Conservative Political Attitudes Research Articles

Ideas about the future in the collective consciousness of Russians

The article discusses the interpretation of the image of the future in the views of Russians. Special attention is paid to the peculiarities of the formation of the image of the future in conditions of political instability. It is shown that citizens' ideas about the future of their loved ones and the state are influenced by current social problems and contradictions. However, we are not talking about the mechanical transfer of actual experiences of respondents to an idealized future. The factors determining the complex and multi-stage process of constructing the image of the future in the public consciousness are revealed. It is shown that trust in political institutions and state power is one of the main factors in the process of forming a relatively consistent and positive image of the future. The reasons for the weak reaction of society to various types of threats, including corruption and social inequality, are analyzed. Ideological concepts and the stereotypes that have manifested themselves in recent years in the minds of Russian citizens. The role of mass media in the construction of collective ideas about threats to the existence of the state in the medium term is noted. The evolution of conservative political attitudes in the mass consciousness under the influence of the official political narrative is traced. The fact of the growth of anxiety and alarmist ideas about the near future in various social groups is noted, as a psychological reaction of individuals to incomplete information about the ongoing political changes in society. At the same time, there is an obvious trend towards preserving democratic institutions and values that modern Russian society is not going to abandon. The article is descriptive and abstract in nature. The method of secondary analysis is applied. The conclusions are based on the publications of the Institute of Socio-Political Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1992-2022 , and according to the data of the All-Russian monitoring "How are you living, Russia?" (1992-2022), a comprehensive sociological study "Forecasts and alternatives for the development of Russia through the eyes of Russians" (2021). On the basis of the conducted research, criteria are identified that ensure the reproduction of stereotypical ideas about the future in the analyzed social groups. The study of the features of the formation of the image of the future can be useful for making political decisions aimed at the development of the state-political system, the improvement of civil society and the consolidation of modern Russian society based on the adoption of national values and ideals. The factors hindering the construction of a holistic image of the future in present-day Russia are considered. The relevance of the studied topic is explained by the fact that the analysis of the structural features of the formation and functioning of collective ideas about the future of the state contributes to the understanding of complex socio-psychological processes.

“Conservative” voting in Russia: the religiosity and the political choice of orthodox believers

ABSTRACT Existing studies leave open many questions about the link between religiosity and the conservative political attitudes of Orthodox believers in Russia. This article employs qualitative research to highlight the role of religiosity in individual political choice. The empirical material was collected during interviews with believers in Lipetsk Oblast in 2019–2020. The results of the study revealed three types of conservative choice, depending on an individual’s level of religiosity. Although religious beliefs and practices play different roles at different levels of religiosity, they are not crucial to believers’ political choices.

Authoritarianism and Right-Wing Voting in Brazil

AbstractMounting evidence shows that authoritarian orientations exert a powerful influence on public opinion attitudes and candidate support. The 2018 Brazilian elections brought to power Jair Bolsonaro, a candidate with an open disregard for democracy and democratic institutions. This study examines Brazilian voters’ differences in authoritarianism and electoral support for a right-wing authoritarian candidate. It employs the AmericasBarometer national survey data to demonstrate that authoritarianism is politically important in Brazil because of its association with attitudes toward the use of force as well as with conservative social and political attitudes. The effect of authoritarianism on the probability of voting for Bolsonaro is as large as that of other relevant political behavior variables such as ideology, negative partisanship, or religiosity, whereas nonauthoritarian voters spread their votes across other candidates. Although these other variables are also relevant to Bolsonaro’s victory, his candidacy was uniquely able to mobilize a coalition of authoritarian voters. Whether or not authoritarianism remains a salient cleavage in the electorate is considered along with the consequences of this potential divide for political competition in Brazilian politics.

Attitudes about police and race in the United States 2020-2021: Mean-level trends and associations with political attitudes, psychiatric problems, and COVID-19 outcomes.

The murder of George Floyd and subsequent mass protest movement in the summer of 2020 brought policing, race, and police brutality to the forefront of American political discourse. We examined mean-levels of attitudes about police and race using online surveys administered at five time points from June 2020 to October 2021 (n ~ 1000 at each wave) to adults living in the United States. There was a small increase in pro-police attitudes over this time (d = .24), and some evidence that mean-levels of pro-police attitudes increased more for Black participants (d = .51) than White participants (d = .20), and more for Democrats (d = .40) than Republicans (d = .15). Pro-police attitudes were much lower among Black participants than White participants (mean d = -1.04), and–relative to political independents–lower among Democrats (mean d = -.66) and higher among Republicans (mean d = .72). Pro-police attitudes had large associations with a variety of conservative or right-wing political attitudes (e.g., approval of Donald Trump) and COVID-19 variables (e.g., disapproval of government mandates and restrictions), but were unrelated to psychiatric problems and substance use. These results validate a new measure of police attitudes, provide information on trends in police attitudes over the 15 months following the largest mass protests against police brutality in American history, and begin to establish the nomological network of police attitudes, finding that pro-police attitudes are firmly within the right-wing coalition of American politics.

Who wants to learn harder? The relationship between conservatism and liberalism, desirable difficulties, and academic learning

Previous work has shown that challenging learning strategies like desirable difficulties improve long-term learning. Nonetheless, because they might be regarded as strict and demanding learning strategies, they should not be perceived as positive by everyone. They should, however, fit conservative political attitudes since those are, among others, positively correlated with individuals’ need for order and structure as well as with challenging learning environments. Hence, we hypothesized conservative political attitudes to be correlated with more positive attitudes towards desirable difficulties, towards the use of desirable difficulties at school, towards the preferred difficulty of the learning process, and towards deeper learning strategies. We conducted three online studies assessing US American students’ political attitudes and their attitudes towards such difficult and challenging learning strategies: Study 1 found correlations among more conservative political attitudes and more positive attitudes towards difficult and challenging learning strategies, whereas Study 2 found no significant linkages among these variables. Study 3 then showed that a more conservative political attitude and favorable ratings of Republican politicians, but also more favorable ratings of Democratic politicians were linked to more positive attitudes towards our dependent variables. Self-reported interest in and importance of politics were also positively correlated with positive attitudes towards difficult learning. Our results indicate that students’ political attitudes are generally linked to positive attitudes towards difficult and challenging learning strategies and are therefore important individual characteristics regarding applications and perceptions of these learning strategies. Future work focusing on these relationships, on causal effects, and on further related variables is valuable.

A Multidimensional Construct of Religiosity Among Baby Boomers and Trajectories of Social Attitudes

Although a number of studies have examined relationships between religiosity and social attitudes, less is known about how these relationships change over the life course using a multidimensional construct of religiosity among Baby Boomers. A multidimensional construct of religion allowed us to take a more person-centered approach to religiosity, whereby we examine the association between Baby Boomers with different types of religiosity and the trajectories of their political and gender role attitudes over a period of transition from early to later adulthood. We selected 798 young-adult Baby Boomers from the 1971 wave (mean age: 19 years) of the Longitudinal Study of Generations (LOSG) and tracked their political and gender role attitudes through until the 2016 wave (mean age: 64 years). Using latent class analysis, we identified four latent religious typologies: strongly religious, weakly religious, liberally religious, and privately religious. We found that Baby Boomers in the strongly religious class reported the most conservative political and gender role attitudes among the four classes over this period of transition. Baby Boomers in the privately religious class were conservative in their political and gender role attitudes than those in the weakly religious class. The liberally religious group generally reported the second most conservative political attitudes among the four identified groups, but reported the least conservative gender role attitudes of the four groups. Findings suggest that early religiosity may serve as a significant predictor affecting political and gender role attitudes throughout the adult life course.

Clinical symptoms of anxiety disorders as predictors of political attitudes: A prospective cohort study.

Conservative political ideologies have been suggested to correlate with elevated sensitivity to threat. However, it is unclear whether the associations between threat sensitivity and political attitudes can be observed with clinical measures of mental health. We examined how anxiety disorders predicted attitudes on several political issues. Participants were 7253 individuals from the 1958 British Birth Cohort study. Symptoms of generalised anxiety disorder, phobia and panic were assessed in a clinical interview at age 44, and opinions about political issues were self-reported by the participants 6 years later. Anxiety symptoms were associated with higher concerns about economic inequality, preservation of the environment, distrust in politics and lower work ethic. No associations were observed with racist or authoritarian attitudes, or support for traditional family values. We also assessed how political attitudes at ages 33 and 42 predicted anxiety disorder symptoms at age 44, revealing a possible bidirectional association between concern for economic inequality and anxiety disorder symptoms. These findings do not support an association between conservative political attitudes and elevated threat sensitivity. Rather, elevated anxiety may increase concerns about social inequality and the environment.

Educational mobility of Hungarian firstand multi-generational young intellectuals in four countries

The study examines the characteristics of intergenerational educational mobility among minority Hungarian youth living in Slovakia (Felvidék), Ukraine (Transcarpathia), Romania (Transylvania), Serbia (Vojvodina). The topic is important because in Hungary there is a paucity of studies that systematically analyse the challenges and coping strategies of first-generation students in general, or which go beyond minority aspects within social structures. The paper seeks to fill this gap by exploring first-generation intellectuals’ social structure and specific attitudes, based on real life Hungarian-minority experience. Based on a literature review, the authors set up four hypotheses: hypotheses related to social and cultural reproduction, a hypothesis concerning the political consequences of mobility, and assumptions related to minority identity. After testing the hypotheses and comparing the first- generation and multigenerational students’ characteristics, the authors conclude that in the minority context there took place a social and status culture reproduction, and mobility increases the likelihood of conservative political attitudes. The immobile stratum of minority multigenerational intellectuals tends to be much more liberal and transnational, using Hungarian citizenship as a new pragmatic opportunity.

Conservative and liberal attitudes drive polarized neural responses to political content

People tend to interpret political information in a manner that confirms their prior beliefs, a cognitive bias that contributes to rising political polarization. In this study, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging with semantic content analyses to investigate the neural mechanisms that underlie the biased processing of real-world political content. We scanned American participants with conservative-leaning or liberal-leaning immigration attitudes while they watched news clips, campaign ads, and public speeches related to immigration policy. We searched for evidence of "neural polarization": activity in the brain that diverges between people who hold liberal versus conservative political attitudes. Neural polarization was observed in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), a brain region associated with the interpretation of narrative content. Neural polarization in the DMPFC intensified during moments in the videos that included risk-related and moral-emotional language, highlighting content features most likely to drive divergent interpretations between conservatives and liberals. Finally, participants whose DMPFC activity closely matched that of the average conservative or the average liberal participant were more likely to change their attitudes in the direction of that group's position. Our work introduces a multimethod approach to study the neural basis of political cognition in naturalistic settings. Using this approach, we characterize how political attitudes biased information processing in the brain, the language most likely to drive polarized neural responses, and the consequences of biased processing for attitude change. Together, these results shed light on the psychological and neural underpinnings of how identical information is interpreted differently by conservatives and liberals.

Re-examining Restructuring: Racialization, Religious Conservatism, and Political Leanings in Contemporary American Life

AbstractThis paper assesses the continued relevance of Robert Wuthnow’s seminal theory of “religious restructuring” for explaining the relationship between religious conservatism and political allegiances in the contemporary United States. Employing a comparative approach, we evaluate the link between doctrinal conservatism (or liberalism) and political conservatism across the seven largest US religious traditions, including Islam. We find that for most Christians and Jews, doctrinal conservatism continues to be tightly linked with conservative political attitudes, even after adjusting for demographic differences and religiosity. For Muslims, Black Protestants, and Latinx Catholics however, doctrinal conservatism is unlikely to be associated with political conservatism. In short, Wuthnow’s theory still holds, but only for religious traditions that are majority white. We speculate that being “racialized religious traditions” explains the lack of restructuring we observe among Muslims, Black Protestants, and Latinx Catholics. External social and political pressures have kept unifying racialized religious identities salient for each of these traditions, preventing the internal bifurcation still characteristic of other major American religions. Our findings and approaches contribute to the two growing trends within the sociological study of religion—the analytical integration of considerations of race and racial politics into scholarship on religious life (called “complex religion”) and a recognition of the importance of cultural “styles” of religion in shaping political and social behaviors.

Attribute substitution and stereotypes about the online Arab public sphere: Predictors of concerns about Internet surveillance in five Arab countries

This study examined concerns about Internet surveillance among Internet users in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Lebanon, Qatar, and the UAE ( N = 4160). Despite common stereotypes about how variables like gender, youth, income, nationality, and liberal or conservative ideology affect political and cultural attitudes in Arab countries, these indicators were not significant predictors of concerns about online surveillance by governments and companies. Arab nationals reported greater concern about companies monitoring their online activity, while expatriates were more worried about government surveillance. The study uses literature on the attribute substitution heuristic to discuss how people might form stereotypes about large groups.

RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT MEDIATES HOSPICE NURSES’ SOCIAL POLITICAL IDEOLOGY AND ATTITUDES TOWARD EUTHANASIA

Medical aid in dying is currently legal in five states, with other states considering legislation. While hospice organizations officially oppose medical aid in dying, individual nurses’ attitudes vary. Previous research has linked both religiosity and conservative social political ideology to attitudes toward euthanasia (ATE). The purpose of the study was to investigate religious commitment as a mediator between social political ideology and ATE among hospice nurses. Participants consisted of hospice nurses (N = 90) who completed an online survey containing the Religious Commitment Inventory, the Attitudes Towards Euthanasia Scale, and a single self-report item concerning participants’ social political ideology. Conservative social political ideology and religious commitment were associated with more negative ATE. Religious commitment partially mediated the relationship between conservative social political ideology and overall ATE and fully mediated the relationship between conservative social political ideology and attitudes toward active euthanasia. Among hospice nurses, religious commitment may explain the relationship between conservative social political ideology and ATE, and this appears to be particularly true for active euthanasia methods, which would include medical aid in dying. These results suggest that religious commitment may drive hospice nurses’ political views regarding medical aid in dying.

The Evangelical Vote and Race in the 2016 Presidential Election

AbstractThis paper highlights differences in evangelical identity and its association with political attitudes across racial groups. It finds that White evangelicals hold more conservative views than Black, Latinx, and Asian American evangelicals, despite similar levels of religiosity. White evangelicals' more conservative political attitudes are driven by a sense of in-group embattlement, or the idea that their group faces as much or more discrimination as persecuted outgroups. This sense of in-group embattlement is distinct from the effects of economic resources, economic anxiety, partisanship, region (South) and generalized conservative outlook. The paper draws on survey data collected in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election.

Western Oregon forest landowner beliefs about the outcomes of mandatory riparian buffer regulations

ABSTRACTResearch about nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) landowners’ perspectives on voluntary conservation-based programs continues to proliferate. However, there is a gap in understanding NIPF landowner perspectives about the social and ecological outcomes of mandatory conservation-based regulations. We sent questionnaires to Oregon NIPF landowners to understand their beliefs about potential outcomes of proposed state regulations that strengthen mandatory riparian buffer habitat protection requirements. Factor analysis and multiple regression techniques revealed the most important variables that influence those beliefs. Overall, respondents believed that the socioeconomic outcomes were negative and the ecological outcomes were neutral or slightly positive. Respondents with more conservative political attitudes who owned larger properties were more likely to believe that the outcomes would be negative. As the importance of maintaining property for future generations and increasing timber productivity increased, respondents believed the potential outcomes would be increasingly negative. As the importance of improving water quality, increasing carbon storage, and improving recreational use on the property increased, respondents believed that the outcomes would be increasingly positive. We discuss management and policy implications, including communication strategies aimed at engaging with NIPF landowners to highlight the purpose and potential outcomes of forest and riparian management regulations.

A Quantitative Test of Critical Heterosexuality Theory: Predicting Straight Identification in a Nationally Representative Sample

Using Add Health, a US-based nationally representative survey, this study predicts the likelihood of identifying as straight among (1) individuals who reported same-sex attractions and/or sexual practices and (2) among those who reported neither, given that many respondents nonetheless identified as something other than straight. It also (3) predicts the likelihood of changing one’s sexual identity to heterosexuality across survey waves. Weighted logistic regression identifies political conservatism and religiosity as predictors of straight identification and changing to a straight sexual identity, even after controlling for attractions and sexual practices. The results suggest that individuals with same-sex attractions and/or sexual practices do not identify as straight simply because of limitations of well-known sexual identities (straight, bisexual, gay/lesbian), given that Add Health offered more nuanced options, such as mostly straight. Instead, the results suggest that non-sexual social factors, such as religiosity and conservative political attitudes—themselves shaped by patterned social forces—are keys to heterosexual identification and heterosexual identity change. This paper offers the first quantitative test of critical heterosexuality theory using a nationally representative sample, suggesting that the approach is theoretically generalizable beyond qualitative studies.

Comparing Political Attitudes of Evangelicals with the Attitudes of Mainline Christians and Non-Church Members in The Netherlands

AbstractEvangelicals are generally considered culturally conservative regarding issues like abortion or homosexuality and sometimes also economically conservative regarding issues like tax reduction. But does this image also apply to Dutch evangelicals who live in a secular environment in which they constitute only a tiny fraction of the number of church members? This article explores the political attitudes of Dutch evangelicals with the help of two research questions: (1) Do Dutch evangelicals hold more conservative political attitudes on economic and cultural issues than Catholics, mainline Protestants and non-church members? and (2) Which decisive factors determine the supposed conservatism among Dutch evangelicals as compared to Catholics, mainline Protestants and non-church members? Analyses of survey data show that Dutch evangelicals are indeed culturally conservative, but more liberal in economic matters. In addition, results also show that their cultural conservatism is related to their religious convictions, while their economic attitudes are unrelated to religion.

Is that disgust I see? Political ideology and biased visual attention

Considerable evidence suggests that political liberals and conservatives vary in the way they process and respond to valenced (i.e., negative versus positive) information, with conservatives generally displaying greater negativity biases than liberals. Less is known about whether liberals and conservatives differentially prioritize certain forms of negative information over others. Across two studies using eye-tracking methodology, we examined differences in visual attention to negative scenes and facial expressions based on self-reported political ideology. In Study 1, scenes rated high in fear, disgust, sadness, and neutrality were presented simultaneously. Greater endorsement of socially conservative political attitudes was associated with less attentional engagement (i.e., lower dwell time) of disgust scenes and more attentional engagement toward neutral scenes. Socially conservative political attitudes were not significantly associated with visual attention to fear or sad scenes. In Study 2, images depicting facial expressions of fear, disgust, sadness, and neutrality were presented simultaneously. Greater endorsement of socially conservative political attitudes was associated with greater attentional engagement with facial expressions depicting disgust and less attentional engagement toward neutral faces. Visual attention to fearful or sad faces was not related to social conservatism. Endorsement of economically conservative political attitudes was not consistently associated with biases in visual attention across both studies. These findings support disease-avoidance models and suggest that social conservatism may be rooted within a greater sensitivity to disgust-related information.

Disgust as embodied loss aversion

ABSTRACTA quickly expanding literature has examined the link between physical disgust and morality. This article critically integrates the existing evidence and draws the following conclusions: First, there is considerable evidence that experimentally induced disgust and cleanliness influence moral judgment, but moderating variables and attributional processes need to be considered. Second, moral considerations have substantial effects on behavioural concomitants of disgust, such as facial expressions, economic games and food consumption. Third, while disgust involves a conservation concern, it can manifest itself in both liberal and conservative political attitudes. Overall, disgust can be considered to form part of a behavioural loss aversion system aimed at protecting valuable resources, including the integrity of one’s body. Recommendations are offered to investigate the role of disgust more rigorously in order to fully capture its role in moral life.

The Political Legacy of American Slavery

We show that contemporary differences in political attitudes across counties in the American South in part trace their origins to slavery’s prevalence more than 150 years ago. Whites who currently live in Southern counties that had high shares of slaves in 1860 are more likely to identify as a Republican, oppose affirmative action, and express racial resentment and colder feelings toward blacks. We show that these results cannot be explained by existing theories, including the theory of contemporary racial threat. To explain the results, we offer evidence for a new theory involving the historical persistence of political attitudes. Following the Civil War, Southern whites faced political and economic incentives to reinforce existing racist norms and institutions to maintain control over the newly freed African American population. This amplified local differences in racially conservative political attitudes, which in turn have been passed down locally across generations.

The Political Legacy of American Slavery

We show that contemporary differences in political attitudes across counties in the American South in part trace their origins to slavery’s prevalence more than 150 years ago. Whites who currently live in Southern counties that had high shares of slaves in 1860 are more likely to identify as a Republican, oppose affirmative action, and express racial resentment and colder feelings toward blacks. We show that these results cannot be explained by existing theories, including the theory of contemporary racial threat. To explain the results, we offer evidence for a new theory involving the historical persistence of political attitudes. Following the Civil War, Southern whites faced political and economic incentives to reinforce existing racist norms and institutions to maintain control over the newly freed African American population. This amplified local differences in racially conservative political attitudes, which in turn have been passed down locally across generations.