The Politics of Fear: Is There an Ideological Asymmetry in Existential Motivation?

A meta-analysis by Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003) suggested that existential needs to reduce threat were associated with political conservatism. Nevertheless, some maintain that fear plays as prevalent a role on the left as the right. In an attempt to resolve this issue, we reviewed e...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social cognition 2017-08, Vol.35 (4), p.324-353
Main Authors: Jost, John T., Stern, Chadly, Rule, Nicholas O., Sterling, Joanna
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Conservatism
Death & dying
Death awareness
Fear & phobias
Ideology
Meta-analysis
Mortality
Motivation
Political behavior
Politics
Social research
Systematic review
Threats
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A meta-analysis by Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003) suggested that existential needs to reduce threat were associated with political conservatism. Nevertheless, some maintain that fear plays as prevalent a role on the left as the right. In an attempt to resolve this issue, we reviewed evidence from 134 different samples (N = 369,525) and 16 countries--a database 16 times larger than those previously considered. Although the association between fear of death and conservatism was not reliable, there was a significant effect of mortality salience (r = .08-.13) and a significant association between subjective perceptions of threat and conservatism (r = .12-.31). Exposure to objectively threatening circumstances, such as terrorist attacks, was associated with a "conservative shift" at individual (r = .07-.14) and aggregate (r = .29-.66) levels of analysis. Psychological reactions to fear and threat thus convey a small-to-moderate political advantage for conservative leaders, parties, policies, and ideas.
ISSN:0278-016X
1943-2798
DOI:10.1521/soco.2017.35.4.324