Antecedents of political trust in adolescence: Cognitive abilities and perceptions of parents

This study examined the predictors of political trust in late adolescence. Three waves of longitudinal data (ages 11, 15, and 17) from 1116 Czech adolescents (346 participated at least in the first and last wave) were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results showed that high verbal cognitive ability in early adolescence predicted greater political trust in late adolescence. This effect was explained by adolescents' greater cognitive political engagements, but not by their more positive relationships with authorities (e.g., school or parents) during adolescence. Next, early adolescents who perceived more parental warmth demonstrated greater political trust when they reached late adolescence. These results suggest that some young people might enter adulthood more skeptical regarding politics based on their abilities and early nonpolitical experiences.     

Altruism at the ballots: Predicting political attitudes and behavior

The role of stable individual differences for political ideologies is quite undisputed. Herein, we add texture to the recent finding that dispositional altruism plays a noteworthy role for political orientation. More precisely, besides aiming to replicate this link, we assumed that altruism also influences hypothetical and actual voting behavior as well as endorsement of specific, currently debated political agendas. In a study which comprised two times of measurement prior to and after a nation-wide election in Germany, support for these hypotheses was obtained. Indeed, dispositional altruism was shown to consistently predict both attitudinal and behavioral criteria in the realm of politics.     

Tracing the threads: How five moral concerns (especially Purity) help explain culture war attitudes

Commentators have noted that the issue stands taken by each side of the American “culture war” lack conceptual consistency and can even seem contradictory. We sought to understand the psychological underpinnings of culture war attitudes using Moral Foundations Theory. In two studies involving 24,739 participants and 20 such issues (e.g. abortion, immigration, same-sex marriage), we found that endorsement of five moral foundations predicted judgments about these issues over and above ideology, age, gender, religious attendance, and interest in politics. Our results suggest that dispositional tendencies, particularly a person’s moral intuitions, may underlie, motivate, and unite ideological positions across a variety of issues and offer new insights into the multiple “moral threads” connecting disparate political positions.     

Moral sentiment predicts desire for Scottish independence

Scottish independence has been a topic of considerable political debate for some time, with the 2014 referendum concerning whether Scotland should remain a part of the United Kingdom testament to this fact. Numerous economic and political factors have been noted as determinants of the referendum vote. However, the role of psychological factors as a predictor of the desire for independence has not been well explored despite much work demonstrating the importance of specific traits and values on a range of socio-political attitudes. In the current study, using a sample of Scottish adults (n = 271), we sought to examine how two core constructs capturing moral sentiment – binding (reflecting concern for group cohesion and norms) and individualizing (reflecting concern over individual rights) – predicted the desire for independence during the build-up to the referendum. Results indicated that lower binding and higher individualizing predicted a desire for independence, with evidence for mediation via Scottish identification. These findings are consistent with the notion that the Scottish independence movement can be viewed as a broadly left-wing phenomenon. More generally, these results provide novel evidence in a charged political debate that moral sentiments concerning how individual and group life should be structured play a significant role in explaining individual differences in political sentiment.     

Religious toleration and the limits of liberal secularism: The case of India

ABSTRACT

In recent years there has been a resurgence of public discourse about the role of tolerance as one of the key elements of the Western philosophical heritage. The fact that Western societies remain largely oblivious to the importance and benefits of diversity points to the pitfalls of the liberal model of religious toleration. Jakob De Roover’s monograph ‘Europe, India, and the Limits of Secularism’ offers a new analysis of the deficiencies of secularism and demonstrates why its application to other societies, such as India, is a problematic enterprise. This article argues that Comparative Political Theory has the potential to help forge new conceptual categories and analytical tools that can be utilized to explore diverse modes of tackling religious diversity and fostering tolerance.     

The origins of party identification and its relationship to political orientations

An established position, long recognized in the literature, maintains that political party identification (PID) arises mainly from familial socialization and has a major impact on political outlooks and behaviors. An alternative view, also entrenched in the literature, holds that the direction of causation may go the other way, with political orientations influencing PID insofar as individuals seek out parties that match their ideological viewpoints. Here we use univariate and multivariate twin modeling to examine the underlying etiology assumed by those two positions, and introduce a new perspective that may help researchers make sense of PID, political orientations, and the relationships between them. Our findings indicate that: (1) PID is substantially heritable; and (2) there is empirical support for a model in which genetic and environmental factors influence political orientations, which in turn affect PID.     

Toward an Evolutionary Democracy: The Philosophy of Mary Parker Follett

We are entering an era in which the idea of democracy itself is undergoing an evolutionary shift. The assumptions and values underlying present models of democratic governance, rooted in earlier eras of rebellion, fail to recognize the dynamic and creative potential of individuals and their social organizations now essential to evolutionary advance. More than eighty years ago, Mary Parker Follett recognized this situation and advanced the idea of a participatory democracy that would be truly evolutionary in its self-guidance. Her insights fit well with current emancipatory systems philosophy and general evolutionary thought.     

Ideological differences in attitude and belief similarity: distinguishing perception and reality

ABSTRACT

Attitude and belief similarity have long stood as topics of inquiry for social psychology. Recent research suggests that there might be meaningful differences across people in the extent to which they perceive and actually share others’ attitudes and beliefs. I outline research examining the relationship between political ideology and the perception and reality of attitude similarity. Specifically, I review research documenting that (a) conservatives perceive greater ingroup similarity than do liberals, (b) conservatives overestimate and liberals underestimate ingroup similarity, (c) liberals and conservatives both underestimate similarity to outgroup members, and (d) liberals possess more actual ingroup similarity than do conservatives on a national level. Collectively, this review contributes to understanding how political ideology relates to (perceived) attitude similarity.     

ON JOHN RAWLS'S A BRIEF INQUIRY INTO THE MEANING OF SIN AND FAITH

This essay challenges the view that John Rawls's recently published undergraduate thesis A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith provides little help in understanding his mature work. Two crucial strands of Rawls's Theory of Justice are its critique of teleology and its claims about our moral nature and its expression. These strands are brought together in a set of arguments late in Theory which are important but have attracted little sustained attention. I argue that the target of Rawls's undergraduate thesis is a form of Christianity which rests on assumptions Rawls later came to think were fundamental to teleological views, and that the thesis defends an alternative form of religiosity that anticipates what Rawls says in Theory about the expression of our nature. Those sections of Theory also provide resources Rawls could have used to respond to a number of prominent and recurrent criticisms of his account of moral motivation. Seeing the continuities between Brief Inquiry and Theory of Justice shows how long Rawls wrestled with problems he took up in the neglected sections of Theory and thereby shows their importance to Rawls's thought.     

Integrating values and cognitive style in a model of right-wing radicalism

Research has shown that multi-factorial models of ideology not only account for political orientation but also highlight its core aspects (Feldman & Johnston, 2014). Recently, Montuori (2005) argued that reasoning according to a “logic of disjunction that creates binary opposition” exacerbates what is termed the “totalitarian mindset” (p. 26). In this study we examined this hypothesis by testing a model in which a disjunctive binary logic mediates values and proxies for right-wing radicalism. Methods: 425 participants completed a survey on political orientation that included measures of social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism. Personal values, egalitarianism, and beliefs in a free society were also assessed as they are motives typically associated with ideology. Lastly, we assessed disjunctive logic based on a scale derived from a comprehensive study of ambiguity intolerance markers. Results: A structural equation model in which beliefs in free society, egalitarianism, security, universalism and traditionalism predicted right-wing radicalism was tested with or without interposing a disjunctive logic factor. Our findings show that disjunctive logic played a major role in predicting behaviors associated with right-wing radicalism.