Conservative Ideology Research Articles

Social technologies in management of modern Russian society

The article attempts to characterize the problem field of scientific research of the Department of Social Technologies of the Sociological Faculty of Moscow State University as part of the study of social technologies in the management of modern Russian society, with an emphasis on the technology of modernization of the Russian society and transformation of management practices in the context of new external challenges (primarily related to the active introduction of digital information and communication technologies).Modern Russian society is developing in the context of external and internal challenges requiring the transformation of management practices and the development of new social technologies. In connection with the need to implement the task set by the authorities of choosing a way of further development and rethinking the system of spiritual and moral values, the problem of the development, selection and application of social technologies of socio-cultural, economic and political modernization of Russian society has been actualized. Looking retrospectively at the process of modernization of Russia, one can clearly see the “pendulum” of development — in the direction of borrowing “Western” experience and implementing reforms by western standards or, on the contrary, “return to the roots” and implementing counter-reforms. In the current geopolitical situation, we can state that there has been a demand not only for a return to traditional values and conservative ideology, but also for a rethinking of Russia as a “distinct civilization”.Serious challenges (socio-demographic changes, digitalization, algorithmization, robotization, development of artificial intelligence, machine learning, shering economy, etc.) facing society and its social institutions today, require rethinking management practices and social technologies. The digitalization of social management is increasingly challenging the identification and analysis of the social consequences of introducing artificial intelligence, replacing human labor with machine and algorithms. When we talk about changing the nature of management in a digitalized society, we see an increasing penetration of artificial intelligence technologies into the field of management and the development of algorithmic control. Algorithms are now used in public administration, social services and social services, education, health. The autonomy and autonomization of algorithmic solutions raise serious questions about reducing the role of the human factor in management, which is alarming, especially in spheres that have traditionally been built around the human being. In addition, machines do not just study a person, they try to push him to make certain decisions, to a given behavioral response to a given stimulus, open new possibilities for manipulation. With the active introduction of digital technologies in all spheres of public life and in the management system, there are fears of total digital control. As digital platforms gain more instrumental power and access to personal data, so does the resistance of users of digital platforms due to a lack of control over the “fate” of the data provided. All this can lead to an increase in social tensions, which cannot be ignored when implementing management practices and choosing modern social technologies of management of society.

Guns, Thorns, and Zeal: Popular Depictions of a Kombative Christ

What are the political, gender, and theological implications at stake when associating Jesus with modern combat and righteous violence? Jesus is rendered in combative form across media—i.e., live-action films and shorts, animated television, sketch comedy, graphic novels, and video games. This rendition occurs at a confluence of meaning, most immediately for the sake of generating comedy through juxtaposition (in this case, rendering the meek with a sword) and/or reaffirming Jesus’ prominent cultural value through an association with other popularly mediatized entities. Beyond these initial layers of significance, however, I argue that Jesus becomes associated with violence and brutality for the sake of de/legitimizing politically conservative ideologies with respect to Christianity and American exceptionalism, redeeming the crisis of “domesticated masculinity” and fortifying traditional masculine norms, and theologically reinstituting popular paradigms of low Christology. Ideological “manhood” remains traced to one’s ability to perform traditional gender roles (i.e., family provider, community protector, and father/procreator). To capture the discrepancy that Jesus of Nazareth, as presented in canonical gospels, largely concerns none of these roles, I analyze the hypermasculine Christ, and the various weapons he employs, as part of a popular genealogy of Western value systems and discourse. Though in this article I reference some examples of non-American media, I reserve my analysis and commentary for the stakes and implications of what it means for U.S. Americans to produce and consume such content. In short, I submit that popular America idolizes itself in the form—one amidst many—of a naïve, combative, and boorish Christ: an arrogant and, at times, narcissistic man with delusional views of the world made dangerous through invasive power and authority. Western entertainment has deemed the United States (through its fictional stand-ins) as morally failing yet still chosen. Within this logic, American Christians need not reform their ways as long as they cultivate evidence of their exceptionalism.

Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior in Sexuality Education: Educators’ Behavioral Intentions Toward Sexuality Issues

Grounded on Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (1991), the current project in two studies (N = 402) examined Greek and Spanish pre-service early childhood educators’ behavioral intentions (i.e., approach and avoidance intentions) toward young children’s sexual curiosities. Specifically, the current research project aimed to examine whether Greek and Spanish pre-service early childhood educators’ views on sexuality education were linked to their behavioral intentions toward children’s sexual curiosities. The current research also examined whether conservative ideology (religiosity and right-wing political orientation) moderates the link between educators’ views and their behavioral intentions. This study’s findings showed that educators’ views influence their behavioral intentions toward children’s curiosity about sexual issues. In addition, moderation analysis showed religiosity’s role in avoidance intention. This result provides evidence that there are theoretical and empirical grounds to assume that conservative worldviews (i.e., religiosity) significantly influence behavioral intentions concerning sexuality education. The theory of planned behavior not only represents the factors influencing intention but also provides an opportunity to comprehend the impacts of contextual and individual background elements that may be relevant to a particular behavior.

Review bombing: ideology-driven polarisation in online ratings: The case study of The Last of Us (part II)

AbstractA review bomb is a surge in online reviews, coordinated by a group of people willing to manipulate public opinions. This is a study on a prominent case of review bombing (n = 51,120) of the video game The Last of Us Part II, challenging the assumption that review bombing should be framed solely as misinformation. The impact of fake reviews is substantially small. Ideology-driven ratings associated with a conservative ideology are followed by a grassroots counter-bombing from progressives, aimed at mitigating the effects of the negative ratings. These factions are very similar in other metrics. Preventive measures are proposed.

Family and gender images in self-publishing

The valuable basis of almost all the texts discussed is Catholicism. This leads to the conservative nature of the articles and the negative attitude towards the social and cultural changes that had taken place during modernization. However, the level of conservatism of self-published authors and the details of the assessment of the changes differed. Most of the authors blamed the Soviet state and the system (especially the atheism of society) for all the negative changes, while some of them believed it was a consequence of a special policy aimed at destroying the Lithuanian nation. A smaller number of authors saw the threat arising not so much from the USR as from modernization itself, and thus from the West. A lack of more diverse sources of information may have contributed to the ideological conservatism, which forced authors to rely on the interwar publications. Such a situation had intervened the perception of the changed reality and adequate response to it. This, in turn, could have reduced the impact or even prevalence of self-publishing – the diversity of opinions in the legal press was much greater. Generally, the Soviet regime was accused by selfpublished authors of promoting excessive freedom (legal abortions, simple divorce proceedings, etc.) and was criticized for destroying traditional gender roles. Therefore, the relationship of the underground authors with freedom was ambiguous – in the fight for the political freedom of the nation, personal human freedom was not valued in private life, and the texts usually emphasized a person’s duty – a person was subordinated to the idea, only not to that of the communists but also to the national idea. The fact that there were no discussions on family and gender issues in the self-published publications shows a lack of authors, the ideological unity of various publications, and a lack of liberal and democratic values in the underground movement. Some texts kind of reveal certain ideas of female emancipation; however, the longing for the traditional family and the respective gender roles dominate, and there are no hints of the need for real gender equality in a family. Instead, there is a clear link between traditional femininity and the exaltation of a woman. A hypothesis may be made that this was due to the link between gender equality with the Soviet propaganda and the reality of the USR when women were forced to endure a double workload. The image of a religious family as an antidote to pervasive immorality and degrading civil marriage can also be seen as a form of Catholic advocating, offered as an antidote to the breakdown of families and the enslavement of women. Perhaps this may have contributed to the religious revival in the early 1980s. Comparing the family and gender discourses in the publications of self-published authors and the legal press, many similarities may clearly be noticed, the most important of which is a very similar critique of the identical consequences of modernization. Sometimes disadvantages such as divorce, a small number of children in families, abortions, and the situation of women were criticized almost identically. Nevertheless, the causes of these disadvantages were searched for in a different place in self-published publications, first of all – in atheism policy. Therefore, despite the obvious hostility of self-publishing discourses to the Soviet reality and politics, they essentially only supplemented the public discourses by expressing those things that could not be made public due to the Soviet censorship (religious and anti-Soviet themes) but did not create a fundamentally different understanding of gender, family or sexuality from that prevailing in the public sphere. On the one hand, such similarity would be explained by the fact that self-published texts reflected the norms and values successfully introduced by public discourses to society. Much of the criticism of the system and reality was based namely on the postulates of the Soviet discourses, which had spread freely in public. The fact that a conservative turn in the discourses of family and gender relations took place throughout the USR in the 1970s may have contributed to this similarity. On the other hand, such a similarity can be explained by the discourses of the interwar Catholic family that had survived and preserved in society and were not influenced by Soviet propaganda. Still, it is doubtful that people could have remained unaffected by public discourses for three or four decades. However, taking into account the conservatism of the Soviet ideology and the order in the studies areas, it would be more accurate to state that no essential changes took place in Lithuania during the Soviet era in the field of family images and gender stereotypes.

Temporal comparisons shape system justification processes

AbstractA central aspect of political conservatism is the notion that the system is fair. Political conservatives tend to defend the system more than do liberals. Here we test whether the link between political orientation and this system justification tendency depends on the comparisons people make across time. Across five studies, we found that the typically observed link between conservative (vs. liberal) political orientation and system justification is only observed when no temporal comparisons are made, or when the status quo is compared to a future alternative. However, this association is not observed when the status quo is compared to the past. Instead, when comparing the present to the past, the link between political orientation and system justification was blocked (Studies 1, 2, and 4) or even reversed (Study 3). Theoretically, these results connect the system justification literature to literature on temporal comparison and suggest that system justification is meaningfully influenced by comparisons processes.

A Critical Encounter: Jean Floud’s Appraisal of Karl Mannheim

ABSTRACT This paper examines Jean Floud’s assessment of the work of Karl Mannheim, against the background of the development of British sociology of education in the 1940s and 50s. She compared his approach with that of Durkheim, concluding that both adopted a focus on social statics rather than dynamics, this reflecting their conservative political orientations. Some aspects of Floud’s critique are questionable, but other points she makes are telling. The issues in dispute here are ones that continue to be of importance in the sociology of education, and in social science more generally.

Countering Search Ad Avoidance: How Political Orientation Affects Trust in Search Advertising

Search advertising involves the purchasing of an ad’s position at the top of a search engine results page and accounts for more than 40% of all digital ad spending in the United States. Nevertheless, consumers are more likely to click on organic links found below search ads—a phenomenon referred to as the search ad avoidance effect. Combining system justification and construal level theory, a politically identifiable segment of consumers is argued to counter this effect. Because individuals with a conservative (vs. liberal) political orientation tend to justify systemic processes, they are more likely to trust sponsored versus organic marketing communications. Across four studies (secondary data, surveys, online field experiment), conservatives (vs. liberals) are more likely to click on search ads because they perceive them as more trustworthy. This relationship is most prevalent when consumers conduct broad searches, activating an abstract search construal that relies on a thinking style consistent with one’s core ideological beliefs and values. However, both conservatives and liberals are equally likely to click on search ads when they conduct more specific searches, activating a concrete search construal that enables a thinking style that is context-dependent and therefore diverges from one’s core beliefs and values.

Mock jurors’ conservative ideology and punitiveness: the role of criminal justice orientations

ABSTRACT This study expands previous research that explored why conservative jurors are more punitive towards criminal defendants than their liberal counterparts, by examining criminal justice orientations as another potential mediator between political ideology and punitiveness. An experiment was conducted based on a sample of 433 juror eligible adults recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. After reading one of the two randomly assigned criminal trial scenarios that varied the strength of critical evidence, participants rendered a verdict and recommended a sentence. Results showed that individuals with more conservative attitudes were more likely to support a guilty verdict and harsher sentences for the defendant. Relationships were largely explained by individuals’ criminal justice orientations or value commitment regarding criminal justice operations. Results show that individuals’ endorsement of different criminal justice orientations may be an important mechanism underlying the link between conservatism and juror punitiveness. Findings, implications, and future directions are discussed.

The 4D Model of American Political Conservatism: Disgust, Disorder Aversion, Deontology, and (Social) Dominance

Over the decades, numerous researchers have identified psychological predictors of conservative and liberal political orientation. However, most research teams have focused on a single predictor at a time, occasionally two. Moreover, most researchers have tended to stay within the theoretical and methodological confines of their subdiscipline (e.g., social psychology vs. personality psychology). Here, we review and integrate evidence across different subdisciplines to propose a constellation of four psychological constructs (disgust sensitivity, preference for order, deontological morality, and social dominance orientation) that, working together, form a more nuanced and fine-grained account of why people are attracted to different ends of the political spectrum. In doing so, we demonstrate the usefulness of moving beyond operationalizing political orientation in a single-dimensional (left-to-right) manner. We suggest that the proposed “4D Model” represents an incremental advance that makes more specific predictions about who will be attracted to which strands of political conservatism.

How Do Conservative Ideologies Influence Humanization of Organizations?

How Do Conservative Ideologies Influence Humanization of Organizations?

Influence of abstract thinking style on morality and sociability attributed to immigrants by people with more conservative ideologies

Influence of abstract thinking style on morality and sociability attributed to immigrants by people with more conservative ideologies

“Make way poet, jaywalking”: Play and irony in Arun Kolatkar’s work

ABSTRACT While Arun Kolatkar’s modernist and experimental modes have received critical attention, his application of irony remains under-researched. This article argues that his playful and ironic registers are a form of experimental modernism, employed to address socio-historical phenomena in South Asia. The self-aware irony in Kolatkar’s early work anticipates the use of personae in his later works. His poetry assumes the postcolonial stance of empowering the tyrannized. He ironizes from the perspective of the feminine and non-human to assess foundational myths and 20th-century events in India. As an ironist, Kolatkar acknowledges the speaker’s authoritative position in the text and strives to diminish hierarchies between the ironist and subject. Through textual analysis of the poet’s works, this article demonstrates that the purpose of Kolatkar’s critique and his attention to landscape is to challenge divisive and conservative ideologies that perpetuate conflict and to foreground the resilience of individuals in South Asia.

Ideological Rigidity and Political Conservatism in Relation to Death Anxiety and Reactions to Those With Different Beliefs.

This research tested the assumptions of Terror Management Theory (Pyszczynski et al., 2015) and conservatism as motivated social cognition (Jost et al., 2003) regarding how belief systems relate to existential anxiety. Conservatism as motivated social cognition posits that politically conservative ideologies are uniquely capable of minimizing fears about death. In contrast, TMT asserts that ideological rigidity is associated with less fear of death but it also promotes aggression and intolerance against those with different beliefs. The relation of ideological rigidity and political conservatism to death anxiety and intolerance of those who have differing worldviews was explored in a sample of American university students (n = 134) and of American respondents from the Prolific crowdsourcing platform (n = 199). The results from both samples supported the hypothesis that ideological rigidity was associated with more negative reactions to people with different beliefs. The results regarding death anxiety were more complicated. In the student sample, personal need for structure was the best predictor of death anxiety, with higher scores on personal need for structure being associated with more death anxiety. In the crowdsourcing sample, social conservatism was the best predictor of death anxiety, with more conservatism being associated with less death anxiety.

Differing worldviews: The politics of happiness, meaning, and psychological richness.

Conservative ideology, broadly speaking, has been widely linked to greater happiness and meaning in life. Is that true of all forms of a good life? We examined whether a psychologically rich life is associated with political orientation, system justification, and Protestant work ethic, independent of two other traditional forms of a good life: a happy life and a meaningful life. Participants completed a questionnaire that assessed conservative worldviews and three aspects of well-being (N = 583 in Study 1; N = 348 in Study 2; N = 436 in Study 3; N = 1,217 in Study 4; N = 2,176 in Study 5; N = 516 in Study 6). Happiness was associated with political conservatism and system justification, and meaning in life was associated with Protestant work ethic. In contrast, zero-order correlations showed that psychological richness was not associated with conservative worldviews. However, when happiness and meaning in life were included in multiple regression models, the nature of the association shifted: Psychological richness was consistently inversely associated with system justification and on average less political conservatism, suggesting that happiness and meaning in life were suppressor variables. These findings suggest that happiness and meaning in life are associated with conservative ideology, whereas psychological richness is not.

Water-holding properties and electrochemical characterization of the soil under the Grand Deliverance Hall of the Chongshan Temple, Taiyuan City, China: providing the basis for preventing groundwater erosion in historic buildings

Many historic buildings are at serious risk of deterioration due to changes in the moisture content of the soil under the buildings. Based on the typical deterioration problems of the Grand Deliverance Hall and the cultural relics in the hall, this study analyzes and concludes that the main factor affecting the generation and development of deterioration is groundwater erosion through environmental monitoring and geotechnical engineering investigation. The impact of changes in moisture content on the water-holding properties and pore distribution of the soil under the cultural-relics buildings was further assessed. Then, combined with the soil property, our study provides a novel and effective way to monitor and reflect the water-holding properties of the soil using electrochemical detection. The connected pore resistance and matrix suction decrease with the increase in the moisture content, both showing a power function law. Changes in moisture content cause changes in the thickness of the double electric layer, which in turn affects the connected pore resistance and matrix suction of soil. The greater the connected pore resistance, the greater the matrix suction and the water holding capacity. Finally, based on the research of this study and the conservation ideology of cultural relics that respects the original and minimizes intervention, protection recommendations to prevent groundwater erosion are proposed in order to provide guidance for future research.Graphical

The impact of death priming on climate change denial: a preliminary investigation.

Climate change denial (CCD) has been found to be more pronounced among individuals with a conservative political orientation. Terror Management Theory posits that an individual's worldview serves as a primary defense mechanism in coping with existential threats, such as the reality of climate change. Drawing on these premises, we conducted preliminary research investigating the impact of death priming on CCD from the Terror management theory perspective. We administered a death priming task and measured CCD in its immediate wake or following a delay task. We confirmed among 219 Amazon's MTurk participants that immediately following death priming, CCD was reduced among all participants. In the delayed death priming condition, we acquired preliminary evidence that CCD was heightened among Republican participants. These findings demonstrate the relevance of death priming to CCD tendencies and potentially spawn future research regarding CCD as a particular form of coping with existential threats.

Democracia representativa-una lectura interseccional

Objective: Analyze, from a critical and intersectional perspective, the organization, composition and legislative performance of a commission focused on women's sexual and reproductive rights, called the Parliamentary Front to Combat Abortion – Pró-Vida. Methodology: An intersectional reading was carried out regarding the constitution of the Parliamentary Front to Combat Abortion - "Pró-Vida", of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Goiás (ALEGO), and the sociodemographic profile of its members was outlined, discussed in light of social markers, gender, race/ethnicity, social class and religion and problematized about a topic that directly affects women's health and lives, abortion. Results and discussion: analysis of the results points to female underrepresentation, the prevalence of white people and the predominance of conservative ideology in customs and religion in the sociodemographic profile considered. In contrast, the literature, when discussing the social markers under investigation, portrays those who choose to have an abortion as black women, with low income and education, and who look to parties with a progressive bias to advocate for their causes. Conclusion: The traditional structure present in the Parliamentary Front investigated faces challenges in building a representative debate capable of reproducing in public policies the complex identities, needs and experiences of women at risk of miscarriage. In this argument, the construction of political practices and legislative approaches must primarily consider the complexities of identity and the intersections and oppressions that lead women to abortion in order to, ultimately, build an inclusive, equitable and representative democracy. Submission: 02/22/24| Review: 03/12/24| Approval: 04/24/24

On the legitimacy of conservative ideology

On the legitimacy of conservative ideology

Analyzing “Jayu” in South Korean presidential rhetoric: a comprehensive study from 1948–2023 with a focus on the Yoon Suk Yeol administration

The current study examines the strategic use of “Jayu” (freedom or liberty) in South Korean politics, with a focus on President Yoon Suk Yeol’s administration, where it symbolizes conservative ideologies and political identity. Employing Natural Language Processing, time-series analysis, and visualization techniques, the research analyzes presidential speeches to explore Yoon’s marked emphasis on Jayu, indicative of a strong conservative allegiance. The findings reveal a significant association between the utilization of Jayu and conservative strategies, underscoring its crucial role in Yoon’s political strategy and its function in garnering support from conservative factions within a polarized political context. Yoon’s discourse, characterized by an extensive use of Jayu, fosters polarization and partisanship, moving away from inclusive dialog. This study illuminates the role of symbolic language in political communication and identity formation, providing insights into the interplay between rhetoric and ideological positions in the intricate political landscape of South Korea.