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Conservative Shift among Liberals and Conservatives Following 9/11/01
Abstract and Figures
Political orientation and political attitudes were measured in two independent adult samples. One sample was taken several
months before the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01; the other, shortly after. Liberal and conservative participants alike reported
more conservative attitudes following 9/11/01 than before. This conservative shift was strongest on two items with the greatest
relevance to 9/11/01: George W. Bush and Increasing Military Spending. Marginally significant conservative shifts were observed
on two other items (Conservatives, Socialized Medicine), and the direction of change on eight of eight items was in a conservative
direction. These results provide support for the motivated social cognition model of conservatism (Jost et al., 2003) over predictions derived from terror management theory (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1992).
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... We based this hypothesis on the motivated social cognition model (Jost, Glaser, et al., 2003) and on previous research demonstrating that certain cues elicit a particular motivation, especially in individuals for whom the baseline level of that motivation is low. For example, Nail and McGregor (2009) demonstrated that threat drove liberals toward social attitudes typically more characteristic of conservatives. The rationale behind this effect was that conservatives feel chronically vulnerable and bothered by epistemic instability. ...
... The rationale behind this effect was that conservatives feel chronically vulnerable and bothered by epistemic instability. In contrast, liberals, who usually do not feel this way, might exhibit similar attitudes when situationally exposed to threats causing vulnerability (Nail & McGregor, 2009). If this is the case, liberals would react to market mindset priming more strongly than conservatives because their baseline thinking about the social environment is detached from transaction-like interpretations, and they would change their moral judgments only if they are induced to think in a market-type manner. ...
People with a market mindset attend to ratios and rates, and allocate rewards adequately to costs but are less sensitive to feelings. In this project, we demonstrate that activating a market mindset also affects people’s acceptance of free-market principles and their endorsement of individualizing moral dimensions—care/harm and fairness/cheating. Experiment 1 documented that a market mindset positively impacted people’s endorsement of fair market ideology. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the salience of such a market mindset hampered the importance of individualizing moral dimensions. Importantly, we found that political orientation moderated the negative effect of a market mindset on the endorsement of individualizing moral foundations—this effect held for participants who declared moderate and conservative political orientations, but not for liberals.
... Özetle, ilk görüş tehdit altında kişilerin kendi politik görüşlerini daha çok savunacaklarını ifade ederken, ikinci görüş ise kişilerin sağ görüşlere doğru bir kayma yaşayacaklarını öne sürmektedir. Birbirleriyle çelişmelerine rağmen, literatürde iki görüşü de destekleyen çalışmalar (Castano ve diğ., 2011;Nail ve McGregor, 2009) bulunması sebebiyle bu konu hakkında bir karışıklık mevcuttur. Buna ek olarak, örneğin kişilere terör olaylarının hatırlatıldığı çalışmalarda kişilerin terör tehdidiyle bağlantı kurulabilecek fikirleri (ulusal güvenlik, göçmenler) sağa doğru bir kayma yaşarken (Nail ve McGregor, 2009; Van de Vyver ve diğ., 2016), diğer konulardaki (eşcinsellerin hakları) fikirleri bir kayma yaşamamaktadır (Lambert ve diğ., 2010) Tüm bu karışıklıkları açıklamak adına Eadeh ve Chang (2020) Soruna Vakıflık Modelini (Issue Ownership Model) önermişlerdir. ...
... Birbirleriyle çelişmelerine rağmen, literatürde iki görüşü de destekleyen çalışmalar (Castano ve diğ., 2011;Nail ve McGregor, 2009) bulunması sebebiyle bu konu hakkında bir karışıklık mevcuttur. Buna ek olarak, örneğin kişilere terör olaylarının hatırlatıldığı çalışmalarda kişilerin terör tehdidiyle bağlantı kurulabilecek fikirleri (ulusal güvenlik, göçmenler) sağa doğru bir kayma yaşarken (Nail ve McGregor, 2009; Van de Vyver ve diğ., 2016), diğer konulardaki (eşcinsellerin hakları) fikirleri bir kayma yaşamamaktadır (Lambert ve diğ., 2010) Tüm bu karışıklıkları açıklamak adına Eadeh ve Chang (2020) Soruna Vakıflık Modelini (Issue Ownership Model) önermişlerdir. Bu modele göre kişiler belirli bazı kişi veya gruplar, bazı tehdit ve problemleri çözmede diğerlerinden daha yetkin algılanabilmektedirler (Budge ve Farlie, 1983). ...
... Further, there may be individual differences in the effects of this increase. Studies have shown that motivational threats most typically cause a specific motivation among people who have relatively lower general levels of that particular motivation [33][34][35]. That is, threat or stress from the environment may make the motivation salient for everyone, although it will have a stronger effect for those with low chronic motivation, thus causing them to become close to those that have high levels of that motivation. ...
... This phenomenon suggests that for individuals who generally lack one kind of motivation (e.g., the need for structure), it is more likely for them to be provoked by a threat (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic) and the particular motivation of them will increases even more significantly. Similar views have been proposed and supported by previous studies [33][34][35] and the present study supplements the conclusions of this kind of research. At the same time, the results also support the cognitive motivation model of stress. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic is profoundly affecting the minds and behaviors of people worldwide. This study investigated the differences in the need for structure among people from different social classes and the psychological mechanisms underlying this need, as well as the moderating effect of the threat posed by the pandemic. Using data collected from non-student adults in China, we found that the lower an individual’s social class, the lower their need for structure, and this effect was based on the mediating role of perceived control. However, the mediating effect was moderated by pandemic threat, and the above relationship existed only when this threat was low. When the level of pandemic threat was higher, neither the effect of social class nor of perceived control on the need for structure were significant. Specifically, in higher-threat situations, the need for structure among individuals from higher social classes and who had a higher sense of control increased significantly, meaning the mediating effect was no longer significant. This finding showed that under the threat of a pandemic, individuals who have a lower need for structure will still pursue and prefer structure and order. The theoretical and practical implications of the research are also discussed.
... Кроме этого, в некоторых условиях (например, политической нестабильности, экономического кризиса, войны или террористической угрозы) консерватизм может способствовать удовлетворению экзистенциальной потребности, усиливая чувство защищенности (Jost et al. The politics.., 2017b;Nail, McGregor, 2009). Относительно ОСД, имеющиеся эмпирические данные, указывают на то, что в целом данная установка негативно связана с потребностью в познании (Tam et al., 2008), в то время как подшкала ОСД «антиэгалитаризм», не связана с данной потребностью (Federico et al., 2014;Ksiazkiewicz et al., 2016). ...
In recent years, researchers have been focusing on a wide range of different constructs to study legitimizing grounds in socio-political relations. Political system justification, social dominance orientation (dominance and anti-egalitarianism) and political conservatism are considered as attitudes containing various grounds for legitimizing the currently existing socio-political relations (status quo). Maintaining these attitudes is associated with satisfying a number of psychological needs, including epistemic (e.g., the need for cognitive closure), existential (e.g., the need for security), and relational ones. The purpose of this research work was to study the contribution of needs in the maintenance of different attitudes legitimizing the socio-political status quo in the Russian context. With this in mind, we empirically examined the model, which considered needs as predictors, legitimizing attitudes as dependent variables, and sociodemographic characteristics associated with the maintenance of legitimizing attitudes (income, subjective social status, age, and gender) as control variables. The online study involved 387 Russian residents aged 18 to 73 who filled out questionnaires to assess the need for cognitive closure and fear of death as well as the relational need, social dominance orientation, political system justification and political conservatism. The data obtained were processed using structural equation modeling. The results of the study have shown that the most significant and consistent contribution in the maintenance of legitimizing attitudes is made by the epistemic needs (in particular, the need for cognitive closure). At the same time, the presence in everyday notions of a system of legitimizing attitudes makes it possible, depending on the context (e.g., the presence or absence of threats) or the socio-demographic characteristics of the individual (e.g., age and socio-economic status), to realize different needs, which ensures the flexibility of the process of social cognition.
... Much of the previous research that has examined the relationship between threat and political behavior have focused on intergroup threat. The observed following attitude shift has also mainly been related to political attitudes relating to the threat, such as more restrictive immigration policies, increased military spending following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but not on other issues related to ideology (Nail & McGregor, 2009). Research that uses other types of threats, such as existential threat, have found mixed effects on political attitudes and behavior (Burke, Martens & Faucher, 2010). ...
This chapter describes and integrates different psychological perspectives on the topic of political participation. Political participation is broadly defined, ranging from peaceful actions to violence, and includes both online and offline processes. After an introduction of the field of political psychology, the chapter discusses the role of social identity and social influence in political participation. The chapter also examines how personality features influence political participation, with a particular focus on a broadening of the theories dominant in the field by including personality features relating to belongingness needs in research on participation. In addition, the role of emotions in political participation is discussed, focusing specifically on how anger, fear, and anxiety influence political behavior. The chapter concludes by discussing the benefit of integrating different psychological perspectives and broadening the constructs currently often used in political psychological research on participation, and provides suggestions for future research.
... Echebarria-Echabe and Fernández-Guede (2006) observed that a terrorism event in Madrid in 2004 increased people's prejudice not only against the culprits (Arabs), but also against an unrelated group (Jewish). Likewise, Nail and McGregor (2009) observed a general political shift in the conservative direction following the terrorism events of Sept. 11, 2001 in USA. These observations support the theory that threat causes authoritarianism. ...
Individual danger and collective danger have very different effects according to the predictions of a theory named regality theory, based on evolutionary psychology. This study explores the effects of different kinds of danger on 37 different indicators of psychological and cultural responses to danger based on data from two waves of the World Values Survey, including 173,000 respondents in 79 countries.
The results show that individual danger and collective danger have very different – and often opposite – psychological and cultural effects. Collective dangers are positively correlated with many indicators related to authoritarianism, nationalism, discipline, intolerance, religiosity, etc. Individual dangers have neutral or opposite correlations with many of these indicators. Infectious diseases have little or no effects on these indicators. Many previous studies that confound different kinds of danger may be misleading.
Several psychological and cultural theories are discussed in relation to these results. The observed effects of collective danger are in agreement with many of these theories, while individual danger has unexpected effects. The findings are not in agreement with terror management theory and pathogen stress theory.
We examine political attitude change using data from a large national probability sample collected over the months leading up to, and following, the 2019 March 15 terror attacks against a Muslim minority community in Christchurch, New Zealand. Satisfaction with the government declined in the months prior to the attack, rose sharply immediately following the attack, and returned to pre-attack levels roughly 3 months after the attack. Support for the ruling centre-left Labour party followed a similar trend, whereas centre-right National party support was unchanged. These results provide valuable comparison to studies focusing on the effects of Islamist attacks, and insight into the time-course of attitude change by examining the effects of far right terrorism toward a minority community.
There is considerable research showing that economic threat influences people's social and political views. There are two prevailing perspectives on threat and political attitudes , broadly defined as the Conservative Shift Hypothesis and the Entrenching Hypothesis. The former predicts that threat induces change in the conservative direction (for both conservatives and liberals), whereas the latter predicts that threat causes people to adhere more strongly to their pre-existing political perspective. In two experimental studies (one pre-registered replication), we find evidence in support of the Entrenching Hypothesis. Conservatives responded to Economic Threat with increased endorsement of the conservative moral foundation Purity, whereas liberals responded to Economic Threat with decreased endorsement of the Purity foundation. Economic Threat appears to increase commitment to one's pre-existing political ideology and not conservatism specifically. Implications for psychological theory and future directions are discussed.
Trust in International Cooperation challenges conventional wisdoms concerning the part which trust plays in international cooperation and the origins of American multilateralism. Brian C. Rathbun questions rational institutionalist arguments, demonstrating that trust precedes rather than follows the creation of international organizations. Drawing on social psychology, he shows that individuals placed in the same structural circumstances show markedly different propensities to cooperate based on their beliefs about the trustworthiness of others. Linking this finding to political psychology, Rathbun explains why liberals generally pursue a more multilateral foreign policy than conservatives, evident in the Democratic Party's greater support for a genuinely multilateral League of Nations, United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Rathbun argues that the post-World War Two bipartisan consensus on multilateralism is a myth, and differences between the parties are growing continually starker.
The current study aimed to address the limitations of the terror management theory literature by using big data analysis to examine the theory's predictions in the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, Google Trends were examined before and after the first COVID-19 case was identified in Singapore. The results showed that there was a significant increase in mortality salience, intergroup conflict, and prosocial behavior, and a significant decrease in materialism after the first COVID-19 case was identified. However, no significant differences were found for anxiety. Limitations include the assumption that search terms reflect intentions that would eventually lead to a relevant behavior and the lack of data from other sources to corroborate with the results from Google Trends. Future research could use data from other sources to examine the effects of COVID-19 on theoretically relevant behaviors.
Politically liberal and conservative White Americans were asked to evaluate a legal case in which a police officer was acquitted of assault charges against a motorist in state court but then retried in federal court. When the initiator of the assault was unspecified, liberals perceived a violation of double jeopardy significantly more for a Black officer-White motorisk pair than vice versa. When the officer was identified as the initiator, however, double jeopardy ratings decreased significantly only for the Black officer. These results support the hypothesis that liberals, as aversive racists, will often discriminate in favor of Blacks except when discrimination against Blacks can be justified as non-racist. Unexpectedly, conservatives showed no indication of racial bias under any of the conditions.
The issue of international terrorism has figured frequently in recent political debates and media coverage. In the present
paper, we explore the question of how the salience of the concept of international terrorism affects the system-justifying
tendencies of public opinion. On the basis of Terror Management Theory and System Justification Theory it was hypothesized
that terrorism salience would lead to increased system justification. Four experiments with student and non-student adult
samples support the hypothesis, yielding a medium-sized average effect of d=0.47. Across variations in the intensity of focal death-related thoughts, the effect was not subject to boundary conditions
typical of mortality salience effects. Social and political psychological implications are discussed.
In Study 1, politically liberal college students’ in-group favoritism increased after a system-injustice threat, becoming as pronounced as that of conservatives. Studies 2 and 3 conceptually replicated these results with low preference for consistency [Cialdini, R. B., Trost, M. R., & Newsom, J. T. (1995). Preference for consistency: The development of a valid measure and the discovery of surprising behavioral implications. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 318–328.] as a dispositional measure of liberalism. In Study 2, following a mortality salience threat, dispositionally liberal students showed as much conviction in their attitudes toward capital punishment and abortion as dispositional conservatives did. In Study 3, after a mortality salience threat, liberal students became as staunchly unsupportive of homosexuals as conservatives were. The findings that political and dispositional liberals become more politically and psychologically conservative after threats provide convergent experimental support for the [Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003). Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 129 339–375.] contention that conservatism is a basic form of motivated social cognition.
Terror management research has shown that reminding Ss of their mortality leads to intolerance. The present research assessed whether mortality salience would lead to increased intolerance when the value of tolerance is highly accessible. In Study 1, given that liberals value tolerance more than conservatives, it was hypothesized that with mortality salience, dislike of dissimilar others would increase among conservatives but decrease among liberals. Liberal and conservative Ss were induced to think about their own mortality or a neutral topic and then were asked to evaluate 2 target persons, 1 liberal, the other conservative. Ss' evaluations of the targets supported these hypotheses. In Study 2, the value of tolerance was primed for half the Ss and, under mortality-salient or control conditions, Ss evaluated a target person who criticized the United States. Mortality salience did not lead to negative reactions to the critic when the value of tolerance was highly accessible.
Potentially traumatic events evoke a wide range of responses and outcomes. From a motivated so- cial cognitive approach to ideology, system-threatening events such as 9/11 should increase psy- chological needs to manage uncertainty and threat and, therefore, the appeal of politically conser- vative opinions. We investigated "conservative shift" among high-exposure survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks (n = 45) and its relationship to coping and adjustment. Results indicated that Democrats and Independents (as well as Republicans) were more likely to shift toward conserva- tism and away from liberalism following 9/11. Despite its prevalence, we found relatively little evidence that embracing conservatism was related to improved well-being as measured either in terms of survivors' mental health symptoms or friends-relatives' ratings of their psychological adjustment. On the contrary, political conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism, and conserva- tive shift were generally associated with the following: chronically elevated levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, desire for revenge and militarism, cyni- cism, and decreased use of humor. Conservative shift was also associated with increased religios- ity, patriotism, and the perception that the events of 9/11 created new interests and opportunities, suggesting that it may contain some adaptive (as well as maladaptive) features.
This study investigated 3 broad classes of individual-differences variables (job-search motives, competencies, and constraints) as predictors of job-search intensity among 292 unemployed job seekers. Also assessed was the relationship between job-search intensity and reemployment success in a longitudinal context. Results show significant relationships between the predictors employment commitment, financial hardship, job-search self-efficacy, and motivation control and the outcome job-search intensity. Support was not found for a relationship between perceived job-search constraints and job-search intensity. Motivation control was highlighted as the only lagged predictor of job-search intensity over time for those who were continuously unemployed. Job-search intensity predicted Time 2 reemployment status for the sample as a whole, but not reemployment quality for those who found jobs over the study's duration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this chapter, we have sought to integrate insights from and contribute to the further development of a long and distinguished tradition of analyzing the psychological basis of political ideology. As ideological animals, human beings suffuse the world with socially constructed meanings. The various theories described in this chapter are in general agreement with Marx, Freud, Becker, and many others that meaning systems can be said to reflect underlying need states. In this way, ideologies are socially and psychologically constructed, but they are not constructed arbitrarily. The available evidence to date supports the utility of distinguishing among different types of ideological belief systems in terms of how well they satisfy and resonate with a variety of psychological needs pertaining to the management of uncertainty and threat. Ideologies, in this sense, should be judged (at least partially) in terms of how successfully they resolve for their adherents the basic questions and strains of human living. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this article we synthesize theory and research from several areas of psychology and political science to propose and test a causal model of the effects of threat on political attitudes. Based in part on prior research showing that fear, threat, and anxiety decrease cognitive capacity and motivation, we hypothesize that under high (vs. low) threat, people will seek to curtail open-ended information searches and exhibit motivated closed-mindedness (one aspect of the need for cognitive closure). The subjective desire for certainty, control, and closure, in turn, is expected to increase the individual's affinity for political conservatism, insofar as resistance to change and adherence to authority figures and conventional forms of morality are assumed to satisfy these epistemic motives more successfully than their ideological opposites. Consistent with this account, we find in Studies 1a and 1b that putting people into a highly threatened mindset leads them to exhibit an increase in motivated closed-mindedness and to perceive the world as more dangerous. Furthermore, in Study 2 we demonstrate that a subtle threat manipulation increases self-reported conservatism (or decreases self-reported liberalism), and this effect is mediated by closed-mindedness. In Study 3, we manipulated closed-mindedness directly and found that high (vs. low) cognitive load results in a greater affinity for the Republican (vs. Democratic) party. Finally, in Study 4 we conducted an experiment involving political elites in Iceland and found that three different types of threat (to the self, group, and system) all led center-right politicians to score higher on closed-mindedness and issue-based political conservatism. Implications for society and for the theory of ideology as motivated social cognition are discussed.
A quasi-experimental study on the effects of terrorism on racial prejudice and ideological orientation is presented. Two independent samples were contacted before and after the Islamic terrorist attacks against railways in Madrid (11 March 2004). Anti-Arab and anti-Semite prejudices, authoritarianism and ideological orientations (liberal against conservative) were evaluated. Results showed that those terrorist attacks provoked changes in a reactionary and conservative direction: stronger prejudices not only against the target group (Arabs), but against another uninvolved group (Jewish); an increase in authoritarianism; stronger attachment to traditional conservative values, and a reduction in the attachment to liberal values. The results are interpreted in terms of the System-Justification Theory, the Motivated Social Cognition model of Conservatism and the Right-Wing Authoritarianism. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.