Speaking (Un‐)Truth to Power: Conspiracy Mentality as a Generalised Political Attitude

Conspiracy theories explain complex world events with reference to secret plots hatched by powerful groups. Belief in such theories is largely determined by a general propensity towards conspirational thinking. Such a conspiracy mentality can be understood as a generalised political attitude, distinct from established generalised political attitudes such as right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) (Study 1a, N = 497) that is temporally relatively stable (Study 1b and 1c, total N = 196). Three further studies (combined N = 854) show that in contrast to RWA and SDO, conspiracy mentality is related to prejudice against high‐power groups that are perceived as less likeable and more threatening than low‐power groups, whereas SDO and RWA are associated with an opposite reaction to perceptions of power. Study 5 (N = 1852) investigates the relationship of conspiracy mentality with political behavioural intentions in a specific catastrophic scenario (i.e. the damage to the Fukushima nuclear reactor after the 2011 tsunami in Japan) revealing a hitherto neglected role of conspiracy mentality in motivating social action aimed at changing the status quo. Copyright © 2013 European Association of Personality Psychology.     

Interest and Expertise Moderate the Relationship between Right‐Wing Attitudes,Ideological Self‐Placement and Voting

Previous research has suggested that the association between right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) is moderated by political interest and involvement. It is here hypothesized that interest also strengthens the association of authoritarianism with political self‐placement and that higher levels of interest in politics shape voting choices that are more strongly associated with authoritarianism. Authoritarianism was defined as a second‐order factor reflecting onto SDO and RWA in a structural equation modelling approach. In Study 1 (two samples, total N = 873), interest was found to moderate the impact of authoritarianism, as hypothesized. In Study 2 (N = 721), a higher order interaction involving interest and political expertise was detected. These results were obtained with different measures and in different electoral campaigns. The motivational and cognitive underpinnings of the moderating effects are discussed. Copyright © 2012 European Association of Personality Psychology.     

The Suppression and Justification of Prejudice as a Function of Political Orientation

Politically conservative (versus liberal) individuals generally report more prejudice towards various low‐status out‐groups. Three studies examined whether prejudice suppression factors—specifically, internal and external motivation to suppress (IMS and EMS, respectively) prejudice—can help explain the relationship between political orientation and prejudice. Study 1 showed that IMS and EMS partially mediated the relationship between political orientation and affective prejudice towards Arabs. Study 2 demonstrated that when justification [right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation] and suppression (IMS and EMS) factors are simultaneously tested as mediators, only RWA partially mediated the relationship between political orientation and prejudice towards deviant (e.g. gay men) out‐groups, whereas RWA and IMS fully mediated the relationship between political orientation and prejudice towards derogated out‐groups (e.g. Blacks). Intriguingly, IMS rendered social dominance orientation effects non‐significant for derogated out‐groups. Study 3 showed that anticipating an out‐group interaction (with a Black or lesbian confederate) diminished the mediational contribution of IMS in the political orientation–prejudice relationship because of increased IMS among participants; yet the increases in IMS did not completely eliminate differences in prejudice as a function of political orientation. Ultimately, these three studies demonstrate that suppression (in addition to justification) factors do help explain the relationship between political orientation and prejudice. Copyright © 2013 European Association of Personality Psychology.     

Early Positive Information Impacts Final Evaluations: No Deliberation‐Without‐Attention Effect and a Test of a Dynamic Judgment Model

Evaluation judgments were affected by information order and not by subsequent unconscious versus conscious deliberation. In three experiments, we examined the influence of early positive information on final evaluations of four objects. Based on a task analysis, we predicted primacy effects in judgments in a sequential data acquisition task. Thinking periods following presentation were used to manipulate conscious or unconscious processing. In all three studies, we found no effects of thinking manipulations but instead found reliable order effects. We developed and tested an online judgment model on the basis of the belief updating model of Hogarth and Einhorn. The model accounted for large proportion of the individual level variability, and model comparison tests supported the presence of a primacy effect. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Confirmatory Search and Asymmetric Dominance

Decision makers use confirmatory search strategies in judgment tasks. As a result of this, their attention towards task‐relevant cues is biased in favor of cues supporting available responses. Changing these responses can alter the cues used in the judgment task and, subsequently, alter beliefs. We use this mechanism to predict and explain the emergence of the asymmetric dominance effect in judgment. In four sets of experiments, we document systematic changes in belief, as dominated options are added to the response set. These effects emerge for a number of naturalistic judgment tasks and are mediated by the increased accessibility of decoy‐supporting cues. Finally, these effects can be eliminated when the decision maker's attention is drawn towards the cues supporting the non‐dominant response. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social dominance orientation predicts drive for muscularity among British men

The present study tested the hypothesis that men's drive for muscularity would be associated with their valuation of domination, power, status, and aggression over others. A community sample of 359 men from London, UK, completed measures of drive for muscularity, social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, trait aggression, and need for power, as well as their demographic details. Bivariate correlations showed that greater drive for muscularity was significantly correlated with most of the measures and their subscales. However, in a multiple regression analysis, the only significant predictor of drive for muscularity was support for group-based dominance hierarchies (Adj. R² = .17). These results suggest that men's drive for muscularity is associated with a socio-political ideology that favours social dominance.     

Language dominance in translation priming: Evidence from balanced and unbalanced Chinese–English bilinguals

It is well established in the masked translation priming literature that the priming effect is sensitive to language direction with noncognates—namely, the priming effect is consistently observed from first language (L1) to second language (L2), but not always from L2 to L1. Several recent reports demonstrated both L1–L2 and L2–L1 priming and attributed the restoration of L2–L1 priming to high proficiency in L2. Here, the current study tested two groups of highly proficient Chinese–English bilinguals, with one group more dominant in English and the other more balanced in both languages. The L2–L1 priming effect was only observed with the balanced bilinguals, but not the English-dominant ones. Based on these results, I argue that the language proficiency account is not sufficient to explain the priming asymmetry and that the relative bilingual balance is a more accurate account. Theoretically, the cross-language balance is determined by the representational difference between L1 and L2 at the semantic level. I discuss the results in relation to various bilingual models, in particular, the sense model and the distributional representational model (DRM), which capture the semantic representations of bilinguals.     

Lexical stress,frequency, and stress neighbourhood effects in the early stages of Italian reading development

We examined the development of stress assignment in reading Italian aloud. We investigated frequency effects as a marker of the use of item-specific lexical knowledge in assigning stress together with stress dominance and stress neighbourhood (the number of words sharing both stress and ending) as markers of distributional information regarding properties of the lexicon extracted from spoken language. We tested second- and fourth-graders in a reading-aloud experiment including high- and low-frequency words and nonwords. Results show that despite the regularity of orthography–phonology mappings in Italian and the predominant use of phonological recoding procedures, item-specific lexical knowledge is also used, even by beginning readers. The frequency effect was significant and did not increase with age, while stress errors on low-frequency words decreased with increasing grade. Stress neighbourhood increasingly affected stress assignment on nonwords with older children. Taken together, our findings show that both item-specific knowledge and general information about stress distribution are relevant in children's reading, suggesting the simultaneous use of both lexical and sublexical information. Moreover, as the reading system develops, and knowledge about the relative distribution of stress neighbourhood increases, larger grain-size units are also exploited.     

Prospective Associations Between Prosocial Behavior and Social Dominance in Early Childhood: Are Sharers the Best Leaders?

A short-term longitudinal study during early childhood (N = 96; M = 42.80; SD = 7.57) investigated the concurrent and prospective association between prosocial behavior and social dominance. Time-intensive school-based focal child sampling with continuous recording observations of prosocial behavior to peers were conducted and teacher-reports of social dominance were collected. The study documents significant prospective links between prosocial behavior to peers and increases in social dominance over time. Social dominance was not associated with changes in prosocial behavior. The findings extend past empirical work in early childhood and future directions are discussed.     

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

According to moral foundations theory (Haidt & Joseph, 2004), five foundations are central to moral intuition. The two individualizing foundations—harm/care and fairness/reciprocity—hinge on the rights of the individual, whereas the three binding foundations—in‐group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity—focus on communal bonds. Recent work suggests that reliance on the various foundations varies as a function of sociopolitical orientation: liberals consistently rely on the individualizing foundations, whereas conservatives rely on both the individualizing and binding foundations. In an effort to further explore the relationship between sociopolitical orientation and morality, we argue that only certain types of sociopolitical attitudes and beliefs should relate to each cluster of foundations. Drawing on dual‐process models of social and political attitudes, we demonstrate that the individualizing foundations are aligned with attitudes and beliefs relevant to preferences for equality versus inequality (i.e., SDO and competitive‐jungle beliefs), whereas the binding foundations are aligned with attitudes and beliefs relevant to preferences for openness versus social conformity (i.e., RWA and dangerous‐world beliefs). We conclude by discussing the consequences of these findings for our understanding of the relationship between sociopolitical and moral orientations.