Identifying the domains of ideological similarities and differences in attitudes

Abstract

Liberals and conservatives disagree, but are there some domains where we are more or less likely to observe ideological differences? To map the types of attitudes where we may be more or less likely to observe ideological differences, we draw on two approaches, the elective affinities approach, which suggests individual differences explains differences between liberals and conservatives, and the divergent content approach, which posits the key distinction between ideologues are their value orientations. The goal of the current research was to explore when and why liberals and conservatives disagree. We tested whether ideological differences are more likely to emerge in attitudes characterized by threat, complexity, morality, political ideology, religious ideology, or harm (as compared to objects not characterized by these domains) using both explicit and implicit measures of 190 attitude objects. While all domains predicted ideological differences, the political domain was the only significant predictor of ideological differences when controlling for the other domains. This study provides insight into which attitudes we are most and least likely to find ideological differences.

Ratings of Reasons for Disagreement about 95 Attitude Object Pairs and 190 Attitude Objects

“…We restricted the study to American citizens who are also American residents using Prolific's builtin screening tool. Participants from a prior pilot study (reported in [5]) and from Rating Sample 1 were not allowed to participate. Participants were paid £0.90.…”

“…The data collected here can be used for multiple purposes. First, it can be combined with AIID data, like we have done [5], to test additional hypotheses about attitudes. For example, AIID includes additional measures of attitude strength, personality, and demographic information that may have different correlates for different types of attitudes.…”

“…To answer these questions and to start mapping the space of ideological similarities and differences we [5] analysed data from the Attitudes, Identities, and Individual Differences (AIID) Study [6]. Using the AIID, we estimated the size of ideological differences on both self-report and reaction time/implicit measures of attitudes for 95 attitude pairs (e.g., Gay People -Straight People, Security -Freedom) and self-report measures of attitudes for 190 individual attitudes (e.g., Gay People, Straight People, Security, Freedom).…”

“…For example, some theories suggest that ideological differences arise from ideological differences in dispositions for complexity and threat [4]. Other theories suggest that ideological differences primarily arise from differences in political, moral, or religious values [2,7] (for more justification for the use of these constructs see [5]). Therefore, we asked these new samples of participants to rate the extent to which disagreement over the attitude pair or the individual attitudes was due to reasons related to threat, complexity, morality, politics, religion, or harm.…”