Do liberals value emotion more than conservatives? Political partisanship and Lay beliefs about the functionality of emotion

Relying on feelings to guide thoughts and plans may be functional from the perspective of the individual but threaten the cohesion of social groups. Thus, liberals, who prioritize caring and fairness for individuals, may view emotion as more functional than do conservatives, who prioritize preserving social groups, hierarchies, and institutions. To test this, participants in three studies (total N = 1,355) rated political partisanship, beliefs about the functionality of emotion, and well-being. Study 3 also assessed how much participants prioritized “individualizing” versus “socially binding” values (Graham et al., 2011). Across all studies, the more liberal participants were, the more they viewed emotion as functional, despite reporting less emotional well-being. In Study 3, the link between liberalism and valuing emotion was mediated by more liberal participants’ greater endorsement of individualizing than socially binding values. These results suggest that emotion is viewed as more functional by those who prioritize the needs of individuals, but as less functional by those who prioritize the cohesion of social groups.

Not all poor are equal: the perpetuation of poverty through blaming those who have been poor all their lives

The economic crisis of 2008 severely affected the welfare states. As the economic situation of a country worsens, the resources that the public administration can devote to improve the situation of the people also decrease, endangering the advancement of those in a disadvantaged situation. People who have always lived in poverty, besides having their opportunities reduced, also face negative public views that affect the perceived legitimacy of such public aid, which can in turn be a mechanism for perpetuating their situation. Two studies (N = 252 and N = 266) analyse how a person in persistent poverty is perceived compared to a person in poverty due to the crisis-a circumstantial poverty. We also study some feasible mechanisms underlying this different perception, as well as their effects on attitudes toward social protection policies. In Study 1, results indicated that people showed more favourable attitudes toward social protection policies when they perceived someone in poverty due to the crisis, compared to the target who had been in poverty all his/her life. Individualistic attributions for poverty mediated this effect: when people think of someone in persistent poverty, they make more individualistic attributions concerning their situation, which leads to worse attitudes toward social protection policies. Identification with the group moderates this relation. Furthermore, Study 2 showed that participants perceive people who are in poverty because of economic crisis as more deserving of help than people who have always been poor. Some theoretical and practical implications for intergroup relations and public policy are discussed.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03804-6.

God Helps Those Who Help Themselves: How Recipients' Efforts Perception Affects Donation

This research examines how recipients’ efforts to get out of the plight affect the empathy they evoke and the subsequent help they receive from donors. Through three experiments, we find that the higher the efforts made by the recipients to get out of the plight, the stronger the donors’ willingness to donate. This effect is moderated by the need severity of the recipients. The more serious the plight is, the stronger the impact of the degree of efforts on the willingness to donate. This research makes theoretical contributions to charitable giving and provides implications for non-profit organizations on describing recipients’ efforts to get out of their plight.

Are conservatives more charitable than liberals in the U.S.? A meta-analysis of political ideology and charitable giving

Political ideology not only influences political activities, but also apolitical fields such as charitable giving. However, empirical studies regarding political ideology and charitable giving have yielded mixed results. To find out the effect size and explain the variation in effect sizes, we deploy a meta-analysis to estimate the average effect size and examine the potential moderators from four perspectives. Following scientific data collection and coding procedures, we identify 421 effect sizes from 31 empirical studies. Our meta-analysis results suggest that political conservatives are significantly more charitable than liberals at an overall level, but the relationship between political ideology and charitable giving varies under different scenarios. Furthermore, meta-regression results indicate that the measure of charitable giving, the type of charitable giving, and controlling for religiosity can account for the variation in effect sizes.

Examining the relational underpinnings and consequences of system-justifying beliefs: Explaining the palliative effects of system justification

People often perceive social systems as fair and legitimate in order to satisfy existential, epistemic, and relational needs. Although much work has examined the existential and epistemic roots to system justification, the relational motives underlying the tendency to justify the system have received comparatively less attention. We addressed this oversight by examining the associations approach and avoidance relational goals have with system justification in a national probability sample (N = 21,938). Consistent with the thesis that the need to belong motivates system justification, avoidance goals (i.e., the desire to avoid social conflict) correlated positively with system justification (approach goals also unexpectedly correlated positively with system justification). Also as hypothesized, system justification mediated the relationship between avoidance goals and belongingness. Moreover, system justification mediated the relationship between avoidance goals and belongingness. Finally, sequential mediation analyses revealed that avoidance goals predicted higher well-being via system justification and belongingness. This study is the first to demonstrate that system justification confers palliative benefits by satisfying two different relational goals.

Reviews Left and Right: The Link Between Reviewers’ Political Ideology and Online Review Language

Online reviews, i.e., evaluations of products and services posted on websites, are ubiquitous. Prior research observed substantial variance in the language of such online reviews and linked it to downstream consequences like perceived helpfulness. However, the understanding of why the language of reviews varies is limited. This is problematic because it might have vital implications for the design of IT systems and user interactions. To improve the understanding of online review language, the paper proposes that consumers’ personality, as reflected in their political ideology, is a predictor of such online review language. Specifically, it is hypothesized that reviewers’ political ideology as measured by degree of conservatism on a liberal–conservative spectrum is negatively related to review depth (the number of words and the number of arguments in a review), cognitively complex language in reviews, diversity of arguments, and positive valence in language. Support for these hypotheses is obtained through the analysis of a unique dataset that links a sample of online reviews to reviewers’ political ideology as inferred from their online news consumption recorded in clickstream data.

Stigmatising attitudes towards people who inject drugs, and people living with blood borne viruses or sexually transmissible infections in a representative sample of the Australian population

Stigma has significant detrimental health outcomes for those affected. This study examined socio-demographic characteristics that were associated with stigmatising attitudes among the general population towards people who inject drugs, and people living with blood borne viruses or sexually transmissible infections. Questions were included in the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (total sample = 1,001). Attitudes towards each of the target populations were measured by 5-item stigma scales. Bivariate analyses and multiple regression analyses were conducted to identify socio-demographic characteristics associated with stigmatising attitudes. Knowing a person affected by a stigmatised attribute was associated with reduced stigmatising attitudes, while voting for a conservative political party was associated with increased stigmatising attitudes. Age, gender, education, income, and marital status were each related to some stigmatising attitudes. Results also highlight differences between attitudes towards a stigmatised behaviour (i.e., injecting drug use) and stigmatised conditions (i.e., blood borne viruses and sexually transmissible infections). Identifying socio-demographic characteristics that are associated with stigmatising attitudes may have global implications for informing stigma reduction interventions, in order to promote positive health outcomes for affected communities.

Ideological profiles of US adults and their support for youth mentoring

Little is known about the influence of political ideology and religiosity on adults' support for youth mentoring as a strategy to address social problems. This study used latent class analysis in a large, national sample of US adults to identify underlying ideological profiles associated with support for mentoring programs. Three latent classes emerged. The attitudes of two classes, Classic Conservatives and Progressives, were consistent with traditional political conservatism and liberalism; the latter endorsed higher support for the theory of mentoring and government spending on mentoring programs. Members of the third class, Religious Outsiders, were highly religious, self-identified as very conservative, and were highly supportive of the theory of mentoring and the use of government funds on mentoring programs. Ad hoc analyses revealed that Religious Outsiders were the most likely to actually participate in mentoring activities. These findings suggest that support for mentoring, while not universal, crosses traditional political lines.

Left Threatened by Right: Political Intergroup Bias in the Contemporary Italian Context

Using different evaluation targets (i.e., politicians' pictures, ideological words, items referring to features attributed to political ingroup/outgroup) we characterized the intergroup bias among political groups in the Italian context (Study 1-2-3) and tested a model that may account for the bias itself (Study 3). For all evaluation targets, left-wing participants - compared to right-wing participants - showed a greater intergroup bias, expressing more negative emotions toward the outgroup. The process was influenced by a greater perceived threat of the outgroup. Conversely, right-wing participants expressed the bias only when presented with ideological words. Our results provide a detailed description of how intergroup bias in Italy is differently expressed by the two ideological groups depending on the targets used to represent the political counterpart. Moreover, the results show that the stronger bias expressed by left-wing participants is driven by perceived threat of the outgroup.

Are Liberals and Conservatives Equally Motivated to Feel Empathy Toward Others?

Do liberals and conservatives differ in their empathy toward others? This question has been difficult to resolve due to methodological constraints and common use of ideologically biased targets. To more adequately address this question, we examined how much empathy liberals and conservatives want to feel, how much empathy they actually feel, and how willing they are to help others. We used targets that are equivalent in the degree to which liberals and conservatives identify with, by setting either liberals, conservatives, or ideologically neutral members as social targets. To support the generalizability of our findings, we conducted the study in the United States, Israel, and Germany. We found that, on average and across samples, liberals wanted to feel more empathy and experienced more empathy than conservatives did. Liberals were also more willing to help others than conservatives were, in the United States and Germany, but not in Israel. In addition, across samples, both liberals and conservatives wanted to feel less empathy toward outgroup members than toward ingroup members or members of a nonpolitical group.

Left wings to the left: Posing and perceived political orientation

Images of individuals posing with the left cheek toward the camera are rated as more emotionally expressive than images with the right cheek toward the camera, which is theorized to be due to right hemisphere specialization for emotion processing. Liberals are stereotyped as being more emotional than conservatives. In the present study, we presented images of people displaying either leftward or rightward posing biases in an online task, and asked participants to rate people's perceived political orientation. Participants rated individuals portrayed with a leftward posing bias as significantly more liberal than those presented with a rightward bias. These findings support the idea that posing direction is related to perceived emotionality of an individual, and that liberals are stereotyped as more emotional than conservatives. Our results differ from those of a previous study, which found conservative politicians are more often portrayed with a leftward posing bias, suggesting differences between posing output for political parties and perceived political orientation. Future research should investigate this effect in other countries, and the effect of posing bias on perceptions of politicians.

Estimating Acceptability of Financial Health Incentives

A growing body of evidence suggests that financial incentives can influence health behavior change, but research on the public acceptability of these programs and factors that predict public support have been limited. A representative sample of U.S. adults ( N = 526) were randomly assigned to receive an incentive program description in which the funding source of the program (public or private funding) and targeted health behavior (smoking cessation, weight loss, or colonoscopy) were manipulated. Outcome variables were attitude toward health incentives and allocation of hypothetical funding for incentive programs. Support was highest for privately funded programs. Support for incentives was also higher among ideologically liberal participants than among conservative participants. Demographics and health history differentially predicted attitude and hypothetical funding toward incentives. Incentive programs in the United States are more likely to be acceptable to the public if they are funded by private companies.

Beyond Left-Right Ideology in the Study of Justice Perception

This article outlines an alternative to traditional left-right ideological spectrum approaches to studying political opinion formation and distributive justice perception within cultures, highlighting instead the tension that exists between an interdependence distributive worldview focused on intimacy and social connectedness, and an independence distributive worldview focused on personal control and mastery over one’s life space. Employing data from the Cross-Cultural Variations in Distributive Justice Perception project, (a) quantitative measures of individual differences in personality orientations and (b) qualitative-interpretive measures of word-use patterns (in discussing distributive fairness issues) are applied within two exemplary cultural contexts (Jamaica, New Zealand) to examine the potential utility of the interdependence-independence model as a viable explanatory alternative to left-right theories of justice orientation. Profiles are constructed of salient features differentiating the distributive worldviews of interdependents and independents in Jamaica and New Zealand, and implications of this model are drawn for the study of distributive justice perception processes across cultures

Internal-External Causal Attributions and Perceived Government Responsibility for Need Provision

This study examines whether locus and importance of causal attributions for poverty mediate effects of gender and political ideology on attitudes toward social welfare provision. The study also examines whether cultural differences moderate effects of causal attributions on attitudes toward social provision. Analyses of data from 14 cultures ( N = 4,018) showed a positive relationship between importance of external causes of poverty and support for social provision of basic needs and a negative relationship between the internal causes and the support for social provision. Political conservatives, in particular men, ascribed less responsibility to government for need provision than did liberals. The ideological differences were partially mediated by external and internal attributions, whereas gender differences were mediated by external attributions. Not only did culture moderate effects of causal attributions, cultural differences in support of social provision were also partially but extremely differently (e.g., United States vs. Ireland) mediated by causal attributions

The Ideological-Conflict Hypothesis

Decades of research in social and political psychology have demonstrated that political conservatives appear more intolerant toward a variety of groups than do political liberals. Recent work from our three independent labs has challenged this conventional wisdom by suggesting that some of the psychological underpinnings of intolerance are not exclusive to people on either end of the political spectrum. These studies have demonstrated that liberals and conservatives express similar levels of intolerance toward ideologically dissimilar and threatening groups. We suggest directions for future research and discuss the psychological and political implications of our conclusions.

Feelings toward the poor and beliefs about the causes of poverty: the role of affective-cognitive consistency in help-giving

This study examined how affective-cognitive consistency moderates the strength of the relationship between attitudes toward the poor and help-giving intentions. Participant's (N = 198) overall attitudes toward the poor and the consistency of their affect (feelings toward the poor) and cognition (beliefs about the causes of poverty) were measured. Affective-cognitive consistency moderated the degree to which attitudes predicted welfare allocations and volunteering to help the poor, such that attitudes significantly predicted these decisions among participants whose feelings toward the poor were consistent with their beliefs about the causes of poverty.

Discrimination Across the Ideological Divide

Despite ample research linking conservatism to discrimination and liberalism to tolerance, both groups may discriminate. In two studies, we investigated whether conservatives and liberals support discrimination against value violators, and whether liberals’ and conservatives’ values distinctly affect discrimination. Results demonstrated that liberals and conservatives supported discrimination against ideologically dissimilar groups, an effect mediated by perceptions of value violations. Liberals were more likely than conservatives to espouse egalitarianism and universalism, which attenuated their discrimination; whereas the conservatives’ value of traditionalism predicted more discrimination, and their value of self-reliance predicted less discrimination. This suggests liberals and conservatives are equally likely to discriminate against value violators, but liberal values may ameliorate discrimination more than conservative values.

In the Land of the Free, Interdependent Action Undermines Motivation

Today’s most pressing social challenges require people to recognize their shared fate and work together—to think and act interdependently. In the three studies reported here, we found that appeals for increased interdependence may undermine the very motivation they seek to inspire. We examined the hypothesis that invoking interdependent action undermines motivation for chronically independent European Americans but not for bicultural Asian Americans who are both chronically independent and chronically interdependent. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that priming interdependent rather than independent action undermined European Americans’ motivation to perform challenging mental and physical tasks. Study 3 showed that framing an appeal for environmental sustainability in terms of interdependent rather than independent action led to decreased motivation and resource allocation among European Americans. Motivation was not undermined for Asian Americans, which reveals how behavior is divergently shaped, in the land of the free, by foundational sociocultural schemas of independence and interdependence. This research has the novel implication that it may be necessary to invoke independent behaviors in order to successfully motivate interdependence.

Are Conservatives Less Likely to be Prosocial than Liberals? From Games to Ideology, Political Preferences and Votingg

Do political preferences reflect individual differences in interpersonal orientations? Are conservatives less other–regarding than liberals? On the basis of past theorising, we hypothesised that, relative to individuals with prosocial orientations, those with individualistic and competitive orientations should be more likely to endorse conservative political preferences and vote for conservative parties. This hypothesis was supported in three independent studies conducted in Italy (Studies 1 and 2) and the Netherlands (Study 3). Consistent with hypotheses, a cross–sectional study revealed that individualists and competitors endorsed stronger conservative political preferences than did prosocials; moreover, this effect was independent of the association between need for structure and conservative political preferences (Study 1). The predicted association of social value orientation and voting was observed in both a four–week (Study 2) and an eight–month (Study 3) longitudinal study. Taken together, the findings provide novel support for the claim that interpersonal orientations, as measured with experimental games rooted in game theory, are important to understanding differences in ideology at the societal level. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An attributional analysis of reactions to poverty: the political ideology of the giver and the perceived morality of the receiver

An attributional analysis of reactions to poverty is presented. The article begins by discussing the perceived causes of poverty and their taxonomic properties (locus, stability, and controllability). One antecedent of causal beliefs, political ideology, is then examined in detail, followed by a review of the effects of causal beliefs on emotions and behavior. It is contended that helping the poor is a moral issue, but the moral evaluation concerns the targeted recipient of aid rather than the potential help giver. Persons perceived as responsible for their plight, a dominant construal for conservatives, elicit anger and neglect. In contrast, those seen as not responsible for their financial hardship, an outlook predominantly endorsed by liberals, arouse sympathy and help giving. Sympathy is the most important proximal determinant of aid. This analysis is extended to reactions to achievement failure, abortion, and rape. Policy implications are also examined.

Perceived Polarization: Reconciling Ingroup and Intergroup Perceptions Under Uncertainty

Two studies investigated how generalized uncertainty affects the tendency to coordinate perceptions of the ingroup with intergroup perceptions. Across two field studies, we found that uncertainty leads to a stronger association between the perceived entitativity of an ingroup and the extent of perceived attitude polarization between the ingroup and outgroup. Study 1 showed that, for striking grocery store employees, feelings of uncertainty were associated with enhanced coordination of ingroup entitativity and intergroup polarization. Study 2 primed Democrat and Republican partisans to feel either high uncertainty or high certainty. Those who felt uncertain associated their perceptions of their group's entitativity with perceived polarization of the two parties more strongly than did those who felt certain. Discussion centers on processes underlying the phenomena as well as the implications of the findings for political polarization in American society.

A Mile in Moccasins: How Situational Experience Diminishes Dispositionism in Social Inference

In four studies, this article investigates the impact of situational experience on social inference. Participants without firsthand experience of a situation made more extreme and erroneous inferences about the personalities of people behaving in that situation than did participants with firsthand experience. Firsthand experience, thus, appears to diminish dispositionism in social inference because it informs people about the situational constraints that guide behavior. Across all studies, participants also displayed holier-than-thou biases, overpredicting how generously they would act relative to predictions about their peers and also relative to how they actually acted when the situation came.

THE ANTECEDENTS OF HELP GIVING IN CHINESE CULTURE: ATTRIBUTION, JUDGMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY, EXPECTATION CHANGE AND THE REACTION OF AFFECT

The quantitative relationships among attributional locus, stability, controllability, judgment of responsibility, affect response and help giving were detected. Participants were 219 employees and managers, and the structural equation model that reflected the relationships among these variables was tested. The findings suggested that causal locus and controllability linked with help giving are mediated by judgment of responsibility and subsequent affect response and expectation change. Stability attribution indirectly correlated with help giving by linking with expectation. Attributional dimensions, judgment of responsibility, expectation change and the reactions of affect were the antecedent variables of help giving. Findings are discussed in terms of related Chinese cultural and social values.

Examining the principles in principled conservatism: the role of responsibility stereotypes as cues for deservingness in racial policy decisions

Why do educated conservatives oppose affirmative action? Those in the "principled conservatism" camp say opposition is based on principled judgments of fairness about the policies. Others, however, argue that opposition is based on racism. The present article offers an alternative perspective that may reconcile these contradictory points of view. In 2 studies, the authors show 2 major findings: (a) that conservatives oppose affirmative action more for Blacks than for other groups, in this case women, and (b) that the relationship between conservatism and affirmative action attitudes is mediated best by group-based stereotypes that offer deservingness information and not by other potential mediators like old-fashioned racism or the perceived threat that affirmative action poses to oneself. The authors conclude that educated conservatives are indeed principled in their opposition to affirmative action, but those principles are group based not policy based.

MODELS OF JUDGMENTS OF BEHAVIOR RESPONSIBILITY IN CHINESE CULTURE FROM AN ATTRIBUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Participants in this study were 217 employees and managers. Two structural equation models that reflected the relationships among locus, stability, controllability, affect responses, the change of expectancy and judgments of responsibility were set up. EQS (Bentler, 2000) was used to test the models. The authors found that their models were well supported by the data. In these models, “cognition” (judgment of responsibility) and “affect” (sympathy and anger) had a two-way directional relationship. Not only were causal locus and stability important attributional dimensions that could contribute to the judgment of responsibility, but also affect response contributed to the judgment of responsibility. Causal attribution (including locus, controllability, stability), affect and expectancy change could serve as the antecedents of judgments of behavior responsibility. These findings have important significance for our understanding of people's social behavior.