Pain sensitivity predicts support for moral and political views across the aisle.

Abstract

We live in a time of exacerbating political polarization. Bridging the ideological divide is hard. Although some strategies have been found effective for interpersonal persuasion and interaction across the aisle, little is known about what intrapersonal attributes predict which individuals are more inclined to support their ideological opponent's views. The present work identifies a low-level attribute-sensitivity to physical pain-that robustly predicts individual variations in support for moral and political views typically favored by one's ideological opponent. We first summarize a psychophysical validation of an established pain sensitivity measure (n = 263), then report a series of exploratory and preregistered confirmatory studies and replications (N = 7,360) finding that more (vs. less) pain-sensitive liberal Americans show greater endorsement of moral foundations typically endorsed by conservatives (Studies 1a-1c), higher likelihood of voting for Trump over Biden in the 2020 presidential election, stronger support for Republican politicians, and more conservative attitudes toward contentious political issues (Studies 2a and 2b). Conservatives show the mirroring pattern. These "cross-aisle" effects of pain sensitivity are driven by heightened harm perception (Study 3). They defy lay intuitions (Study 4). They are not attributable to multicollinearity or response set. The consistent findings across studies highlight the value of deriving integrative predictions from multiple previously unconnected perspectives (social properties of pain, moral foundations theory, dyadic morality theory, principle of multiple determinants in higher mental processes). They open up novel directions for theorizing and research on why pain sensitivity predicts support for moral and political views across the aisle. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).