Ideologies, Ideological Asymmetries, and the Psychological Roots of Political Behavior // Doctoral Thesis Dr. Flávio Azevedo
Are ordinary citizens really as ideologically innocent as political science has long assumed? Which psychological characteristics shape the ideologies people are drawn to?
Since the 1960s, political science has largely taken it as given that most citizens’ political beliefs are unstable, uninformed, inconsistent and lacking in ideological content. This dissertation challenges this “ideological innocence” hypothesis and argues that, in an increasingly polarised political landscape, people are considerably more ideologically committed than the literature has assumed.
Drawing on the theory of political ideology as motivated social cognition, the thesis examines how individual differences – such as social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, justice sensitivity, conspiracy mentality and system justification – shape people’s proclivities towards particular ideologies. Among other things, the findings show that:
- Citizens’ political beliefs are coherently organised around support for versus opposition to social and economic inequality.
- Supporters of Donald Trump in 2016 were not seeking to overturn the status quo but strongly justified economic and gender-based inequalities.
- Self- versus other-oriented justice concerns underpin preferences for right-wing populist actors in the US and Germany.
- Anti-scientific attitudes in the US have an ideological (conservative) basis with a distinct psychological profile.
- Conservatives are not only more likely than liberals to endorse specific conspiracy theories but also to hold conspiratorial worldviews in general.
Overall, the dissertation demonstrates that psychological dispositions are pivotal to people’s ideological leanings and to how they view the socio-political world.
(Summary based on the dissertation abstract, Azevedo, 2023)