Predicting Ideological Prejudice

Abstract

A major shortcoming of current models of ideological prejudice is that although they can anticipate the direction of the association between participants’ ideology and their prejudice against a range of target groups, they cannot predict the size of this association. I developed and tested models that can make specific size predictions for this association. A quantitative model that used the perceived ideology of the target group as the primary predictor of the ideology-prejudice relationship was developed with a representative sample of Americans (N = 4,940) and tested against models using the perceived status of and choice to belong to the target group as predictors. In four studies (total N = 2,093), ideology-prejudice associations were estimated, and these observed estimates were compared with the models’ predictions. The model that was based only on perceived ideology was the most parsimonious with the smallest errors.

Right‐ and left‐wing prejudice toward dissimilar groups in cultural and economic domains

“…Our dependent variables were attitudes toward the target person as assessed on a feeling thermometer (e.g., Brandt, 2017). For this measure, participants rated their feelings toward the target person on a 10point scale, ranging from 0°to 100°.…”

Ideological measurement in social and political psychology

“…Instead, by manipulating the ideological salience of scientific findings, found that liberal and conservative partisans interpret scientific findings in a symmetric way, with these judgments being driven by perceptions about the ideological stances of research teams, and the potential for political use of scientific findings (see also Nisbet, Cooper, & Garrett, 2015). This conclusion is consistent with Brandt's (2017) work about the roots of ideological prejudice (see also Brandt & Crawford, 2019;Crawford et al, 2014; , as well as prior theorizing about the psychological basis of science denial among conservatives (Gauchat, 2012;Mooney, 2005).…”

“…Despite the clear temperamental, cognitive, and personality differences between political liberals and conservatives at the trait level (Jost, 2017a;Jost et al, 2003), there appears to be a substantial degree of symmetry in partisans' behavioral and/or situational interactions with political stimuli across the ideological spectrum (for a brief review, see Clark & Winegard, 2020). For example, Brandt (2017) reported an analysis that showed how both liberals and conservatives express prejudice (operationalized using feeling thermometers in relation to positivity and/or negativity toward different groups) against a range of targets who are popularly linked with the opposite side of the ideological spectrum. For example, American liberals expressed warmth (i.e., liking) toward groups such as homosexuals, transgendered people, and Democrats, while disliking Christians and Republicans.…”

“…More direct evidence of public perceptions of ideological interference was reported by Hannikainen (2019), who reported in four studies how lay members of the public believe that social scientists' choices of study topics are at least partly driven by the scientists' personal beliefs or ideologies. While this does not indicate a causal relationship between public perceptions of social scientist ideologies and distrust of their findings, such an argument does begin to emerge once one considers that perceptions of group-based moral values appear to be associated with group-based prejudice (Brandt, 2017;Crawford, Brandt, Inbar, Chambers, & Motyl, 2017;Wetherell, Brandt, & Reyna, 2013). Further, the ideological reading of science predicts a motivated rejection of accurate interpretations of social scientific data .…”

Social psychological research on prejudice as collective action supporting emergent ingroup members

“…Again, this seems consistent with the shifting focus from old‐fashioned to modern forms of prejudice (Dovidio, Gaertner, & Pearson, ). Indeed, the influence of politics in prejudice research has been cited in work on ideological conflict (Brandt, ), concept creep (Haslam, ), and politics and science (Duarte et al ., ). From this view, there is no need to consider emergent social identities.…”