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      Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in political ideology

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      Behavioral and Brain Sciences
      Cambridge University Press (CUP)

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          Abstract

          Disputes between those holding differing political views are ubiquitous and deep-seated, and they often follow common, recognizable lines. The supporters of tradition and stability, sometimes referred to as conservatives, do battle with the supporters of innovation and reform, sometimes referred to as liberals. Understanding the correlates of those distinct political orientations is probably a prerequisite for managing political disputes, which are a source of social conflict that can lead to frustration and even bloodshed. A rapidly growing body of empirical evidence documents a multitude of ways in which liberals and conservatives differ from each other in purviews of life with little direct connection to politics, from tastes in art to desire for closure and from disgust sensitivity to the tendency to pursue new information, but the central theme of the differences is a matter of debate. In this article, we argue that one organizing element of the many differences between liberals and conservatives is the nature of their physiological and psychological responses to features of the environment that are negative. Compared with liberals, conservatives tend to register greater physiological responses to such stimuli and also to devote more psychological resources to them. Operating from this point of departure, we suggest approaches for refining understanding of the broad relationship between political views and response to the negative. We conclude with a discussion of normative implications, stressing that identifying differences across ideological groups is not tantamount to declaring one ideology superior to another.

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          Bad is stronger than good.

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            When Morality Opposes Justice: Conservatives Have Moral Intuitions that Liberals may not Recognize

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              Microbes, mating, and morality: individual differences in three functional domains of disgust.

              What is the function of disgust? Whereas traditional models have suggested that disgust serves to protect the self or neutralize reminders of our animal nature, an evolutionary perspective suggests that disgust functions to solve 3 qualitatively different adaptive problems related to pathogen avoidance, mate choice, and social interaction. The authors investigated this 3-domain model of disgust across 4 studies and examined how sensitivity to these functional domains relates to individual differences in other psychological constructs. Consistent with their predictions, factor analyses demonstrated that disgust sensitivity partitions into domains related to pathogens, sexuality, and morality. Further, sensitivity to the 3 domains showed predictable differentiation based on sex, perceived vulnerability to disease, psychopathic tendencies, and Big 5 personality traits. In exploring these 3 domains of disgust, the authors introduce a new measure of disgust sensitivity. Appreciation of the functional heterogeneity of disgust has important implications for research on individual differences in disgust sensitivity, emotion, clinical impairments, and neuroscience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Behavioral and Brain Sciences
                Behav Brain Sci
                Cambridge University Press (CUP)
                0140-525X
                1469-1825
                June 2014
                June 27 2014
                June 2014
                : 37
                : 3
                : 297-307
                Article
                10.1017/S0140525X13001192
                24970428
                13852c4e-17d8-4a72-ad4b-58a2c01bacbe
                © 2014

                https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms

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