Researchers help define what makes a political conservative

Politically conservative agendas may range from supporting the Vietnam War to upholding traditional moral and religious values to opposing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations?

Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

Fear and aggression

Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity

Uncertainty avoidance

Need for cognitive closure

Terror management
"From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination," the researchers wrote in an article, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," recently published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin.

Assistant Professor Jack Glaser of the University of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy and Visiting Professor Frank Sulloway of UC Berkeley joined lead author, Associate Professor John Jost of Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, and Professor Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland at College Park, to analyze the literature on conservatism.

The psychologists sought patterns among 88 samples, involving 22,818 participants, taken from journal articles, books and conference papers. The material originating from 12 countries included speeches and interviews given by politicians, opinions and verdicts rendered by judges, as well as experimental, field and survey studies.

Ten meta-analytic calculations performed on the material - which included various types of literature and approaches from different countries and groups - yielded consistent, common threads, Glaser said.

The avoidance of uncertainty, for example, as well as the striving for certainty, are particularly tied to one key dimension of conservative thought - the resistance to change or hanging onto the status quo, they said.

Continued

www.berkeley.edu...

Berkeley? please, BT. oh, no, they're not bias to begin with, geez.

Where do they get the chutzpah to compare Reagan to Hitler. Liberals are still pissed with Reagan's success. That so-called research should just come out and say 'they think Castro is a good guy'
(whereas, WE know he's ruthless dictator). Oppose welfare? NO. Conservatives typically believe that welfare is for those that need it, not those who can and should do for themeselves. Upholding morality? You bet! (should we be upholding immoral values?)





[Edited on 29-7-2003 by Bob88]

Nice try BT, but your argument depends on conservatives actually reading the article and applying some of the psychological insights to themselves. That will never happen...
The conservative mindset is absolutely abhorrent to any type of introspective analysis.
This is evident in Bob88's response. He choose to see the article's reference to Reagan and Hitler's use of social nostalgia for political gains as a comparison to each other's historical legacy.
His mind read the words Hitler and Reagan together and stopped. Why bother to investigate further? A conservative already "knows" he's right, so why waste time looking at an issue from a different perspective.

Here's a list of "known conservative rights"

God is right:
Christianity is right:
Capitalism is right:
Our economic system is fair:
Welfare subsidies are wrong:
Corporate subsidies are right:
Illegal immigrants are wrong:
Marriage for man and woman and the procreation of children only:
There is no systematic racism:
Commies and Liberals are the same:
Commies and Liberals are un-American:
2000 Election was fair:
Guns don't kill people:
Gays are destroying the moral fiber of America:
Life was better in the fifties:
Exporting jobs to third world countries is smart business practice:
Healthcare for all is socialism disguised:
The rich pay to many taxes:
Fetus is a child:
God is an American:
Bush's political actions and the war-profiteering that followed was only a coincidence:
Reagan was a great president:
The reasons for the Iraq war were 100% true:
All failures of this administration can traced to failures of the previous administration:
The patriot act is patriotic and would never be misused by the FBI, CIA, Justice Department, Et al.:
Kenneth Lay is just a good friend:
180 million dollars in campaign contributions would never expect to receive favors in return:
Media has a liberal bias:
Iran-Contra was a mild indiscretion:
George W. Bush is a moral man:
Minimum wage is proportionate to our economic needs:
Nation building isn't really what we're doing in Iraq:
Clinton was a liberal:
Protest is un-American:
Religious organizations should get public money but not be held to public scrutiny:
Nixon was misunderstood and setup by the eastern establishment:
Support of dictators that profit our corporations is different than supporting terrorists:
Winning the Cold War proves that communism was an inferior system of economics:
Burning the American flag is unpatriotic:
Using the American flag to sell products is good business:
Talk radio is conservative because that's the market:


These are but of the few "known rights" of the right. (pun intended) The fact that some of these are wrong and can be demonstrated factually is unimportant. They are right and if you say they aren't its because your a liberal, or a fag, or a commie, or a feminist or a member of the Ba'ath party. We know they're right because we profit financially from them everyday, and if YOU don't its because you couldn't make it.
Do you hear that blackie, wet-back and dyke????!!!
The fact that you choose to be different from what America was founded on (ha) makes it your own damn fault that you have trouble succeeding in our system.

Now lets get back to that inheritance tax issue........




[You are all absolutely free]

Nice list of how liberals perceive conservative. But that's all it is.

V.O.D.

I detect your tongue in cheek technique!

All great nations have a liberal spark.
What I find to be amazing is that the prevailing political philosophy of great nations quickly becomes Conservative.
I've watched my own country go down the tube still clinging to the mistaken Conservative beliefs that what brough the UK up to the top can keep it there and when that fails recapture it's past glories.
A nation like the USA which became successful because of liberal(for it's time)innovative political ideals clings still to those same ideals 200 years on.That is the failure of Conservatisism,by it's nature it seeks to Conserve or preserve while losing the fundemental principles that made it successful in the first place.

As a Briton I am naturally a supporter of the USA.It's preminence in the world today ensures that my own country retains some dignity but I am saddened when I see it's people voting for updated policies that hastened the decline of my own country.

I don't believe Reagan should be reviled.He won a war but wars are fought so that the citizens who made sacrifice during wartime might recover their own personal freedoms.In a new era post Cold War policies that won the Cold War should not be Conserved because they were successful during a unique episode of world history.

It is folly to Conserve that which is redundant.

Originally posted by Voice_of Doom
Nice try BT, but your argument depends on conservatives actually reading the article and applying some of the psychological insights to themselves. That will never happen...

VOD

You are spot on.....but I knew this with the post - the idea was to see how many would hoist themselves on their own petard and exemplify the observations made by the researchers.

John Bull

A great preamble to the fall of the Bush Family Empire.
To 'conserve' in a vacuum is definetly possible....but when has the world ever been in one of those?

But, John Bull, that's a very simple view of Reagan - it goes beyond cold war policies, tax cuts for example. But if you want to stick to 'cold war' policies such as say the military - well, 9/11 proves you wrong. Peace through Strength, not say, Clinton�s idea of the military/intelligence, which might have prevented that tragic day had our intelligence agencies not had their hands tied. All of the intelligence community says the same thing, over and over: Our hands were tied, we didn�t infiltrate these terrorist networks, we couldn�t associated with undesirable people for the great good, so on and so forth.

And with the USSR threat gone, thanks Ronnie, there's still China that must be countered, there�s terrorism and threats like NK, no folly at all to �conserve� policies such as peace through strength, no sir. National security is far from redundant, as 9/11 has shown us.

And heck, I�ll take any tax cut they give me.

all moot, look at the '02 elections: the people chose the GOP (which runs the WH, senate, and house now as a result of the peoples votes, their mandate).

And if you equate Liberalism to innovation, (you're talking about the founders, right?) Conservatives are the innovators, really:
- School vouchers (great idea. Schools are in BIG trouble, they need more than more than more money.)
- Tort reform (lawyers are running doctors out of business)
- Social security reform (it�s our money, why can�t we CHOOSE what we want to do w/ it)

Liberals aren�t trying to innovate anything; they aren�t pro-choice obviously since they won�t let anyone have their choice when it comes to schools, guns, social security, to name a few. Rather, liberals are pro-abortion.


Bout time: Again, this is Berkeley, surely a �centrist� like you thinks that they epitomize the far left and don�t represent the views of the general American public. That fuzzy research, is seems, is on the verge of suggesting conservative thought is 'wrong' or 'criminal' - infact, I felt like that 'research' is slightly xenophobic



[Edited on 30-7-2003 by Bob88]

I think the economy was the biggest and most effective weapon during the Cold War.It was certainly economic reasons that ended it.

The USA was founded on the principles of personel freedom but that principle is being lost because of the push to impose the social mores of the 18th century in the 21st century.
It is the same in every aspect of Conservatism.It never seeks to conserve the principles that brought it to the top but does seek to rehash the answers that were successful in the past for problems that do not need the same answers.
The Tax issue is an interesting case in point Bob.

There are always economic cycles where tax cuts are a good thing but to to make tax cutting a dogma is just as foolish as making tax hikes a dogma.Economic policy must be fluid.The USSR didn't have the same tax system as the west.It had no money yet it continued to spend money on weapons.It was a huge game of poker played with no table limit and Reagan kept on raising the stakes and calling.Eventually the USSR could not sustain it.
The danger that faces the USA now is the same.More is being spent and revenue is decreasing.It is only my opinion but it seems like foolish dogma.Eventually money has to come from somewhere.The cycle is leading ever downwards and the only solutions that are outside of the cycle are military solutions.The military will have to act so as to pay for the military.

I am against all dogma including socialist dogma.Different times call for different policies.Tax cuts are fine in principle but not now.

You forgot something else...a major requirement...

"If it doesn't work out we can blame it on the liberals"

Fear and aggression
Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
Uncertainty avoidance
Need for cognitive closure


Couldn't have written it better myself if I was asked to paint a picture from scratch..

How did you stumble upon that, BT? Research of this nature is quite rare.

The second and fourth 'traits' are the ones that I see most often. But altogether they seem to build a picture of intolerance, poor listening skills, and a total inflexibility with anything learned beyond the age of seven.

Arch conservatives are a menace to development throughout the world. This doesn't just apply to the 'moral majority' stereotype in the States.

The idea that our intelligence community was dedicated to the tune of 1000 Agents under Inquistor Ken Starr, as opposed to, let's say, following intel that Arab men are taking flight training and skipping the landing portion, is I guess another of the 'Avoidance' Pavlovian triggers, no?
Or that with his 'presidency'[sic] came an immediate halt to all things Saudi on the Intel Communities plate, an AG who put domestic terror cell discovery about ten items low on his 'to do list' - behind breaking those evil hooker rings in New Orleans. All these things and Ronnie getting all this credit for a Socialist political model crumbling under it's own weight because it had no capitalist mechanism to compete ....dogma, pure and simple.
Reagan was an incoherent fool who could hit his lines and the amazing thing about Bush is that no one thought there could be another president who was so disengaged and out of the loop - he trumped Reagan!
Yet, we hear that the worlds best ever military is 'lacking' because we don't have ....what exactly? Out dated armament meant to conduct warfare like our grandparents? Our saftey has been compromised because of cutting the fat and and GOP contractors from the federal teet? No, we could have shrunk Agents to the size of dust mites and stuck them to Osama's beard, if you ignore the Intel ....you have 9/11...as the Bush Administration did.

Berkeley? So what? If you read the article, it clearly states that only half of the research team is from UC-B; the others are fron Stanford and U of Maryland - hardly liberal strongholds!
Also, this was not an in house excercise but a published work by the American Psychological Association.

You don't think that Bush's america is not being studied by pschologists everywhere!?!?!
Good Gravy man, I can see that niche of the medical journal industry as being the one to invest in!!

[Edited on 30-7-2003 by Bout Time]

Well, Bout Time, I suppose more than half of America is just one sick, happy, clear thinking puppy.

You can put me on your hate list too.

Here's a list of "known conservative rights"

God is right: Of course !

Christianity is right: I agree.

Capitalism is right: Sure.

Our economic system is fair: If you know an economical system who's 100% fair, let us know.

Welfare subsidies are wrong: Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Corporate subsidies are right: Not at all.

Illegal immigrants are wrong: Yep.

Marriage for man and woman and the procreation of children only: For man and woman only, yes. Only for procreation, no.

There is no systematic racism: Correct.

Commies and Liberals are the same: It's so evident...

Commies and Liberals are un-American: Yeah, and they'll go rot in hell 4 ever.

2000 Election was fair: YES !

Guns don't kill people: Correct. Gun don't kill people, I do.

Gays are destroying the moral fiber of America: Wrong. They are destroying the whole world morality.

Life was better in the fifties: I suppose.

Exporting jobs to third world countries is smart business practice: Smart, may be. Fair, NO WAY !

Healthcare for all is socialism disguised: Yes.

The rich pay to many taxes: Nope.

Fetus is a child: YES !

God is an American: What ???? I thought He was Belgian.

Bush's political actions and the war-profiteering that followed was only a coincidence: HA HA HA HA HA

Reagan was a great president: YES !!!

The reasons for the Iraq war were 100% true: Eerm...no.

All failures of this administration can traced to failures of the previous administration: Not all of them. Just 99.999999999999999 %.

The patriot act is patriotic and would never be misused by the FBI, CIA, Justice Department, Et al.: Let me called it the Unpatriotic Act, ok ?

Kenneth Lay is just a good friend: Who's Kenneth Lay ?

180 million dollars in campaign contributions would never expect to receive favors in return: Blah blah blah....

Media has a liberal bias: Why did you write something that we know all ?

Iran-Contra was a mild indiscretion:

George W. Bush is a moral man: I guess.

Minimum wage is proportionate to our economic needs: Wrong.

Nation building isn't really what we're doing in Iraq: Correct.

Clinton was a liberal: If he wasn't a liberal, so what was he ? A Republican ? A far-right winger ?

Protest is un-American: FALSE !

Religious organizations should get public money but not be held to public scrutiny: No.

Nixon was misunderstood and setup by the eastern establishment: No opinion.

Support of dictators that profit our corporations is different than supporting terrorists: Wrong.

Winning the Cold War proves that communism was an inferior system of economics: Correct ! Anyway I didn't have to see that we won. I just had to look what is communism, and I knew it was an inferior and evil system.

Burning the American flag is unpatriotic: Correct !

Using the American flag to sell products is good business: Correct !

Talk radio is conservative because that's the market: Wrong. Talk radio are conservative because the people don't like to hear BS and liberal frenzy propaganda !

Since I didn't agree to everything, in your opinion Voice_of Doom, what am I exactely ?

UP, you sound like a political-non-Euclidean...


I hear a lot of words being thrown around. I think, for the sake of argument, that there needs to be a clearer definition of the political spectrum. Lets start here:
lib�er�al
(lbr-l, lbrl)
adj.

Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.
Liberal Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.

Under this "definition" I cannot think of a true "liberal" in the democratic party since George McGovern. Maybe Dukakis...maybe.
Clinton is by no-means a liberal. Here are some policies that Clinton /Gore enacted in their 8 years. Do they fit the classic definition of a liberal?

1.Resisted all efforts to reduce carbon in our air
2. the first Administration in 25 years NOT to demand higher fuel efficiency standards
3. Did nothing to reduce Arsenic levels in drinking water
4. Did nothing about Carpal-Tunnel syndrome as it relates to OSHA regulations (and these ladies went to the polls twice to vote for him)
5. Enacted and supported NAFTA -Doubling the pollution levels on the Mexican borders, not to mention the economic havoc created for American blue collar workers
6. 1996 Welfare Reform bill included the same "Faith based initiatives" that now have the left hollering about separation of church/state.
7. 1999 signed the order to deny funds to any foreign group that discussed abortion during consultation
8. the top 25 contributors to Dole and Clinton during the 1996 election were the SAME companies
9. Refused to declare moratorium on death penalty - Twice!
10. Refused legislation for tax credits for teen parents and welfare recipients
11.Refused to sign "land mine ban treaty" Nov 16th 1999
He also signed executive orders strengthening FEMA, dubious anti-terror legislation after Oklahoma City bombing and weakened existing gun control. He tried to flurry a few bills in the last week of his presidency when it didn't matter, but I think this was to brighten his image for posterity. It also gave the democrats anti-bush jr fuel when he overturned the "arsenic legislation" All he did was set the levels back what it had been in the Clinton years!

This man was no liberal. Liberal's are people like Ralph Nadar, George McGovern, Noam Chomsky (who describes himself as an Anarchist) and Adele Stevenson. Ralph Nadar alone has been fighting big business for 50 years, from mandatory seatbelts (yes, conservatives balked thinking they would stifle profits) to enviromental pollution.
Here's a partial record of Democratic "liberals" voting records and the percentage of time they voted with the GOP:
Ralph M Hall, TX - 80%
Ken Lucas, KY - 75%
Christopher John, LA - 70%
Jim Traficant, OH - 70%
Marion Berry - AR - 65%
Bud Cramer, AL - 65%
Ronnie Shows, MS - 65%
Gene Taylor, MS 55%
Sanford D. Bishop, Allen Boyd, Gary Condit, David Phelps, Leonard Boswell, Jerry Costello, Tim Holden, Paul Kanjororski, James Maloney, Micheal McNultly, Bob Clement, Bob Etheridge, Harold Ford, Collin Peterson, Max Sandlin, Shelley Berkeley have all voted with GOP over 50% of the time.
In the senate:
Zell Miller, GA 100% PATHETIC
John Breux, Daniel Inouye, Max CLeland, and Blanch Lincoln all have records over 50%
So the claims that a liberal Whitehouse, Senate or house has made any substantial difference in American Politics in the last twenty years is ridiculous. There has been only one woman on the Presidential ticket, never a minority. The Roe vs. Wade judgment hangs by a thread, civil rights have had the clock turned back on them. Clinton oversaw the largest rise in income discrepancy OF ALL TIME between rich and poor, he also presided over the largest layoff of American blue collared workers to overseas workers in history. He made a few rumblings about gay rights and healthcare but nothing substantial came out of it.
What we have now in the democratic party are republican wanna-be's that clamor for the same money from the top 10% of this country that republicans do. Look at their financial supporters??!!! They're the same companies. Look at the Washington lobbyists...they wine and dine the same people??!!
If you can unlock the "media-driven" message of what a liberal is, really let go of that, you would find that no matter where you sit in the political spectrum you can identify with many of the virtues of liberalism.
Think... Think about it. Individual rights no matter what color you are, right to speak your mind whether I agree with you or not (ACLU), social responsibility (that we should try to eliminate the sufferings of others), freedom of choice (that you alone can best decide what best for you), affordable education for those who want it, healthy air and water. I can't imagine a conservative, libertarian or anarchist that could object to these basic ideas. How they're put into practice is where there's a need for real debate.
The media's use of "liberal" just like their use of "right winger" is done solely to separate us, keep us fighting amongst ourselves while the richest 10% make off with all the money.
For the record, I don't subscribe myself to any political doctrine but I agree with values made in the paragraph above.
We need to start looking at the real enemy among us...

[You are all absolutely free]

Originally posted by Tyriffic
Well, Bout Time, I suppose more than half of America is just one sick, happy, clear thinking puppy.

You can put me on your hate list too.

Hate? Are you high? If it wasn't for conservatives, I wouldn't have been making six figures going back to my mid 20's......I mean, how much more easy can you make it for me to out manuever you in business when you only think within a very finite spectrum? Conservatives are soooo easy to out flank!
Clear thinking? Sure....along the lines of Idiot Savants & the pathological, yup, I agree!

(not 'my' quick wit) BUT, are these researchers PROFILING???