The ideological importance of worldview: An experimental investigation of the moderating effects of dangerous and competitive worldviews on ideological attitudes

Abstract

Considerable research attention has focused on dispositional traits (e.g. worldview beliefs, personality) as predictors of ideological attitudes, suggesting that ideology tends to be consistent in individuals over time. However, an emerging approach suggests that ideological attitudes may play a functional role associated with coalition affiliation, suggesting flexibility in attitudes across contexts that differ in terms of their coalitional relevance. Further, evolved coalitional mechanisms should be particularly sensitive to threats and competition from out-groups, and past research has demonstrated that perceptions of danger and competition are important predictors of ideology. As such, the present research investigated differences in participants' agreement across a host of ideological statements which differed in their coalitional relevance, and examined dangerous world beliefs (DWB) and competitive world beliefs (CWB) as moderators of the differences in participants' agreement with each statement. Across three topics (social mobility, 2nd Amendment rights, and personal freedom), DWB and CWB played an important role in predicting agreement with ideological statements, and these effects differed depending on the ideological content presented. Implications for these findings and suggestions for continued development of the research design are discussed.