Using Identity Style and Parental Identification to Predict Political Orientation

Abstract

There has been a recent increase in interest in the psychological differences and antecedents related to political orientation. Personality, disgust sensitivity, attachment, and closeness to parents have all been found or have been theorized to be predictive of political orientation. These variables and the additional roles played by normative identity style and parental identification were examined. The results showed that normative identity style is associated with political orientation and that the role played by parental identification depends on the perceived parental political ranking, the gender of the parent, and the measure used to examine political orientation. No support was found for Lakoff's (2002) model of parenting and political orientation.Recently there has been a surge in interest in the psychological foundations of political orientation (Jost 2006). While a significant portion of the variance in political orientation is explained by individual genetic differences (Alford et al. 2005), heritability estimates of political attitudes show that both shared and nonshared environmental effects explain sizable amounts of variance for attitudes on the majority of political issues studied. Also, genes do not directly influence political orientation (i.e., there are not genes for being a Democrat or Republican) and therefore the variance explained by heritability estimates on political attitudes is due to any number of mediating psychological variables. The search for these Curr Psychol (2012) 31:65-78

Adult Attachment Style and Political Ideology

“…Primes were unrelated to liberalism/conservativism and are not discussed further. Dunkel and Decker (2012) found that ambivalent and avoidant attachments were related to liberalism, and Thornhill and Fincher (2007) observed that secure attachments were associated with an indicator of conservatism, C-Scale scores. In contrast, Weise et al (2008) reported that security of attachment was associated with liberal ideology.…”

“…Research on adult attachment and ideology. Studies of adult attachment as a psychological aspect of political ideology in college students, either in experiments or surveys in the United States, yield conflicting results (Dunkel & Decker, 2012;Gillath & Hart, 2010;Koleva & Rip, 2009;Thornhill & Fincher, 2007;Weber & Federico, 2007;Weise et al, 2008). Student samples diverge enough from nonstudent samples in political interest and knowledge and other characteristics that general population samples should be preferred when studying such constructs (Koleva & Rip, 2009).…”

“…Four student studies of adult attachment style and ideology measured ideology as conservatism/liberalism (Dunkel & Decker, 2012;Thornhill & Fincher, 2007;Weber & Federico, 2007;Weise et al, 2008). Three also included social dominance orientation (SDO) and/or right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), concepts not part of the present research (Thornhill & Fincher, 2007;Weber & Federico, 2007;Weise et al, 2008).…”

“…The student studies varied in how they operationalized attachment. Two relied on the Adult Attachment Questionnaire (AAQ; Dunkel & Decker, 2012;Thornhill & Fincher, 2007), one used the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) measure (Weber & Federico, 2007), and one used the Relationship Scales Questionnaire (RSQ; Weise et al, 2008).…”

“…Different attachment styles may condition different ideological worldviews (Buck, 2014;Roccato, Russo, & Senestro, 2013;Thornhill & Fincher, 2007;Weber & Federico, 2007). Only a few studies have examined the relationship of adult attachment relational styles to ideology, mainly in college student samples in the United States, 1 and their results differ (Dunkel & Decker, 2012;Gillath & Hart, 2010;Koleva & Rip, 2009;Thornhill & Fincher, 2007;Weber & Federico, 2007;Weise et al, 2008). The objective of the present research was to study ideology and attachment in general population samples.…”