A Dual-Process Model of Ideology, Politics, and Prejudice: Commentary and Response to Questions

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A Dual-Process Model of Ideology, Politics, and Prejudice: Commentary and Response to Questions Chris G. Sibley a; John Duckitt a a Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Online Publication Date: 01 April 2009

To cite this Article Sibley, Chris G. and Duckitt, John(2009)'A Dual-Process Model of Ideology, Politics, and Prejudice: Commentary

and Response to Questions',Psychological Inquiry,20:2,168 — 171 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/10478400903028656 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10478400903028656

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Psychological Inquiry, 20: 168–171, 2009 C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Copyright
ISSN: 1047-840X print / 1532-7965 online DOI: 10.1080/10478400903028656

A Dual-Process Model of Ideology, Politics, and Prejudice: Commentary and Response to Questions Chris G. Sibley and John Duckitt Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

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Question 1: A Comment on the Differential Prediction of Political Attitudes

chronically salient for individuals, which are then expressed in the social attitudes of high versus low SDO (i.e., attitudes favoring personal and group dominance and inequality versus attitudes favoring equality and altruistic universalism). In many societies, particularly western democracies dominated by two party systems, high RWA and high SDO are associated with the political right (conservative) wing and low RWA and low SDO with the political left (liberal) wing. A dual-process approach, however, suggests that because RWA and SDO express different motivational goals or values, the motivational bases of their support for the Left versus Right will differ and that their support for different issues and policies characterizing the political Left and Right may also vary, sometimes markedly, to the extent that different issues and policies might differentially engage these values or motivational goals. This can be illustrated by the first question posed from Sugar, Viney, and Rohe (1992); essentially why conservatives once opposed certain issues supported by liberals (child labor laws, social security, women’s suffrage) but no longer do so? In the past both high RWA and SDO would be associated with opposition to these issues, but for somewhat different reasons. RWAbased opposition would have been based on the maintenance of tradition and stability and resistance to change and social disruption, whereas SDO-based opposition would have been based on defending existing dominance relations and inequalities in society. Over the past century, however, societies, and particularly advanced industrial democratic societies have changed. The prohibition of child labor, provision of social security, and women’s suffrage are today established and entrenched realities in advanced industrial democracies and so no longer issues of contestation between the political Left and Right, at least in principle. However, the broader issues of the rights of children, of the amount and extent of social security provision, and of women’s rights still remain real issues dividing the Left and Right. We expect, therefore, that for exactly the same reasons as a century ago, persons high in RWA and SDO will resist greater (than exists now) rights for children, greater provision of social security, and greater rights for women, though again for somewhat different reasons. Persons high in RWA will do so

The first question poses the issue of how a dualprocess approach to politics sees the translation of basic psychological processes into specific socio-political attitudes, and how these processes might relate to specific attitudes. The basic psychological processes this approach proposes are two distinct sets of personality trait dispositions and two corresponding social worldview beliefs (which are also influenced by personality but may mainly reflect the influence of early socialization modified by later social experiences and learning). These personality dispositions and worldview beliefs make certain motivational goals or values chronically salient for individuals, and these values are then expressed (translated) into particular socio-political attitudes, which are organized along two distinct, though often related dimensions, which seem most reliably measured by the Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) scales. The typically positive, and sometimes strong, relationship between RWA and SDO produces the political Left or liberal (low RWA and SDO) versus Right or conservative (high RWA and SDO) distinction characteristic of economically advanced, Western, democratic societies. In the first instance, the personality dispositions of low Openness to Experience and high Conscientiousness (or Social Conformity) together with the socialized belief that the social world is a dangerous and threatening place makes the motivational goal or value of collective security and cohesion (social order, stability, tradition, conformity) chronically salient for individuals, and these values are expressed in the social attitudes of high versus low RWA (i.e., socially conservative beliefs favoring established authority, conventional religion, and coercive social control over individuals versus socially liberal beliefs favoring individual freedom and self-expression, change, and diversity). In the second instance, the personality disposition of low Agreeableness (high Toughmindedness) and the socialized belief that the social world is a ruthlessly competitive jungle makes the motivational goals and value of power, dominance, and superiority over others 168

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AUTHORS’ REPLIES

because they value tradition and stability, resist change, and fear social disruption. Persons high in SDO will do so because they value inequality and want to preserve existing dominance relations (of men over women, of adults over children, and of the wealthy over the poor) in society. The point that RWA and SDO reflect different values or motivational goals and that this will be expressed in different socio-political attitudes and political positions is also nicely illustrated by findings reported by Kossowska and Van Hiel (2003, Study 2) and their interpretation of these findings. They found that Need for Closure, which would be closely associated with low Openness and therefore high RWA, was positively correlated with support for economic conservatism in Flanders but negatively correlated in Poland. Their interpretation was that Need for Closure was associated with the conservative or traditional position (free market in Flanders, communism in Poland) in both societies. This is exactly what the dual-process model (DPM) would predict. Persons high in RWA value collective security, stability, and tradition and support what is the traditional, conservative position in their society. Kossowska and Van Hiel did not assess SDO in their study, but a DPM perspective would predict a different effect for SDO. Because persons high in SDO value inequality and group dominance they should support economic conservatism (greater inequality) in both Flanders and Poland. Thus, although RWA and SDO typically predict similarly, a DPM approach would expect them to predict support for economic conservatism in exactly opposite directions in Poland. There is indeed evidence supporting this. A study by Duriez, Van Hiel, and Kossowska (2005) did find that SDO correlated positively with support for economic conservatism in both Belgium and Poland, whereas the correlation between RWA and support for economic conservatism was again positive in Belgium and negative in Poland. This neatly illustrates how the different motivational bases underlying RWA and SDO can result in them having quite different relationships with political policy preferences.

Question 2: A Comment on Political Orientation and the Complexity of Political Cognition The second question poses the issue of whether a dual-process approach to politics would predict that different political orientations would be inherently associated with more or less complex thinking about political issues. The DPM views a generalized political Left–Right dichotomy as resulting from two underlying processes: The first, a threat-based process, is indexed by RWA. The second process is competition and dominance-based, as indexed by SDO. In the Western

countries in which political liberal–conservatism has most often been studied these two ideological attitude dimensions tend to be positively correlated, often strongly so. This in turn tends to generate a single Left–Right general political spectrum of social cognition that prior research suggests is generally associated with a tendency to “seize and freeze” when evaluating political and group-relevant information (Kruglanski, Pierro, Mannetti, & De Grada, 2006), lower levels of integrative complexity in political attitudes (Tetlock, 1983), and the automatic tendency to make negative personal attributions about social issues relating to others’ misfortune or disadvantage (Skitka, Mullen, Griffin, Hutchinson, & Chamberlin, 2002). All of these outcomes suggest that general or broad-bandwidth indices of political conservatism will tend to be associated with less complex thinking about political issues (a view nicely summarized in the model presented by Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). A DPM perspective suggests that conservatives may make less complex political judgments largely because of one, or possibly two, theoretically distinct underlying processes. These two processes derive from different dimensions of personality and different social worldview schemas. RWA, on one hand, results from a low level of Openness to Experience, high Conscientiousness, and schematized perceptions of the social world as dangerous and threatening. SDO, on the other, results from a low level of Agreeableness and schematized perceptions of the social world as a competitive dog-eat-dog place. These different personality geneses and resulting social attitude dimensions have important implications for understanding how different aspects of conservatism might relate to the complexity political cognition and attribution. People low in Openness should tend to value clear, unambiguous (and potentially inflexible) moral prescripts and rules describing how the world should operate. Such persons should therefore support the existing social order to the extent that it facilitates these values and provides an explicit and easily comprehensible set of norms and mores for operating within society. People low in Openness should also tend to be more sensitive to threats, both realistic and symbolic, to the existing social order and should thus be more likely to perceive outgroups that espouse values different to their own as threatening ingroup values and norms. People high in Openness to Experience, in contrast, should be more accepting of alternative points of view and, as Flynn (2005) reported, should be more open to information that is inconsistent with existing normative beliefs regarding outgroup members. It is through such mechanisms that people low in Openness to Experience should tend, over time, to exhibit the heightened motivation for group-based social cohesion, control, and collective security (as indexed by RWA). This reasoning is consistent with the epistemic 169

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SIBLEY AND DUCKITT

need to “seize and freeze” on information discussed in the context of intergroup relations by Kruglanski et al. (2006). From our perspective, the majority of prior research on political cognition and complexity of political thought seems to focus specifically on aspects of conservatism that relate to the low-Openness, RWA-based, process outlined by the DPM. This aspect of political conservatism certainly seems to predict less complex political cognition in times of threat or otherwise heightened needs for security. The DPM does not make obvious predictions about a direct relationship between SDO and the complexity of political cognition, however. As far as we are aware there is little evidence that the competitive-driven motivation for group dominance (SDO) resulting from low Agreeableness and perceptions of a competitive social world should necessarily predict less complex political cognition. Indeed, we suspect that people high in SDO may be among those most likely to strategically endorse specific social policies and legitimizing myths that suit their purposes in a given context. This implies that although people high in SDO may “seize” or act in a very decisive manner to endorse and promote a given discourse as it suits their purposes for promoting and maintaining group dominance, they should be less likely to permanently “freeze” on such perspectives in the manner predicted for people high in RWA. Altemeyer (1998), for example, reported that people high in RWA are generally less self-aware and do not know (or want to know) if they are high in prejudice. The same does not appear to be true of people high in SDO. People high in SDO, we argue, should thus be fairly strategic and reasoned in the way in which they seek to promote inequality and justify their group’s status; they may be quite comfortable with internal inconsistencies in the beliefs they endorse, so long as those beliefs legitimize their group’s social position. Recent data from our lab, for example, indicate that people high in SDO show a strong disjuncture between agreement with meritocratic or color-blind ideologies stating that all New Zealanders are and should be treated equally regardless of ethnicity but an implicit bias in the opposing (pro-White ethnic group) direction. This disjuncture in what people say they believe about equality and their implicit or automatic associations about who they view as belonging to the nation does not occur amongst people low in SDO, however. This emphasizes the complexity and possible inconsistencies in belief structures held by people high in SDO— people high in RWA, in contrast, do not show this explicit–implicit inconsistency. We therefore consider it fairly unlikely that SDO will be correlated with less complex political thought per se. Of course, this reasoning is somewhat speculative, and we look forward to future research elaborating and testing these possible differences in the complexity of political cognition of people high in SDO and RWA predicted by the DPM. 170

There has been some impressive work done in recent years examining conservatism and the complexity of political cognition. As we alluded to earlier, much of this work has however focused on very generalized or global aspects of political conservatism that likely reflect a pastiche of both SDO and RWA-like ideology. We wish to take this opportunity to outline some possible avenues for future research elaborating on a dual-process perspective of political social cognition and complexity. Skitka et al. (2002), for instance, presented an impressive series of studies showing that conservatives tend to go with their first “gut reaction” and generate personal (internal) attributions about the causes of disadvantaged or deviant people’s misfortune. Such attributions attribute fault to the individual rather than the broader social environment: If you are disadvantaged then it’s your own fault. Politically liberal people, Skitka et al. suggested, make initially similar attributions, but they also automatically correct these initial causal explanations to consider broader external factors relating to systemic disadvantage. This correction process only occurs, however, when liberals have the cognitive resources to do so (i.e., when they are not otherwise distracted or placed under a cognitive load). Skitka et al. (2002) assessed individual differences in political Left–Right orientation using a variety of different indicators in their studies; however, in all cases they operationalized political orientation as unidimensional. It is therefore likely that many of the measures used by Skitka et al. in their research may have contained elements of conservatism relating to both economic and social conservatism, or in other words, both SDO and RWA-like components. Differentiating the effects of SDO and RWA on motivated attribution correction processes is an important avenue for future research. One possibility is that individual differences in RWA will trump SDO in predicting the tendency to go with “gut feelings” versus making a motivated correction when generating causal attributions relating to intergroup relations and politics. This would seem to be consistent with the majority of research suggesting that a high level of RWA may be more strongly related to less complex political thinking than is a high level of SDO. Another possibility is that RWA and SDO might differentially predict motivated attributional correction in different domains. For example, people low in RWA might be more likely to automatically correct their initial person-centered attributions in contexts relating to moral deviance (such as attributions relating to personal fault when catching a sexually transmitted infection through unsafe sex). People low in SDO, in contrast, might be more likely to correct automatically initial person-centered attributions in contexts relating to economic disadvantage (such as attributions relating to the causes of poverty or job loss). Research examining this possible differential

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AUTHORS’ REPLIES

pattern would provide important information regarding the possible differential processes involved in political cognition and the complexity of social thought in these dual domains. We wish to end with an important caveat: We are not arguing that the complexity of political cognition, or SDO and RWA, should be related to general fluid intelligence per se. Our reading of the literature, and our own theoretical perspective, suggests that different aspects of political conservatism versus liberalism may engender different motivated social cognitive processes relating to how people think about and generate explanations for politically related events and policies (a view we think is nicely summarized by Jost et al., 2003). However, that political conservatism is related to less complex political cognition does not imply that more conservative, or more prejudiced persons for that matter, are lower (or higher) in intelligence than others. For instance, we have an unpublished sample of 438 undergraduates indicating that SDO and RWA were both uncorrelated with a comprehensive measure of working memory capacity (rs = –.02, ps > .60), as measured using the computer-based automated Operation Span task (Conway et al., 2005).1 (Working memory capacity is currently thought to be the single best available indicator of general fluid intelligence by many experts.) A subset of this sample also completed a single-item measure of Left–Right political orientation, which was also uncorrelated with working memory capacity, r(144) = –.06, p = .50. Our perspective does, however, suggest that the threat-driven motivational process for social cohesion and security identified by the DPM, and indexed most appropriately using measures of RWA, does seem to predict a tendency to seek more simple and less complex explanations for a variety of intergroup-related social cognitive processes, including stereotype change and disconfirmation, biases in attributional process in politically relevant domains, and perhaps most troubling, the tendency to unquestioningly endorse the values and ideologies espoused by those in positions of

power and authority. Whether the other process identified by the DPM, that indexed by SDO, predicts similar or different trends in the complexity of political social cognition remains to be seen.

Note Address correspondence to John Duckitt, Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand. E-mail: [email protected]

References Conway, A. R. A., Kane, M. J., Bunting, M. F., Hambrick, D. Z., Wilhelm, O., & Engle, R. W. (2005). Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and user’s guide. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 12, 769–786. Duriez, B., Van Hiel, A., & Kossowska, M. (2005). Authoritarianism and social dominance in Western and Eastern Europe: The importance of the socio-political context and of political interest and involvement. Political Psychology, 26, 299–320. Flynn, F. J. (2005). Having an open mind: The impact of openness to experience on interracial attitudes and impression formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 816–826. Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003). Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 339–375. Kossowska, M., & Van Hiel, A. (2003). The relationship between need for closure and conservatism in Western and Eastern Europe. Political Psychology, 24, 501–518. Kruglanski, A. W., Pierro, A., Mannetti, L., & De Grada, E. (2006). Groups as epistemic providers: Need for closure and the unfolding of group-centrism. Psychological Review, 113, 84–100. Skitka, L. J., Mullen, E., Griffin, T., Hutchinson, S., & Chamberlin, B. (2002). Dispositions, scripts, or motivated social correction? Understanding ideological differences in explanations for social problems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 470–487. Sugar, J., Viney, W., & Rohe, J. (1992). A comparison of contemporary and historical conservatism. Journal of General Psychology, 119, 89–97. Tetlock, P. E. (1983). Cognitive style and political ideology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 118–126.

1 We thank Matthew Gerrie for allowing us to analyze his data on working memory capacity, which we matched with participants’ SDO, RWA, and political orientation scores using confidential student identification numbers.

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