of $200 or more (Bonica, 2015). It is also
electoral districts, and researchers have developed statistically valid methods of estimating the
ideological positions of millions of social media users based on the politicians and news sources
they follow (e.g., Barberá, Jost, Nagler, Tucker, & Bonneau, 2015).
Wittingly or otherwise, many advertising campaigns make use of insights derived from
the elaboration likelihood model in social psychology, which distinguishes between the central
similarity (e.g., Rucker, Petty, & Briñol, 2014; Schumann, Kotowski, Ahn, & Haugtvedt, 2012).
The fact that liberals exhibit stronger cognitive (and even neurological) responses to potentially
ways of thinking—suggests that they may process complex information more deeply than
conservatives do. On the other hand, conservatives exhibit a more persistent cognitive style and
are more attentive to potentially threatening stimuli in the informational environment. All of
this suggests that liberals and conservatives may, under some circumstances at least, be
Along these lines, Jost and Krochik (2014) ascertained in two experiments that liberals
were more influenced than conservatives by argument quality, whereas conservatives were
more influenced than liberals by peripheral cues, such as source similarity. Fernandes and
Mandel (2014), too, proposed that conservatives may be more swayed by appeals to “social
proof” (i.e., descriptive social norms; Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius, 2008). All of this is
consistent with the notion that conservatives are driven more strongly by relational needs for
affiliation, conformity, and the attainment of shared reality with like-minded others (Stern,
West, Jost, & Rule, 2014). More research is needed before drawing conclusions about marketing
effectiveness, but the very existence of individual differences in receptiveness to different types
of persuasive cues suggests that it would be foolish not to tailor one’s communication style to fit
this already, but their machinations may be based more on political stereotypes than on
scientific evidence.
liberals are more strongly motivated to promote change (Jost et al., 2008), one would expect
change. In this vein, framing experiments by Duhachek, Han, and Tormala (2014) revealed that
stability, such as: “We’ve been here for 100 years. We’re the symbol of consistency! Keep your
life great!” By contrast, liberals were more influenced by advertisements emphasizing change,
such as: “We’ve been changing for 100 years. We’re the symbol of moving forward! Change
your outlook!”
Given that liberals and conservatives differ in myriad ways when it comes to personal
values and motivational concerns, there should be many other similarly promising ways to
tailor messaging campaigns on the basis of elective affinities in political psychology. Several
instance, by fairly subtle changes in wording or framing. More specifically, conservatives are
less resistant and more open to pro-environmental initiatives when these initiatives are
described as: “carbon offsets” rather than “taxes” (Hardisty, Johnson, & Weber, 2010);
“patriotic” and consistent with the goal of protecting and preserving the “American way of life”
(Feygina, Jost, & Goldsmith, 2010); fulfilling “duties” and “obligations” (Kidwell, Farmer, &
Hardesty, 2013); maintaining ecological “purity” (Feinberg & Willer, 2013); and allowing the
U.S. to “profit from leading the world in green technology” (Campbell & Kay, 2014). My review
It stands to reason that personality differences between liberals and conservatives will
contribute to rather different types of consumer interests, financial investments, and leisure
activities (e.g., Barra, 2014; Farmer, Kidwell, & Hardesty, 2014; Khan et al., 2013). For example,
the research summarized in Table 2 suggests that liberals are more interested in art, music,
cinema, books, and travel, whereas conservatives are more interested in sports, alcohol, national
symbols, and organizational and cleaning supplies (Carney et al., 2008). With regard to
decisions about travel in particular, there is evidence that political ideology shapes one’s choice
26
of vacation destination, especially when it comes to planning distant or expensive trips (Legg,
There are a number of other ways in which personality differences between liberals and
conservatives are likely to affect consumer choices. Openness, for instance, is positively related
to variety-seeking and willingness to try new products, especially products with innovative
designs (e.g., Fernandes & Mandel, 2014; Goode et al., 2010, 2013). Thus, research by Khan et al.
(2013) suggested that whereas conservatives tended to purchase established national brands
and to eschew generic brands, liberals were more likely to experiment with new brands of
groceries, coffee, cleaning supplies, toiletries, diapers, and other consumer products. Work by
Volland (2013) suggests that individuals (especially men) who are high in openness are more
likely to spend money on leisure activities and restaurants, whereas individuals (especially
women) who are high in conscientiousness are less likely to spend money on these activities.
The implications of these studies for product penetration and the geographical roll-out of new
products and services are fairly obvious. When it comes to advertising pitches, liberals should
be more influenced by novel experiential analogies (e.g., “driving a Bugatti sports car is like
conventional metaphors (e.g., “the Bugatti sports car is as fast as a speeding bullet”; Goode et
People who are higher in system justification tend to hold relatively favorable attitudes
toward corporations and brands (such as Disney and Coca-Cola) that are associated with U.S.
hegemony and dominant cultural values such as power and materialism (Shepherd et al., 2015).
system dependence or exposure to system criticism, even Americans who were chronically low
products (e.g., Nike over Adidas, Budweiser over Corona, and Chevrolet over Toyota; Cutright
et al., 2011). Those who were chronically high in system justification—like conservatives—
messages, such as “U.S. Pride” or “Love It or Get Out” (Cutright et al., 2011). According to
Nations require a moral consensus to function. Citizens must identify with the nation,
accept its institutions, and work toward its betterment. Nations are organized around a
set of values that define what is good and just. These moral imperatives propel people
to pursue national goals as they strive to meet society’s definition of success and
respect. This is ideology, a system of ideas that forges links between everyday life—the
aspirations of individuals, families, and communities—and those of the nation. To be
effective, a nation’s ideology can’t be coerced or learned as though from a textbook.
Rather, it must be deeply felt, taken for granted as the natural truth. National ideology
is usually the most powerful root of consumer demand for myth. . . (p. 57)
the quintessentially ideological goal of maintaining (or restoring) the legitimacy of the
overarching social system (e.g., Banfield et al., 2010; Cutright et al., 2011; Shepherd et al., 2015;
(Jacquet, Dietrich, & Jost, 2014), and “green” marketing campaigns may even be off-putting to
conservatives (Gromet, Kunreuther, & Larrick, 2013; Hardisty et al., 2010). Presumably, this is
stability of the capitalist economic system, which is, after all, heavily dependent upon the fossil
fuel industry (Feygina et al., 2010; Hennes, Ruisch, Feygina, & Jost, 2016). Evidence is accruing
rapidly that conservatives are more likely to engage in conspicuous consumption of luxury
items, whereas liberals are more likely to engage in sustainable consumption through the
purchase of products that are environmentally friendly (e.g., Fernandes & Ordabayeva, 2014;
Gromet et al., 2013; Heilen, 2014; Kim, Park, & Dubois, 2015; Maxwell-Smith, Conway, Wright,
Studies of corporate leadership suggest that the ideological proclivities of executives and
corporate board members shape organizational priorities in ways that are highly consistent
with theory and research in political psychology. For example, studies of CEO’s and other
corporate actors revealed that—in good economic times as well as bad—corporations led by
28
liberals were more likely than those led by conservatives to promote environmental
sustainability—as well as human rights, income equality, gender parity, diversity initiatives,
product quality, and positive employee and community relations (Briscoe & Joshi, in press;
Chin, Hambrick, & Treviño, 2013; Chin & Semadeni, 2017; Gupta, Briscoe, & Hambrick, 2017).
Because conservative managers are more system-justifying than liberal managers, they may
experience weaker emotional reactions to ethical transgressions and seem to be less interested in
corporate social responsibility overall (Hafenbrädl & Waeger, 2016; see also Tan, Huang, &
Zhen, 2017). Likewise, research in financial economics shows that mutual fund managers who
make campaign donations to Democratic (vs. Republican) political candidates are less likely to
invest in companies that are socially irresponsible, such as purveyors of guns, tobacco, or
military weapons, as well as companies with poor employee relations and a lack of attention to
Marketing research in Singapore and Australia indicated that liberals were more likely
than conservatives to lodge formal complaints when they were dissatisfied with consumer
goods and services (Keng, Richmond, & Han, 1995; Phau & Baird, 2008). Findings such as these
are consistent with the notion that liberals are lower than conservatives in terms of system
justification motivation and are more likely to criticize prevailing economic institutions and
business practices (e.g., Jost, Blount, Pfeffer, & Hunyady, 2003; Jost, Langer, Badaan, et al., in
press). Following up on this earlier work, Jung et al. (in press) analyzed several hundred-
thousand complaints to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal
Communications Commission, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. They,
too, observed a clear ideological asymmetry with respect to customer dissatisfaction and
consumer complaining behavior. After adjusting for demographic factors, rates of complaining
districts. These residents were also more likely to dispute the resolution proposed by the
financial institution in response to their initial complaint. Finally, Jung and colleagues directly
29
investigated the effects of political ideology and system justification on hypothetical reactions to
an unanticipated banking fee. They found that conservatives, compared to liberals, perceived
the fee as fairer and were less likely to dispute the charge, and these effects were statistically
Building on the same theoretical logic, my colleagues and I investigated the hypothesis
that liberals, because they are more critical of common business practices, would be more likely
than conservatives to buy and boycott products for political reasons (Jost, Langer, & Singh, in
press). We analyzed data from the American National Election Studies and European Social
Surveys and discovered that liberals and leftists were indeed more likely than conservatives
and rightists to report having bought a product—or refrained from buying a product—for
political reasons, even after adjusting for demographic factors. Importantly, the pattern is the
same in the United States and Europe, as shown in Table 5. We discovered that leftists were
significantly more likely than rightists to have boycotted a product for political reasons in all 15
Concluding Remarks
Although some political scientists continue to insist that, when it comes to ordinary
citizens, ideology is, quite simply, “not for them” (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017, p. 3), recent research
conservative differ in a multiplicity of meaningful, informative ways (e.g., Jost, 2017). These
days, even corporations have political identities: consumers believe that Whole Foods, MTV,
and Amazon.com are “Democratic” companies, whereas Chick-Fil-A, Wells Fargo, and Hilton
are “Republican” companies (Global Strategy Group, 2014). People may not be unflaggingly
consistent or loyal to the left or right—and many combine disparate ideological elements when
inherently ideological nature. Some of these preferences may be understood as political (or
manifest) and others as “pre-political” (or latent), as Robert Lane (1962) pointed out long ago
(see also Simonson, 2008). Few speakers of ordinary language are capable of providing as
30
sophisticated and articulate a description of the rules of syntax and grammar as a linguist could,
and few citizens are as articulate about the nuances of ideological distinctions as a political
scientist would be. But it would be absurd to conclude from these observations that—because
people follow the rules reflexively and imperfectly rather than self-consciously and flawlessly—
Throughout this article, I have been suggesting that the study of consumer psychology
will be theoretically and practically enriched by attending to ideological differences, that is, the
differences not only in terms of beliefs and opinions but also in terms of underlying
psychological and neurological factors. I am delighted to see that marketing researchers have
already anticipated the opportunities open to them in this area of investigation. When I entered
the term political ideology into a sitewide search engine for the Association for Consumer
website returned over 800 hits—all of which appear to be conference presentations given since
2010. This astonishing degree of intellectual output suggests that a symbiotic relationship is well
underway: the field of political psychology seems to be inspiring and influencing the activity of
consumer researchers, and it is only a matter of time until work in consumer psychology begins
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Table 1: Personality Traits and “Big Five” Classifications Theorized to be Associated with Liberal (or
Liberal/Leftist Conservative/Rightist
Note: This table is adapted from Carney, Jost, Gosling, and Potter (2008, p. 816; see also Edsall,
β b (SE)
Note: This table is adapted from Carney, Jost, Gosling, and Potter (2008, pp. 833-834). Not all
items/ratings are shown in this table; see original article for a complete reporting of results. N’s
range from 73 to 76 for all cues included here.
+ p < .10 * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001 (two-tailed)
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Table 3: Results of a Meta-Analysis Investigating Cognitive Processing Style Variables Associated with Liberal (or Leftist) and Conservative (or Rightist) Political
Orientation
Uncertainty tolerance Aesthetic preferences for complex art and Liberals are more tolerant of
poetry and disagreement with items like: “I 16 3 uncertainty (effect sizes ranging from
can’t stand being taken by surprise.” -.07 ≤ r ≤ -.33).
Intolerance of ambiguity Agreement with items like: “A good job is Conservatives are more intolerant of
one where what is to be done and how it is to 44 7 ambiguity (effect sizes ranging from
be done are always clear.” .20 ≤ r ≤ .26).
Need for cognitive closure Agreement with items like, “I usually make Conservatives are higher in need for
important decisions quickly and confidently.” 100 7 closure (effect sizes ranging from .19
≤ r ≤ .23).
Personal needs for order and Agreement with items like: “It upsets me to Conservatives are higher in needs for
structure go into a situation without knowing what I 77 6 order/structure (effect sizes ranging
can expect from it.” from .18 ≤ r ≤ .20).
Integrative complexity Objective content coding of speeches, Liberals are higher in integrative
decisions, and other forms of text. 40 4 complexity (effect sizes ranging from
-.15 ≤ r ≤ -.19).
Perceptual/cognitive rigidity Objective behaviors such as the tendency to Conservatives are higher in rigidity
exclude non-prototypical examples from 23 3 (effect sizes ranging from .32 ≤ r ≤
category classification .38).
Dogmatism Agreement with items like: “There are two Conservatives are higher in
kinds of people in this world: those who are 77 7 dogmatism (effect sizes ranging from
for the truth and those who are against the .48 ≤ r ≤ .51).
truth.”
Need for cognition Agreement with items like: “I find satisfaction Liberals are higher in need for
in deliberating hard and for long hours.” 40 2 cognition (effect sizes ranging from
-.09 ≤ r ≤ -.16).
Note: This table is based on results presented by Jost, Sterling, and Stern (in press, see figures and online tables).
44
45
Table 4: Personal Values Theorized to be Associated with Liberal (or Leftist) and Conservative (or
Rightist) Political Orientations
Liberal/Leftist Conservative/Rightist
Note: This table is adapted from Jost, Basevich, Dickson, and Noorbaloochi (2016, p. 37).
46
Table 5: Per Cent of Survey Respondents in the U.S. and Europe Who Bought or Boycotted a Consumer
Product for Political Reasons Over the Past 12 Months
United States
Liberals 32.7 45.5
Conservatives 19.8 29.2
Europe
Leftists N/A 28.7
Rightists N/A 20.2
Note: This table is based on results summarized by Jost, Langer, and Singh (in press). Data for
U.S. respondents come from the American National Election Studies (2016). Data for European
respondents come from European Social Surveys (pooled data from 2002–2014).
Figure 1: Distribution of Average Effect Sizes for Studies Investigating the Hypothesis that
Objective Performance on Cognitive Reflection Would Be Stronger Among Liberals than
Conservatives
Source: This figure, which was prepared by Joanna Sterling, is revised and updated following
Jost (2017, Figure 9, p. 180). We thank Dan Kahan for providing us with data from four
additional (unpublished) studies that are included for the first time here. In this figure, we have
excluded results based on subjective (as opposed to objective) measures of cognitive reflection
and analytical thinking. Overall, the unweighted (r = – .13) and weighted (r = – .10, 95% CI [-.12,
– .09]) average effect sizes were negative and statistically significant (total unique N = 17,598).
48
Figure 2: Distribution of Average Effect Sizes for Studies Investigating the Hypothesis that
Need for Cognition Would Be Stronger Among Liberals than Conservatives
Source: This figure, which was prepared by Joanna Sterling, is adapted from Jost (2017, Figure 8,
p. 179).
49
Note: This figure, which was prepared by Chadly Stern, is adapted from Stern, West, Jost, and
Rule (2013, Study 3). Numerical entries are standardized coefficients based on a statistical
model in which attitudes toward gay men and social contact with gay men were also included
as covariates. Values in parentheses represent direct relationships, and values without
parentheses represent relationships when all variables were included in the model.
Study 1 Study 2
Note: This figure is adapted from Krosch, Bernsten, Amodio, Jost, and Van Bavel (2013). “PSE”
refers to the “Point of Subjective Equality,” defined as the point at which faces are equally likely
to be categorized as Black or White. “Liberals” = two standard deviations below and
“Conservatives” = two standard deviations above the grand mean for political ideology.