A person’s worldview is shaped by a number of factors, and in trying to understand how a person’s worldview develops over time, it would by easy to adopt the truism ‘every person is unique’, which is almost equivalent to saying we can’t understand what makes people the way they are. Instead, we might consider patterns in how an individual’s attitudes and beliefs are related to, and formed by, specific psychological characteristics and personality traits, their social and cultural environment, as well as their life experiences— all the way down to the level of basic neurological function and genetics.
Why does worldview matter? Because a person’s worldview is the lens through which they see the world and other people, interpret information and experience, formulate opinions and beliefs, and from these, make decisions about how to interact with others, how to structure their lives, and what sort of society they wish to live in.
Political views are an expression of worldview, which is to say political views emerge from the the various factors that constitute a person’s worldview, and are public displays of it. And the constituents of worldview, how these are displayed in political attitudes and choices (e.g., voting patterns), are consistent and stable over time.
Reflective liberals and intuitive conservatives: A look at the Cognitive Reflection Test and ideology. (2015); Kristen D. Deppe, University of Nebraska Lincoln, et. al.
In four separate studies we find a consistent pattern showing that those more likely to engage in reflection are more likely to have liberal political attitudes while those less likely to do so are more likely to have conservative attitudes.
The inability of standard experimental manipulations to shift levels of reflection and intuition suggest that conservatives’ tendency to be less reflective than liberals is more of a dispositional trait difference rather than an environmentally-mediated state. (pg. 323)
The nature of the relationship between personality traits and political attitudes. (2010) Brad Verhulst, Department of Political Science Stony Brook University; Peter K. Hatemi, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Genetic Epidemiology; Nicholas G. Martin, Department of Political Science University of Iowa.
Psychoticism was strongly related to more conservative Religious, Sex and Punishment attitudes in both sexes. This specific pattern of relationships was consistent with the original research on the Authoritarian personality (Adorno et al., 1950)and the magnitude is consistent with the relationship between authoritarianism and general conservatism (Altemeyer, 1998;Stenner, 2005). We expected that Psychoticism, by virtue of its theoretical relationship with Authoritarianism, would be associated with Religious, Sex, and Punishment attitudes, as these attitudes are central to the concept of Authoritarianism (see Bouchard, 2009). (pg 308)
… we found a relationship between Extraversion and conservative Sex attitudes in these analyses. Very few contemporary studies in the personality and politics literature have found significant relationships between Extraversion and attitudinal or ideological predispositions. However, our finding is consistent withan older literature showing Extraversion to be positively related to Authoritarianism and Conservatism (Eysenck & Wilson, 1978;Pearson & Greatorex, 1981; Ray, 1980. (pg. 308)
… we showed that individual differences in both personality traits and political attitudes could be decomposed into genetic and environmental variance components.For personality traits environmental influences were overwhelmingly unique to the individual, except for Social Desirability where there was an important component of shared environmental influence. For attitudes, on the other hand, we saw substantial genetic influences, but large components of shared environmental variance as well. However, the common environmental covariance is likely to be confounded in some part by assortative mating (seeEaves et al., 1999; Eaves & Hatemi, 2008). Indeed, the spousal correlations for Social Desirability was 0.25 and ranged from 0.45 to 0.65for the attitudinal dimensions (p < .001, N = 3535). (pg. 312)
… the more Neurotic our twins were, the more‘‘liberal” their attitudes toward Out-groups (e.g. immigration, multiculturalism).This echoed the relationship found between Neuroticism and more liberal attitudes on economic issues in a large US sample, as the Australia Out-group dimension and the US Economic dimension shared one important item in particular – attitudes to immigration (see Verhulst et al., 2009).One of the most interesting, but least explored, personality traits in the context of political attitudes is Social Desirability.The higher respondents scored on this dimension, the more likely they were to support liberal positions on Religious, Sex, and Punishment attitudes. Overall the relationships between attitudes and Social Desirability were the opposite of the relationships between Psychoticism and attitudes, though substantially weaker.In this study, as in Verhulst et al. (2009), Social Desirability correlated with more liberal social attitudes.In sum, the relationships between Psychoticism, Extraversion,and Neuroticism and all attitude dimensions (Sex, Punishment,and Religious) were largely driven by common genetic influences.For Social Desirability the pattern that emerged was the vast majority of covariation between Social Desirability and each attitude dimension was due to the similarity in shared environment, though this effect was less consistent in males.Regardless of the source of covariance between personality and attitude dimensions, the overwhelming portion of individual differences remained unique to each trait, with one exception– Psychoticism and Sex attitudes shared some 40% of their covariance. (pg. 313)
Political Orientation and Ideological Inconsistencies:(Dis)comfort with Value Tradeoffs (2009); Clayton R. Critcher, Department of Psychology, Cornell University, et. al.
Consistent with this notion, Kruglanski, Pierro, Mannetti, and De Grada (2006) argued that those who are higher in a need for cognitive closure show evidence of group-centrism—a ‘‘syndrome’’that includes pressures toward attitude uniformity, rejection of deviates, and the perpetuation of group norms. (pg. 23)
Differing in their needs for cognitive closure, liberals and conservatives react to ideological inconsistencies in separate ways. By seizing on situationally salient values to guide their positions on political issues, conservatives can satisfy their need for closure both by quickly formulating a political position and by deemphasizing ways in which their policy positions are inconsistent with their values. (pg. 23)
From Group Identity to Political Cohesion and Commitment (2013); Leonie Huddy, Stony Brook University
Group identification involves a subjective sense of membership and can take different forms,including social identity or perceived common fate. There is growing consensus that political cohesion revolves centrally around social identity which involves the incorporation of group membership into the self concept. According to Tajfel, a social identity involves an individual’s “knowledge of his membership in a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to the membership” (Tajfel 1981, p.255). This also fits Campbell and colleagues’ (1960) definition of partisan identification in The American Voter as not only a set of beliefs but also feelings which culminate in a sense of “psychological attachment” to a political group – in this instance, Democrats or Republicans. An emphasis on a subjective sense of belonging or identification as a precursor to political cohesion helps to explain why not all groups cohere politically.Finally, a political identity is a social identity with political relevance. It typically entails an identity as part of a group with norms concerning shared political beliefs, and the “correct” group position on a political candidate, political party, policy issue, or course of political action. (pg 4)
Social constructivism – the notion that concepts derive their meaning through social processes – underlies a good deal of thinking across the contemporary social sciences and humanities.The notion that groups are social constructions that need to be imbued with meaning is implicit within social identity and self-categorization theory which stress the ease with which social groups and social identities can be created among members of arbitrarily designated groups. As a number of critics have noted, however, social identity theorists have explored the socially fluid nature of identities but have not closely examined or analyzed their meaning (Duveen, 2001; Huddy, 2001; Reicher 2004). From asocial constructivist perspective, it is difficult to understand the consequences of group identification without understanding its subjective meaning to group members (Billig, 1995). This may be especially true for politically relevant identities which are often the target of political manipulation – efforts by politicians and group entrepreneurs to create, define, and redefine identities to serve their political ends (Erikson, 1993; Reicher 2004). (pg.12)
Not all strong, subjective group identities translate readily into group-based solidarity, however,and other factors are needed to understand the development of political cohesion. The second factor considered here is what group membership means to members, especially its implications for politicalbehavior (Deaux, 1993; Sellers et al., 1998). Group membership gains political content through norms and beliefs that connect group membership to specific political attitudes and actions. As noted, some groups, based for example on partisanship and ideology, are inherently political and guaranteed to generate political cohesion among strong identifiers. Other groups can attain political meaning through the formation and existence of group norms that prescribe group members’ specific beliefs or political actions. Groups can also acquire political meaning through the influence of group prototypes or leaders who advocate certain beliefs and policy positions or take specific political action. (pg. 18)
Group power, status, and culture all constitute symbolic interests and their threatened loss can produce opposition to the threatening out group and support for government policies designed to minimize the threat. Sniderman, Hagendoorn & Prior (2004) exposed Dutch participants to various scenarios concerning new immigrants and found less opposition to unskilled immigrants who might pose an economic threat than to immigrants who did not fit into Dutch culture and thus posed a symbolic threat. Moreover, a strong Dutch identity increased the perception that immigrants posed a cultural threat to the Netherlands, in a process akin to the intensification of realistic grievances among strong group identifiers. Symbolic grievances may be especially prone to identity-based intensification sincet hey are highly subjective and more difficult to document than economic grievances. In addition,priming Dutch national identity increased opposition to the entry of new immigrants especially among Dutch participants who initially saw little cultural threat from immigrants. Other studies report similar findings in which cultural threat interacts with national identity to increase outgroup discrimination(Falomir-Pichastor, Gabarrot, &Mugny 2009). (pg. 28)
Generating a norm of outrage among group members was especially effective in arousing anger, a commitment to action, and in boosting group identity. Inculcating a norm of efficacy was far less successful in arousing a commitment to action. In this research, anger thus strengthens group identity, a finding that has obvious implications for the formation and cohesion of political groups. (pg. 33)
One of the crucial ingredients in the development of political cohesion is the existence of a strong, internalized subjective group identity. (pg. 36)
Duckitt and Mphuthing (2002) underscore the greater power of symbolic than economic threat in intensifying social identity. They report that black-African students in South Africa who were upset or angry about differences between the socio-economic status of black Africans and white Afrikaans identified more strongly as African. They interpret this as consistent with the effects of symbolic not economic threat because economic differences are far more pronounced between blacks and English speaking whites than between blacks and white Afrikaans but the perceived economic differences with English whites had no impact on black African identity. (pg. 44)
Disgust Sensitivity and the Neurophysiology of Left-Right Political Orientations. (2011); Kevin B. Smith, Department of Political Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, et. al.
Mounting evidence points to the relevance of subconscious factors in broad social, decision-making situations [36–38] and in specifically political decision-making situations [39–48]. The established role of such factors opens the door for the possible involvement of biological variables, including hormone and neurotransmitter levels [49–52] and neural traits and patterns[7,53–56]. This stream of research is not entirely consistent with the general thrust in political science research which holds that political orientations come from ‘‘direct involvement with the raw materials of politics’’ and are shielded from extraneous influences[57,58] and as such has the potential to alter knowledge of the source of political orientations. (pg. 8)
The central implication of our research is that, whether the relevant raw material of political attitudes is entirely environmental or partially innate, these attitudes sometimes become biologically instantiated in involuntary physiological responses to facets of life far detached from the political issues of the day. Moreover, our results indicate that this biological instantiation makes a difference even when controlling for the effects of survey self-reports. To put it differently, the proper interpretation of the findings reported here is not that biology causes politics or that politics causes biology but that certain political orientations at some unspecified point become housed in our biology, with meaningful political consequences. Acceptance of the role of involuntary physiological responses is not easy for many people. Most are proud of their political orientations, believe them to be rational responses to the world around them, and are reluctant to concede that subconscious predispositions play any role in shaping them. Indeed, since the predispositions are in part subconscious, people are by definition unaware of them. (pp. 8-9)
Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in political ideology. (2014); John R. Hibbing, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Kevin B. Smith, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; John R. Alford, Rice University.
In this article we make the case that variations in physiological and psychological responses to a particular category of stimuli – those that are negative (or aversive) –correlate with political orientations. It is well-known that on the average people respond and pay more attention to negative than to positive stimuli (Baumeister et al. 2001).Our interest, however, is in individual variation around the “average.” Certain individuals respond strongly and attend concertedly to negative stimuli; others less strongly.We reason that this variation is likely to correlate with the political positions endorsed by each individual. Hypothesizing a connection between political orientations and psychological/physiological responses is encouraged by the intraperson longitudinal stability of each. (pg. 299)
Jonathan Haidt and colleagues demonstrate convincingly that liberals and conservatives tend to employ different considerations when making moral judgments. Liberals rely primarily on concerns for equality and harm avoidance,whereas conservatives are more likely to take into account considerations such as purity, authority, and ingroup/out-group status (Graham et al. 2009; Haidt &Graham 2007; Haidt & Joseph 2004). As was the case with personality traits and core values, these connections f moral foundations to politics apply in numerous countries (Graham et al. 2009; for additional work on the political relevance of selected moral foundations, see Petersen2009). The connection between purity concerns and conservatism is consistent with the previously mentioned finding that conservatives tend to have more cleaning supplies in their living spaces (Carney et al. 2008). It is also consistent with the finding (replicated cross-nationally)that people with stronger self-reported disgust are more conservative (Inbar et al. 2009a; 2012b; but see Tyburet al. 2010). (pg. 300)
Liberal-conservative differences even extend to tastes and preferences. Compared to liberals, conservatives are more likely to prefer simplicity and realism as opposed to complexity and abstractions in art (Wilson et al. 1973)and puns as opposed to unexpected incongruity in humor(Wilson 1990). A recently collected sample of our own shows statistically significant relationships between political conservatism and preferences for familiar as opposed to unfamiliar foods and music, for poetry that rhymes, and for novels that come to closure (Neiman 2012).This last finding is consistent with a substantial body of research investigating the relationship between political beliefs and the “need for cognitive closure.”(pg. 301)
Compared with liberals, conservatives tend to have stronger implicit attachments to tradition, stability,long-held values, conformity, and order (Jost et al. 2008).Young (2009) finds conservatives are more likely to be“hard categorizers” and liberals “soft categorizers,” suggesting that conservatives have a lower tolerance for ambiguity and are more likely to view the world in strongly defined categories (see also Rock & Janoff-Bulman 2010).Conservative-liberal differences also appear in the way individuals extract and process information from their environments. (pg. 301)
… self-identified liberals tend to have more gray matter in the ACC, whereas self-identified conservatives tend to have increased volume in the right amygdala.Though the amygdala has been connected to intense positive, as well as negative affect processing, these results are consistent with the aforementioned self-regulating, conflict-monitoring differences between liberals and conservatives and with differences in response to threats and facial emotions (responses that have been traced to the amygdala).These similarities lead Kanai et al. to note that their results“converge with previous work to suggest a possible link between brain structure and psychological mechanisms that mediate political attitudes”. (pg. 302)
Liberals and conservatives vary in their tolerance of social equality and change, their moral foundations, their values, and even their perceptions of the nature and perfectibility of the human condition (Graham et al. 2009; Jost et al. 2003; Pinker 2002, Ch. 16; Schwartz et al.2010; see also Sowell 1987; Tomkins 1963). (pg. 303)
That some people are more attuned to potential threats, more sensitive to sources of contagion, and more desirous of in-group protections is known intuitively and amply demonstrated by a large research literature. These individual differences seem to be stable over time and generalize to a broad category of stimuli (sounds, words, and images; see Norris et al. 2010). (pg. 303)
Documented differences in response patterns extend beyond overtly threatening situations and into those that are more broadly negative. Environmental stimuli that are unexpected, ambiguous, uncertain, or disorderly also appear to generate more response and attention from conservatives than liberals at a variety of levels, including brain activation patterns, sympathetic nervous system response,cognitive behaviors, and self-reports. In many respects,compared with liberals, conservatives tend to be more psychologically and physiologically sensitive to environmental stimuli generally but in particular to stimuli that are negatively valenced, whether threatening or merely unexpected and unstructured. The consistency of these patterns across diverse research designs with diverse samples in different countries is difficult to miss. In fact, we know of no published study pointing in the opposite direction (i.e., that liberals respond more to negative stimuli or are more bothered by ambiguous or unexpected stimuli). (pg. 303)
As a result, conservatives are less likely both to solicit new, potentially harmful information and to retain positive information concerning an object or perhaps a person or group (Castelli & Carraro 2011; Shook & Fazio2009). Consequently, not only do political positions favoring defense spending, roadblocks to immigration, and harsh treatment of criminals seem naturally to mesh with heightened response to threatening stimuli but those fostering conforming unity (school children reciting the pledge of allegiance), traditional lifestyles (opposition to gay marriage), enforced personal responsibility (opposition to welfare programs and government provided healthcare),longstanding sources of authority (Biblical inerrancy; literal, unchanging interpretations of the Constitution), and clarity and closure (abstinence-only sex education; signed pledges to never raise taxes; aversion to compromise) do,as well. Heightened response to the general category of negative stimuli fits comfortably with a great many of the typical tenets of political conservatism. (pp. 303-4)
When considered in totality, the worldview differences between conservatives and progressives are so systematic and consistent, and are the product of such stable and ingrained characteristics (psychological, social and biological), that we really do inhabit different worlds, even when we find ourselves in the same context, exposed to the same information.