Revisiting the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis: A meta-analytic review.

Abstract

The rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis (RRH), which posits that cognitive, motivational, and ideological rigidity resonate with political conservatism, is an influential but controversial psychological account of political ideology. Here, we leverage several methodological and theoretical sources of this controversy to conduct an extensive quantitative review with the dual aims of probing the RRH's basic assumptions and parsing the RRH literature's heterogeneity. Using multilevel meta-analyses of relations between varieties of rigidity and ideology measures alongside a bevy of potential moderators (s = 329, k = 708, N = 187,612), we find that associations between conservatism and rigidity are tremendously heterogeneous, suggesting a complex-yet conceptually fertile-network of relations between these constructs. Most notably, whereas social conservatism was robustly associated with rigidity, associations between economic conservatism and rigidity indicators were inconsistent, small, and not statistically significant outside of the United States. Moderator analyses revealed that nonrepresentative sampling, criterion contamination, and disproportionate use of American samples have yielded overestimates of associations between rigidity-related constructs and conservatism in past research. We resolve that drilling into this complexity, thereby moving beyond the question of if conservatives are essentially rigid to when and why they might or might not be, will help provide a more realistic account of the psychological underpinnings of political ideology.

Does framing climate change policies to fit with epistemic needs for predictability reduce conservatives’ opposition?

“…It is possible that conservatives only indicate stronger closure needs if they interpret these questions with a political mindset. This connects to a recent meta‐analysis on conservatism and rigidity that established a similar moderation (Costello et al., 2023).…”

Behavioral extremity moderates the association between certainty in attitudes about COVID and willingness to engage in mitigation‐related behaviors

“…It is unclear how serious this limitation is, however. Prior literature would seem to predict stronger effects on the anti‐mitigation side, given that conservatism (vs. liberalism) is often associated with less tolerance of uncertainty (Costello et al., 2022) and opposition to mitigation policies was associated in the U.S. with conservatism (Gadarian et al., 2021). Fourth and finally, because we recruited online and student convenience samples in the U.S., we cannot determine how broadly our results generalize beyond these populations.…”

The neurobiology of political ideology: Theories, findings, and future directions

“…A longstanding theory holds that conservative ideology is a product of resistance to belief-updating, which is said to encourage absolutist judgements and strict adherence to received wisdom (Adorno et al, 1950;Jost et al, 2003;Rokeach, 1960). In accordance with this perspective, social conservatism predicts poorer performance on behavioral measures of cognitive updating (Costello et al, 2023), whereas conservatives outperform liberals in tasks requiring perseverance and consistency (Buechner et al, 2021). Meanwhile, there is growing evidence that the concern with suffering and injustice that characterizes economic liberalism is motivated, in part, by sensitivity to anxiety that increases anticipation of and aversion to harm (Bondü & Inerle, 2020;Helminen et al, 2022;Panish & Delton, 2023).…”

“…Due to a lack of socially conservative subjects,Pedersen et al (2018) are limited to using economic conservatism as a predictor variable. Thus, the results of this study do not necessarily contradict theorizing and findings primarily focused on social conservatism (e.g.,Hibbing et al, 2014;Tritt et al, 2013).3Ahn et al (2014) also report no differences in liberal and conservative responses to high-salience threatening images.4 It should also be noted that these relationships do not always hold and are sometimes reversed for economic conservatism(Costello et al, 2023;Malka et al, 2019).…”