Liberal–conservative self-identification in Korea: a cross-cultural explanation

Abstract

Two sets of explanations for the liberal–conservative political orientation developed and tested in the U.S. were compared and tested with Korean data. The two sets of explanations are (1) Moral Foundations Theory that states that liberals and conservatives have different moral intuitions (Haidt and Graham, Soc Justice Res 20:98–116, 2007) and (2) a theory that cognitive needs to manage uncertainty and threat are the main factors behind the political orientation (Jost et al., Psychol Bull 129:339–375, 2003). These two sets of explanation for political orientation were tested and supported empirically in the U.S. The Korean data showed clear support for the Moral Foundations Theory. Compared to conservatives, liberals in South Korea agreed more with individual oriented moral statements and less with community oriented moral statements. The data showed weak support for the uncertainty and threat explanation in that conservatives showed higher level of intolerance to ambiguity and higher level of death anxiety, but the correlations are weak. Implications of these findings were discussed.