Yphtach Lelkes

Do needs for security and certainty predict cultural and economic conservatism? A cross-national analysis

We examine whether individual differences in needs for security and certainty predict conservative (vs. liberal) position on both cultural and economic political issues and whether these effects are conditional on nation-level characteristics and individual-level political engagement. Analyses with cross-national data from 51 nations reveal that valuing conformity, security, and tradition over self-direction and stimulation (a) predicts ideological self-placement on the political right, but only among people high in political engagement and within relatively developed nations, ideologically constrained nations, and non-Eastern European nations, (b) reliably predicts right-wing cultural attitudes and does so more strongly within developed and ideologically constrained nations, and (c) on average predicts left-wing economic attitudes but does so more weakly among people high in political engagement, within ideologically constrained nations, and within non-Eastern European nations. These findings challenge the prevailing view that needs for security and certainty organically yield a broad right-wing ideology and that exposure to political discourse better equips people to select the broad ideology that is most need satisfying. Rather, these findings suggest that needs for security and certainty generally yield culturally conservative but economically left-wing preferences and that exposure to political discourse generally weakens the latter relation. We consider implications for the interactive influence of personality characteristics and social context on political attitudes and discuss the importance of assessing multiple attitude domains, assessing political engagement, and considering national characteristics when studying the psychological origins of political attitudes.

The Ideological Asymmetry of the American Party System

Most Americans support liberal policies on the social welfare agenda, the dominant policy cleavage in American politics. Yet a striking feature of the US party system is its tendency to equilibrium. How, then, does the Republican Party minimize defection on the social welfare agenda? The results of this study illustrate a deep ideological asymmetry between the parties. Republican identifiers are ideologically aware and oriented to a degree that far exceeds their Democratic counterparts. Our investigation, which utilizes cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental data, demonstrates the role of ideological awareness and involvement in the Republicans’ ability to maintain the backing of their supporters even on issues on which the position of the Democratic Party is widely popular. It also exposes two mechanisms, party branding and the use of the status quo as a focal point, that Democrats use to retain or rally support for issues on the social welfare agenda on which the Republican Party’s position is widely popular.

The Limits of Partisan Prejudice

Partisanship increasingly factors into the behavior of Americans in both political and nonpolitical situations, yet the bounds of partisan prejudice are largely unknown. In this paper, we systematically evaluate the limits of partisan prejudice using a series of five studies situated within a typology of prejudice. We find that partisan prejudice predicts suppression of hostile rhetoric toward one’s own party, avoidance of members of the opposition, and a desire for preferential treatment for one’s own party. While these behaviors may cause incidental or indirect harm to the opposition, we find that even the most affectively polarized—those with the strongest disdain for the opposition—are no more likely to intentionally harm the opposition than those with minimal levels of affective polarization.

Winners, Losers, and the Press: The Relationship Between Political Parallelism and the Legitimacy Gap

Recent work has explored how individual and institutional factors affect the gap in perceptions of political legitimacy between electoral winners and electoral losers, but has ignored the role that the political information environment, in general, and ideologically biased media, in particular, plays in exacerbating or diminishing this gap. By combining individual-level public opinion data in 28 countries, an expert survey on media systems, and a variety of country-level indicators, I find that higher levels of political parallelism in a country are associated with a larger winner-loser gap in institutional trust and satisfaction with democracy. The relationship is contingent on whether or not people are actually exposed to said media. This research, which links the study of political communication with the study of comparative political behavior, indicates that the increasing availability of partisan news around the world is a cause for concern.

Are Cultural and Economic Conservatism Positively Correlated? A Large-Scale Cross-National Test

The right–left dimension is ubiquitous in politics, but prior perspectives provide conflicting accounts of whether cultural and economic attitudes are typically aligned on this dimension within mass publics around the world. Using survey data from ninety-nine nations, this study finds not only that right–left attitude organization is uncommon, but that it is more common for culturally and economically right-wing attitudes to correlate negatively with each other, an attitude structure reflecting a contrast between desires for cultural and economic protection vs. freedom . This article examines where, among whom and why protection–freedom attitude organization outweighs right–left attitude organization, and discusses the implications for the psychological bases of ideology, quality of democratic representation and the rise of extreme right politics in the West.

Selective Exposure to Balanced Content and Evidence Type The Case of Issue and Non-Issue Publics About Climate Change and Health Care

We examine three under-studied factors in selective exposure research. Linking issue publics and motivated reasoning literatures, we argue that selectivity patterns depend on (a) whether an individual is an issue public member; (b) the availability of balanced, pro-, and counter-attitudinal content; and (c) the evidence for a message claim (numerical vs. narrative). Using an online experiment (N = 560), we track information selection about climate change and health care. Most notably, on both issues, issue publics selected more balanced content with numerical evidence, compared with non-issue publics. We discuss the implications of our findings for the selective exposure literature.

Binding Moral Foundations and the Narrowing of Ideological Conflict to the Traditional Morality Domain

Moral foundations theory (MFT) posits that binding moral foundations (purity, authority, and ingroup loyalty) are rooted in the need for groups to promote order and cohesion, and that they therefore underlie political conservatism. We present evidence that binding foundations (and the related construct of disgust sensitivity) are associated with lower levels of ideological polarization on political issues outside the domain of moral traditionalism. Consistent support for this hypothesis was obtained from three large American Internet-based samples and one large national sample of New Zealanders (combined N = 7,874). We suggest that when political issues do not have inherent relevance to moral traditionalism, binding foundations promote a small centrist shift away from ideologically prescribed positions, and that they do so out of desire for national uniformity and cohesion.

Selling Ourselves Short? How Abbreviated Measures of Personality Change the Way We Think about Personality and Politics

Political scientists who study the interplay between personality and politics overwhelmingly rely on short personality scales. We explore whether the length of the employed personality scales affects the criterion validity of the scales. We show that need for cognition (NfC) increases reliance on party cues, but only when a longer measure is employed. Additionally, while NfC increases reliance on policy information, the effect is more than twice as large when a longer measure is used. Finally, Big Five personality traits that have been dismissed as irrelevant to political ideology yield stronger and more consistent associations when larger batteries are employed. We also show that using high Cronbach’s alpha and factor loadings as indicators of scale quality does not improve the criterion validity of brief measures. Hence, the measurement of personality conditions the conclusions we draw about the role of personality in politics.

Much ado about acquiescence: The relative validity and reliability of construct-specific and agree–disagree questions

Acquiescence response bias, or the tendency to agree with questions regardless of content, is a prominent concern in survey design. An often proposed solution, and one that was recently implemented in the American National Election Study, is to rewrite response options so that they tap directly into the dimensions of the construct of interest. However, there is little evidence that this solution improves data quality. We present a study in which we employ two waves of the 2012 American National Election Study in order to compare the reliability and concurrent validity of political efficacy questions in both the agree–disagree and construct-specific formats. Construct-specific questions were not only as reliable and valid as agree–disagree questions generally, they were also as valid among respondents that were most likely to acquiesce. This suggests two possible outcomes: Either agree–disagree questions do not negatively impact data quality or that construct-specific questions are not a panacea for acquiescence response bias.

Democratic Like Us? Political Orientation and the Effect of Making Democracy Salient on Anti-Israel Attitude

Israel is viewed unfavorably among wide segments of the public within several European democracies, despite being regarded itself as a Western democracy. Does drawing attention to Israels democratic attributes improve views toward Israel? In two surveys with Dutch national samples, anti-Semitic affect, low anti-Arab/Muslim affect, and left-wing political orientation independently predicted anti-Israel sentiment. However, in experiments embedded within the surveys, making salient Israels democratic attributes had opposite effects on Israel attitude across those on the right and the left – slightly decreasing anti-Israel sentiment among those with a right-wing orientation but slightly increasing anti-Israel sentiment among those with a left-wing orientation. We discuss potential explanations grounded in social psychological theory as well as implications for the strategic communication efforts of groups seeking to influence attitudes toward Israel.