Abstract
In three studies across three cultures (U.S., Sweden, and Israel), we examine whether implicit theories about groups are associated with political identity and whether this relationship is mediated by Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). Study 1 found that raising the salience of entity beliefs leads to increased right-wing political self-identification on social issues, although no such effect was found regarding general or economic political identity. In Study 2, we found that the more participants endorsed entity beliefs about groups (vs. incremental beliefs about groups), the more they identified as political rightists (vs. leftists) in the U.S., Sweden, and Israel. SDO mediated this relationship in the U.S. and Swedish samples, but not in the Israeli sample – a political setting in which political identity is largely determined by attitudes regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Study 3 showed that SDO mediated the relationship between implicit theories about groups and Israelis’ political identity regarding social/economic issues, but did not have such a mediating role with respect to political identity regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Highlights
Can groups change their basic characteristics? The present research examines how the answer that different individuals provide to this question is related to their political identity – their self-identification as political left/right or liberal conservative.Why was this study done? The purpose of the studies was to examine the hypothesis that the belief that groups cannot change their characteristics is related to right-wing political identity, while the belief that groups can change their characteristics is related to left-wing political identity
Participants who were retained for analyses did not differ from participants who failed to return for the T2 survey in terms of general political identity t(236) = 0.36, p = .722, 95% CI for mean difference [-0.36, 0.53], economic political identity t(239) = 0.04, p = .970, 95% CI for mean difference [-0.48, 0.46], or social political identity t(238) = 1.32, p = .189, 95% CI for mean difference [-0.15, 0.77]
In order to examine whether experimentally manipulating implicit theories about groups leads to change in political identification across two measurement points, each T2 indicator of political identification – general, social, and economic – was subjected to a 2-way (1=Malleability vs. 0=Entity Beliefs) MANOVA, with corresponding T1 indicators included as covariates
Summary
The purpose of the studies was to examine the hypothesis that the belief that groups cannot change their characteristics is related to right-wing political identity, while the belief that groups can change their characteristics is related to left-wing political identity. The participants were given a (made-up) article showing either that groups generally are capable of change or that they are incapable of change. Reading the article showing that groups are incapable of change caused the participants to gravitate towards the political right with regards to social issues. The results further indicated that the relationship between beliefs about the changeability of groups went through (i.e., was mediated by) the belief that the current power relations between different societal groups is justified (social dominance beliefs)
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