Thread by @mjbsp

.@jarretcrawford & I wrote 3 reviews describing our joint research on ideology & prejudice. Summary follows!

Long (overview): osf.io/t7vpw/
Short (methods ): osf.io/2kcdf/
Short (disagreement?): osf.io/bnga2/

#SocSciResearch

We are interested in when and why people with different belief systems express prejudice and intolerance towards other groups.

The central question that we have examined is whether people with more traditional and conservative worldviews experience more worldview conflict (and so express more prejudice) than people with more progressive and liberal worldviews.

There are (at least) two hypotheses for how this can go.

The traditional perspective suggests that conservatives will be more susceptible due to the various motivations and traits associated with traditional belief systems.

The worldview conflict perspective suggest most people - regardless of belief system - are susceptible because people express prejudice towards groups they disagree with

To test these two perspectives you need to use more than a few target groups (which most work does). We discuss this issue at length in the methods focused review osf.io/2kcdf/

When you use more groups, the worldview conflict perspective is supported for political ideology, political partisanship & religion. E.g, knowing the extent of political difs aids in predicting the size & direction of the ideology-prejudice association. Same for partisanship.

This findings will prompt a "no duh" response from many. We think they are interesting because they have implications for the psychology of ideology. Liberals & conservatives are different in many ways, yet the process of prejudice is similar. For example...

It is strange that liberals are more open to experience and less disgust sensitive than conservatives yet are just as prejudiced towards dissimilar groups.

We find that people open to experience & low disgust sensitive are also prejudiced towards dissimilar group!

Notably, what groups people find to be dissimilar differs. Liberals and conservatives are not prejudiced towards the same groups. Just because the psychological processes seem to be similar doesn't mean the consequences or the moral weight of the prejudices are the same.

There are a number of interesting open questions. For example, why don't the traits and motivations associated with ideology "flow through" to have impacts on prejudice?

One possible answer is that traits & motivations contribute to the formation of beliefs and then stop.

A more controversial answer is that the link between ideology and (some of those) traits is not robust. osf.io/bnga2/

It is also possible that people are adopting ideological positions to match their prejudice (the opposite causal direction than we consistently imply)*

*I think a saw a more recent paper that tested this?

In short, we find that when worldviews conflict we find prejudice. We find this across worldviews and across countries. I'd love to see this exanded to more belief systems from a wider array of countries. Maybe the western samples we have a weird?

On a personal note, @jarretcrawford has been a great collaborator across all of these different projects. Maybe he would have done all of this on his own, but I wouldn't have!

Papers with more discussion on all of these points are here

Long (broad overview): osf.io/t7vpw/
Short (focus on sampling groups): osf.io/2kcdf/
Short (focus on agreement and disagreement with our perceived critics): osf.io/bnga2/