The hidden effects of economic and social political ideology on personality and social psychology

What is it about?

People often have different opinions on economic and social issues, such as taxes, immigration, or abortion. These opinions can be grouped into two dimensions: economic and social political ideology. Economic ideology reflects how much the government should intervene in the economy, while social ideology reflects how much the government should regulate personal and moral issues. In this paper, the authors examined how these two dimensions of political views relate to various aspects of personality and social psychology, such as cognitive rigidity, authoritarianism, dangerous worldview, and lethal partisanship. They used data from three large samples of American adults who completed online surveys.

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Photo by Shelagh Murphy on Unsplash

Photo by Shelagh Murphy on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This paper is important because it shows that economic and social political ideology have different and sometimes opposite effects on personality and social psychology. For example, the authors found that being socially conservative was positively related to cognitive rigidity, authoritarianism, dangerous worldview, and lethal partisanship, but these relationships became stronger when controlling for economic conservatism. On the other hand, being economically conservative was also positively related to these outcomes, but these relationships became negative or weaker when controlling for social conservatism. This means that economic and social political ideology can act as mutual suppressors, meaning that they hide or reduce each other's effects. The authors suggest that this phenomenon has implications for understanding the psychological differences between liberals and conservatives, as well as for improving communication and cooperation across political divides.