Political Animal
Michael Woodley
Intelligence, September-October 2010, Pages 471-480
Abstract:
A controversial hypothesis [Charlton (2009). Clever sillies: Why high-IQ people tend to be deficient in common sense. Medical Hypotheses, 73, 867-870] has recently been proposed to account for why individuals of high-IQ and high social status tend to hold counter-intuitive views on social phenomena. It is claimed that these ‘clever sillies' use their high general intelligence and Openness to Experience to overanalyze social problems for which socially intelligent/common sense responses would seemingly be more appropriate. The first three sections of this review will consider i) the relationship between general and social intelligence; ii) the role of situational effects on the direction of the correlation between IQ and political attitudes; iii) the behavioral ecology of competitive altruism. While there is no hard evidence for Charlton's hypothesis, sophisticated although ultimately non-rational subjective analyses of social phenomena (i.e. ones that are disconfirmed by data, or reject empiricism) do seem to be favored by individuals in certain high-IQ knowledge work sectors. It is suggested that these function as costly signals of altruism, and that their popularity can best be understood in light of the theory that social attitudes are fundamentally influenced by perceptions of dominance and counter-dominance, with the latter playing an especially significant role in influencing the values systems of contemporary societies where the degree of conspicuous inequality is significantly evolutionarily novel.
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Kevin Binning, David Sherman, Geoffrey Cohen & Kirsten Heitland
Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
The 2008 presidential election brought the partisan divide between U.S. Republicans and Democrats to the forefront. In such contested situations, people who identify with the parties and their candidates experience pressure to adhere to their group's core beliefs and behaviors. This research hypothesized that providing individuals a chance to affirm their self-integrity would relieve some of this pressure and facilitate greater openness to the opposition. In the 2 days prior to the 2008 election, Democrats (N= 50) and Republicans (N= 60) who affirmed their self-integrity by writing about important personal values (versus those who did not self-affirm) were less driven by partisan preferences in their evaluations of Barack Obama's debate performance, more favorable to opposition candidates, and more generally open to alternative viewpoints. Additionally, 10 days after the election, affirmed Republicans thought Obama would make a better president than did nonaffirmed Republicans. Discussion centers on how motivational factors can exacerbate - and attenuate - the divide between "red" and "blue" America.
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More than Ideology: Conservative-Liberal Identity and Receptivity to Political Cues
Ariel Malka & Yphtach Lelkes
Social Justice Research, September 2010, Pages 156-188
Abstract:
To many commentators and social scientists, Americans' stances on political issues are to an important extent driven by an underlying conservative-liberal ideological dimension. Self-identification as conservative vs. liberal is regarded as a marker of this dimension. However, past research has not thoroughly distinguished between ideological identity (a self-categorization) and ideology (an integrated value system). This research evaluates the thesis that conservative-liberal identity functions as a readiness to adopt beliefs and attitudes about newly politicized issues that one is told are consistent with the socially prescribed meaning of conservatism-liberalism. In Study 1, conservative-liberal identity, measured in 2000, had an independent prospective effect on support for invading Iraq in 2002 and support for the Iraq war in 2004, controlling for substantive ideology, party identity, and demographics. In Study 2, conservative- and liberal-identifiers adopted stances on farm subsidy policy based on randomly varied cues indicating which ideological group supports which stance. This cue-based influence was mediated by adoption of attitude-supportive beliefs. Discussion addresses the joint impact of political discourse and identity-based social influence on the organization of political attitudes.
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Scott Morgan, Elizabeth Mullen & Linda Skitka
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Conservatives tend to make dispositional whereas liberals make situational attributions for social problems and alleged misconduct (the "ideo-attribution effect"). Three studies demonstrated a reversal of the ideo-attribution effect. Conservatives made stronger situational attributions than liberals for the behavior of Marines accused of killing Iraqi civilians (Studies 1 and 2) and police officers accused of wrongly killing a cougar running loose in a Chicago neighborhood (Study 3). Reversals of the ideo-attribution effect occurred because conservative values were more consistent with excusing the Marines' and police officers' behavior, whereas liberal values were more consistent with blaming the Marines and police officers. These results suggest that the ideo-attribution effect-and attributions more generally-are shaped by whether people's attributional conclusions are consistent or inconsistent with their salient values.
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Emanuel Gregory Boussios & Stephen Cole
Journal of Applied Security Research, July 2010, Pages 279-305
Abstract:
This article presents the results of an analysis of public attitudes toward war for the Korean, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, and Iraq wars. In total, 61 surveys conducted by the Gallup Organization starting in August 1950 (near the beginning of the Korean War) and ending February 2006 (middle of the Iraq War) were analyzed. This article examines the social characteristics of those people who are more or less likely to oppose war and is a continuation of our earlier work analyzing the Iraq War. The research reported here was arrived at answering the following question: Are there some groups (e.g., Democrats) who are more likely to oppose war? Using binary logistic regression methods, this research analyzes why some groups are more likely than others to oppose or support war. This cross-sectional analysis studies groups by age, education, gender, race, religion, party identification, and political ideology, in their general likelihood to oppose war. In addition, this analysis studies respondents' attitudes toward war, which includes whether the respondent was a hawk or a dove, an internationalist or isolationist, and optimistic or pessimistic about the war's outcome. Several traditional expectations on war attitudes, including a "race gap" and a "liberal-conservative gap," were unfounded. In some cases where correlations were found, the relationship could be explained predominately by the correlation of demographic characteristics with partisanship. This study has demonstrated, over time, just how much more powerful party identification has become in the United States. This trend analysis is the closest look at U.S. public opinion on wars after World War II since the ground-breaking and prize-winning work of John Mueller (1973, 1994).
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The solace of radicalism: Self-uncertainty and group identification in the face of threat
Michael Hogg, Christie Meehan & Jayne Farquharson
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
From uncertainty-identity theory it was hypothesized that where people feel their self-relevant values and practices are under threat, self-uncertainty strengthens identification with "radical" groups and either has no effect on or weakens identification with "moderate" groups. Since this hypothesis was tested on Australian students, who prefer to identify with moderate groups, the context-specific expectation was for that preference to disappear under uncertainty. This prediction was confirmed by a laboratory experiment in which self-uncertainty and group radicalism were manipulated in a 2 × 2 design (N = 82); the preference to identify with a moderate over a radical group disappeared under uncertainty because uncertainty strengthened identification with the radical group. This effect was directly mirrored in people's intentions to engage in specific group behaviors, and behavioral intentions were mediated by identification. The research is framed by a discussion of the relationship between uncertainty and social extremism, and implications for future research are noted.
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Does a common ingroup identity reduce intergroup threat?
Blake Riek, Eric Mania, Samuel Gaertner, Stacy McDonald & Marika Lamoreaux
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, July 2010, Pages 403-423
Abstract:
Intergroup threat is regarded as a cause of negative outgroup attitudes; however, little research has attempted to examine ways of reducing intergroup threat. Two studies examine the effectiveness of a superordinate identity for reducing intergroup threat. It was predicted that when two groups were aware of a shared identity, intergroup threat would be lowered and attitudes would become more positive. In Study 1, perceptions of common identities among Black and White students were related to decreases in intergroup threat and increases in positive outgroup attitudes. In Study 2, when their shared identity as Americans was made salient, Democrats and Republicans experienced less threat and more positive outgroup attitudes compared to when political party identities alone were salient. In both studies, intergroup threat acted as a mediator of the relationship between common identity and outgroup attitudes, suggesting that a common identity increases positive outgroup attitudes by first reducing intergroup threat.
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The Coevolution of Networks and Political Attitudes
David Lazer, Brian Rubineau, Carol Chetkovich, Nancy Katz & Michael Neblo
Political Communication, July 2010, Pages 248-274
Abstract:
How do attitudes and social affiliations coevolve? A long stream of research has focused on the relationship between attitudes and social affiliations. However, in most of this research the causal relationship between views and affiliations is difficult to discern definitively: Do people influence each other's views so that they converge over time or do they primarily affiliate (by choice or happenstance) with those of similar views? Here we use longitudinal attitudinal and whole network data collected at critical times (notably, at the inception of the system) to identify robustly the determinants of attitudes and affiliations. We find significant conformity tendencies: Individuals shift their political views toward the political views of their associates. This conformity is driven by social ties rather than task ties. We also find that political views are notably unimportant as a driver for the formation of relationships.
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An Anthropology of the House of Lords: Socialisation, Relationships and Rituals
Emma Crewe
Journal of Legislative Studies, September 2010, Pages 313-324
Abstract:
This study addresses the puzzle of conformity in the House of Lords; why do any peers attend regularly and usually obey their party whip? Rational choice theory struggles to explain this when you bear in mind that peers tend to be unambitious and do not rely on re-election to stay in parliament. The reasons can be found in a close study of their culture and social relationships; in particular in (a) socialisation in the Lords, (b) the social status of peers, (c) the ritualisation of debate, and (d) their relationships to their party. Each is explained in turn, as part of a dynamic interplay of social and political relations, relying on the findings of an ethnography compiled during 1998-2000. This is offered as an example of why and how such anthropological perspectives on parliament can complement the approaches of political science.
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Peter Hatemi, John Hibbing, Sarah Medland, Matthew Keller, John Alford, Kevin Smith, Nicholas Martin & Lindon Eaves
American Journal of Political Science, July 2010, Pages 798-814
Abstract:
Variance components estimates of political and social attitudes suggest a substantial level of genetic influence, but the results have been challenged because they rely on data from twins only. In this analysis, we include responses from parents and nontwin full siblings of twins, account for measurement error by using a panel design, and estimate genetic and environmental variance by maximum-likelihood structural equation modeling. By doing so, we address the central concerns of critics, including that the twin-only design offers no verification of either the equal environments or random mating assumptions. Moving beyond the twin-only design leads to the conclusion that for most political and social attitudes, genetic influences account for an even greater proportion of individual differences than reported by studies using more limited data and more elementary estimation techniques. These findings make it increasingly difficult to deny that - however indirectly - genetics plays a role in the formation of political and social attitudes.
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Media framing biases and political power: Explaining slant in news of Campaign 2008
Robert Entman
Journalism, August 2010, Pages 389-408
Abstract:
Although many scholars dismiss allegations of bias in the mainstream US media, careful research on bias can illuminate media effects on political power and public policy. This article refines framing theory to provide a theoretical foundation for systematic studies of bias. It suggests that scholars distinguish framing from other communication by its diachronic nature and its cultural resonance. Despite journalists' best efforts, framing often favors one side over another in political disputes. Slanted framing results from the interaction of real world developments, cultural norms, and journalistic decision rules with the sometimes proficient and other times maladroit efforts of competing elites to manage the news. A case study of 2008 presidential campaign coverage focusing on Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin illustrates how slanted framing can shift over time with changes in these interactions. The findings imply that, contrary to many critics' contentions, unbalanced news does not arise from the presumably stable personal ideologies of journalists.
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A Watershed in White House Journalism: Explaining the Post-1968 Rise of Aggressive Presidential News
Steven Clayman, Marc Elliott, John Heritage & Megan Beckett
Political Communication, July 2010, Pages 229-247
Abstract:
Presidential journalism is known to have grown substantially more aggressive through the 1970s and beyond, but a definitive explanation for this trend remains elusive. Some suggest that events surrounding Vietnam and Watergate transformed the professional norms of journalism. However, the trend could also be a more superficial and transitory response to other circumstantial factors that converged in the same time period, such as president-level characteristics (the prevalence of Republicans, Washington outsiders, and more vigorous news management efforts), the political environment (the rise of official discord), and the economic environment (a downturn in the business cycle). This study disentangles these various factors and assesses their relative success in explaining trends in journalistic conduct in the postwar era. Data are drawn from a large sample of presidential news conferences from 1953 through 2000, focusing on the aggressiveness of journalists' questions. The results strongly support the normative shift hypothesis, although economic factors have also been consequential. These results suggest a punctuated equilibrium model of journalistic change in relations between the White House press corps and the presidency.
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Abuse, Torture, Frames, and the Washington Post
Douglas Porpora, Alexander Nikolaev & Julia Hagemann
Journal of Communication, June 2010, Pages 254-270
Abstract:
W. Bennett, R. Lawrence, and S. Livingston (2006, 2007) argue that the press-and the Washington Post in particular-acquiesced to Bush administration framing of the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The administration, they say, framed the events as the isolated abuse of prisoners by "a few bad apples" unreflective of higher responsibility or administration policy. Absent-or near absent, Bennett et al. maintain, was a Post counterframe of the mistreatment as a systematic effect of high level policy, better captured by the word torture. Such pattern of framing, Bennett et al. conclude, supports the Indexing model of U.S. press behavior. This article shows that Bennett et al. understate the strength and consistency of Post counterframing. When articles in the Post are searched not for individual words but for more extended frames, it becomes clear that the Post did in fact engage in considerable counterframing even in the absence of elite political opposition. This case, it is therefore concluded, does not in fact support the Indexing model as Bennett et al. maintain but is rather the kind of case described by R. M. Entman (2004) in which the press exercises greater independence of elite political opinion than the Indexing model admits.
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Michael Bang Petersen, Rune Slothuus, Rune Stubager & Lise Togeby
European Journal of Political Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Public attitudes towards welfare policy are often explained by political values and perceptions of deservingness of welfare recipients. This article addresses how the impact of values and perceptions varies depending on the contextual information that citizens have available when forming welfare opinions. It is argued that whenever citizens face deservingness-relevant cues in public debate or the media, a psychological ‘deservingness heuristic' is triggered prompting individuals spontaneously to think about welfare policy in terms of who deserves help. This is an automatic process, equally influential among the least and the most politically sophisticated. Moreover, when clear deservingness cues are present, the impact of values on opinions vanishes. These arguments are supported by data from two novel experimental studies embedded in separate nationwide opinion surveys. The findings revise conventional wisdom of how values and heuristics influence public opinion and have major implications for understanding dynamics in aggregate welfare opinion and attempts from political elites to manipulate public opinion.
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Beyond Identity Politics: Moral Psychology and the 2008 Democratic Primary
Ravi Iyer, Jesse Graham, Spassena Koleva, Peter Ditto & Jonathan Haidt
Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
The two leading candidates for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, had very similar policy positions and yet demonstrated appeal to disparate populations. Much has been written in the press about demographic differences between supporters of these candidates, but little is known about these groups' psychological profiles. We used standard personality and moral psychology scales to predict differential favorability ratings toward these candidates, while controlling for age, gender, education, and political orientation. Higher scores on group-based morality, primary psychopathy, and moral relativism predicted relative favorability toward Clinton. Higher scores on individual-based morality, empathy, and global concern for others predicted relative favorability toward Obama. The authors discuss how voters' personalities and moral concerns may interact with media portrayals of the candidates - consistent with recent congruency models of political preference - especially in cases where policy differences are small.
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Michiel van Elk, Hein van Schie & Harold Bekkering
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In line with previous studies, showing that abstract concepts like "power" or "god" implicitly activate spatial associations, in the present study we hypothesized that spatial associations are coactivated during the processing of acronyms referring to names of political parties as well. In four studies, it was found that the reading of these acronyms was accompanied by the implicit activation of spatial left-right associations. That is, participants responded faster to left-wing parties by means of a left-hand button press and vice versa for right-wing parties (Experiments 1 to 3), and participants responded faster when a political acronym was presented at the side of the screen corresponding to the political orientation of the acronym (Experiment 4). Interestingly, a correlation was observed between the effect size for left-wing parties and participants' political preferences, suggesting that the reaction time effects reflect the perceived distance of a party to one's own political orientation. Together these findings indicate that spatial representations activated in response to political acronyms do not simply reflect lexical-semantic associations or spatial metaphors, but representations of parties' political orientation relative to one's own sociopolitical position.