Arie W. Kruglanski

Political conservatism as motivated social cognition.

Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure, regulatory focus, terror management), and ideological rationalization (social dominance, system justification). A meta-analysis (88 samples, 12 countries, 22,818 cases) confirms that several psychological variables predict political conservatism: death anxiety (weighted mean r = .50); system instability (.47); dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity (.34); openness to experience (-.32); uncertainty tolerance (-.27); needs for order, structure, and closure (.26); integrative complexity (-.20); fear of threat and loss (.18); and self-esteem (-.09). The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality and is motivated by needs that vary situationally and dispositionally to manage uncertainty and threat.

Motivated closing of the mind: "Seizing" and "freezing."

A theoretical framework is outlined in which the key construct is the need for (nonspecific) cognitive closure. The need for closure is a desire for definite knowledge on some issue. It represents a dimension of stable individual differences as well as a situationally evocable state. The need for closure has widely ramifying consequences for social-cognitive phenomena at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and group levels of analysis. Those consequences derive from 2 general tendencies, those of urgency and performance. The urgency tendency represents an individuals inclination to attain closure as soon as possible, and the permanence tendency represents an individuals inclination to maintain it for as long as possible. Empirical evidence for present theory attests to diverse need for closure effects on fundamental social psychological phenomena, including impression formation, stereotyping, attribution, persuasion, group decision making, and language use in intergroup contexts.

The freezing and unfreezing of lay-inferences: Effects on impressional primacy, ethnic stereotyping, and numerical anchoring ☆

Abstract Three experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that primacy effects, ethnic stereotyping, and numerical anchoring all represent “epistemic freezing” in which the lay-knower becomes less aware of plausible alternative hypotheses and/or inconsistent bits of evidence competing with a given judgment. It was hypothesized that epistemic freezing would increase with an increase in time pressure on the lay-knower to make a judgment and decrease with the layknowers fear that his/her judgment will be evaluated and possibly be in error. Accordingly, it was predicted that primacy effects, ethnic stereotyping, and anchoring phenomena would increase in magnitude with an increase in time pressure and decrease in magnitude with an increase in evaluation apprehension. Finally, the time-pressure variations were expected to have greater impact upon “freezing” when the evaluation apprehension is high as opposed to low. All hypotheses were supported in each of the presently executed studies.

A theory of goal systems

「動機づけ 対 認知」(motivation versus cognition)アプローチ: 社会心理学者は動機づけ(motivation)を認知(cognition)とは「別々の」(separate)ものと考え、また、 いくぶん「静的」(static)なアプローチがされてきた。例えば、Bem(1972)の dissonance vs. self-perception、Kelley(1972) vs. Miller & Ross(1975)。 この分離主義では、動機づけ的変数と認知的変数に別々の機能を割り振った。例えば、説得の二重 モード理論(Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Chaiken & Chen, 1999)では処理の動機づけの程度が説得モ ードのセレクタになっている。対案である”unimodel”(Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999aなど)にお いてもこれは同様である。

Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology

The Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology is an essential resource for researchers and students of social psychology and related disciplines.

Classic and Current Social Comparison Research: Expanding the Perspective

This article assumes that social comparisons (a) constitute comparative judgments governed by the general process that applies to all judgments, (b) possess a common comparative structure including simple judgments of comparison stimuli and their juxtaposition, and (c) possess unique contents that determine the subjective meanings of comparison outcomes and their psychological implications. Examined in these terms, classical social comparison theory is found wanting in two respects: (a) It conveys a relatively fixed notion of social comparison in which people are generally driven to compare and do so mostly with respect to similar others and predominantly for the sake of evaluative accuracy. (b) Its narrow scope excludes numerous significant issues of interest to social comparison research today. It is proposed that the present, multilevel approach is useful for ordering past social comparison research and provides a heuristically rich paradigm for future work.

Priming against your will: How accessible alternatives affect goal pursuit.

Four studies examined how diverse aspects of goal pursuit are influenced by the accessibility of alternative goals. It was consistently found that such an accessibility often affects the resources allocated to a focal goal, influencing commitment, progress, and the development of effective means, as well as ones emotional reponses to positive and negative feedback about ones striving efforts. Moreover, the direction of these influences was found to depend on how the alternative goals relate to the focal pursuit. Alternatives unrelated to the focal goal pull resources away from it, whereas alternatives facilitatively related to a focal goal draw resources toward it.

Exceptions That Prove the Rule - Using a Theory of Motivated Social Cognition to Account for Ideological Incongruities and Political Anomalies: Reply to Greenberg and Jonas (2003)

A meta-analysis by J. T. Jost, J. Glaser, A. W. Kruglanski, and F. J. Sulloway (2003) concluded that political conservatism is partially motivated by the management of uncertainty and threat. In this reply to J. Greenberg and E. Jonas (2003), conceptual issues are clarified, numerous political anomalies are explained, and alleged counterexamples are incorporated with a dynamic model that takes into account differences between “young” and “old” movements. Studies directly pitting the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis against the ideological extremity hypothesis demonstrate strong support for the former. Medium to large effect sizes describe relations between political conservatism and dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity; lack of openness to experience; uncertainty avoidance; personal needs for order, structure, and closure; fear of death; and system threat.

Regulatory Mode: Locomotion and Assessment as Distinct Orientations

Publisher Summary This chapter introduces regulatory mode theory and reviews evidence for distinguishing between an assessment mode concerned with making comparisons and a locomotion mode concerned with movement from state to state. It considers locomotion and assessment individually and assumes that the nature and the consequences of locomotion versus assessment are to some extent independent of each other. Evidence is presented to show that high achievement performance depends on individuals emphasizing both locomotion and assessment in their goal pursuits. Higher locomotion and higher assessment are shown to have distinct effects on judgment and decision making—including different preferences regarding decision strategies and leadership styles, different emphases in the decision process, and different self-evaluative judgment styles. The chapter highlights the fact that there are trade-offs to each regulatory mode. It describes studies on chronic individual differences and momentary situational differences in regulatory mode, as well as organizational differences that vary in their fit with regulatory mode.

Effects of Epistemic Motivations on the Use of Accessible Constructs in Social Judgment

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that the use of primed constructs to interpret target information will be increased under high need for closure and decreased under high need to avoid closure. Supporting this hypothesis, Experiment I found that subjects high in need for closure (induced by increasing cognitive load) were more likely to characterize an ambiguous target in terms of primed traits. Subjects high in need to avoid closure (induced by stressing the importance of impression accuracy) were less likely to characterize the target in terms of primed traits. Experiment 2 found that subjects high in dispositional need for closure were more likely to characterize the target in terms of primed traits than subjects low in dispositional need for closure. By grouping subjects based on individual differences in need for closure, Experiment 2 provides convergent validity for the hypothesis and rules out alternative interpretations for the results of Experiment 1.