Political Expertise, Social Worldviews, and Ideology: Translating “Competitive Jungles” and “Dangerous Worlds” into Ideological Reality

Abstract

The psychological bases of ideology have received renewed attention amid growing political polarization. Nevertheless, little research has examined how one's understanding of political ideas might moderate the relationship between ''pre-political'' psychological variables and ideology. In this paper, we fill this gap by exploring how expertise influences citizens' ability to select ideological orientations that match their psychologically rooted worldviews. We find that expertise strengthens the relationship between two basic social worldviews-competitivejungle beliefs and dangerous-world beliefs and left-right self-placement. Moreover, expertise strengthens these relationships by boosting the impact of the worldviews on two intervening ideological attitude systems-social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism. These results go beyond previous work on expertise and ideology, suggesting that expertise strengthens not only relationships between explicitly political attitudes but also the relationship between political attitudes and their psychological antecedents.

A Dual‐Process Motivational Model of Social and Economic Policy Attitudes

“…The two major dimensions of ideological attitudes, according to the DPM, do tend to correlate with a general liberal-conservative dimension of political ideology (Federico, Hunt, & Ergun, 2009;Weber & Federico, 2007), and correlate with one another to varying degrees depending on the sociopolitical context (Duriez et al, 2005) and individual differences including political expertise and involvement (Duriez et al, 2005;Federico et al, 2009). Nevertheless, the range of evidence demonstrating two distinct dimensions of social and economic political ideology that correspond to the motivational goals underlying SDO and RWA (Duckitt, 2001) suggests a DPM framework in which distinct cognitive pathways differentially determine political attitude domains, supporting recent claims that social and economic political ideology should be treated as distinct (e.g., Feldman & Johnston, 2009).…”

On the Left and Right Ideological Divide: Historical Accounts and Contemporary Perspectives

“…Considerable evidence suggests that the relationship between the self‐reported personality and ideological orientation is stronger among sophisticated voters and members of political elites than among the general electorate, due to their higher levels of political involvement and expertise. This has been demonstrated not only for basic traits and values (Caprara, Francescato, Mebane, Sorace, & Vecchione, ), but also for other personality characteristics (e.g., Federico, Fisher, & Deason, ; Federico & Goren, ; Federico, Hunt, & Ergun, ; Putnam, ; Tetlock, ). Paraphrasing Converse (), it is likely that sophisticated voters are more constrained than the general electorate to present a personal view of themselves that is congruent with the ideals they advocate.…”

Mapping the Connections between Politics and Morality: The Multiple Sociopolitical Orientations Involved in Moral Intuition

“…This was measured using a 13‐item version of Duckitt's () Competitive‐Jungle Scale (Federico et al., ). Sample items included: “It's a dog‐eat‐dog world where you have to be ruthless at times” and “Winning is not the first thing; it's the only thing.” All items were recoded to indicate a stronger belief that the world is a competitive jungle (α = .86, M = 2.89, SD = .93, in Sample 1; α = 0.82, M = 3.19, SD = 0.82, in Sample 2).…”

“…RWA was measured using a shortened 12‐item version of the Right‐Wing Authoritarianism Scale comprised of items that have appeared consistently on successive versions of the instrument (Federico et al., ). Sample items included: “Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children can learn” and “It may be considered old‐fashioned by some, but having a decent, respectable appearance is still the mark of a gentleman and, especially, a lady.” All items were recoded so that higher scores indicated greater RWA (α = .76, M = 4.04, SD = .88, in Sample 1; α = 0.74, M = 4.51, SD = 0.76, in Sample 2).…”