Scarily Coming To The Centre: Political Centrism As An Effect Of Mortality Salience And A Need For Closure Carlos Alberto Rivera García A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Psychology University Essex Summer, 2014 Copyright, Carlos Rivera, 2014. Index Index ........................................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter 1. Brief theoretical review. Interactions between social psychology, political behaviour and political psychology. ..................................................................................... 12 Political Identity ............................................................................................................................... 12 Motivated social cognition ............................................................................................................. 14 Figure 1.2. Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition (Jost et al., 2003b).......... 15 Death Reflection .............................................................................................................................. 16 Need for Cognitive Closure ........................................................................................................... 20 Post-war Voting Studies ................................................................................................................. 21 Early Political Socialisation............................................................................................................. 23 Social and Political Identity ............................................................................................................ 24 Social Identity Theory ..................................................................................................................... 27 Motivation ......................................................................................................................................... 29 Acquired Versus Ascribed Identities ............................................................................................ 30 The Fuzzy Concept of Party Identification ................................................................................. 32 Psychological predispositions ........................................................................................................ 36 Figure 1.1. Funnel of Electoral Causality (Bartels, 2008; Campbell et al., 1960). .................. 40 Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition............................................................... 41 Summary of Theoretical Themes to be examined in this Thesis ............................................. 41 Organisation of the Thesis ............................................................................................................. 42 Chapter 2. Theoretical review. .............................................................................................. 44 A Brief History of Fear ................................................................................................................... 44 Motivated Social Cognition ............................................................................................................ 45 General Theoretical Assumptions. ................................................................................................ 47 The Motivated Social-Cognitive Perspective ............................................................................... 48 Conceptual Definitions of Conservatism..................................................................................... 49 Theories Relating to the Psychology of Conservatism. ............................................................. 49 The Theory of Right-Wing Authoritarianism. ............................................................................ 50 Intolerance of Ambiguity................................................................................................................ 51 Mental Rigidity, Dogmatism, and Closed-Mindedness. ............................................................. 52 The Theory of Ideo-Affective Polarity......................................................................................... 52 A Dynamic Theory of Conservatism as Uncertainty Avoidance ............................................. 53 Epistemic and Existential Need Theories .................................................................................... 53 Lay Epistemic Theory ..................................................................................................................... 53 Regulatory Focus Theory ............................................................................................................... 54 A Theoretical Integration of Epistemic, Existential, and Ideological Motives ...................... 55 Epistemic Motives ........................................................................................................................... 56 Dogmatism. ...................................................................................................................................... 57 Integrative complexity ..................................................................................................................... 57 Uncertainty avoidance ..................................................................................................................... 58 Pessimism, Disgust, and Contempt .............................................................................................. 59 Fear and Prevention of Loss .......................................................................................................... 59 Mortality Salience ............................................................................................................................. 60 Terror Management Theory. .......................................................................................................... 62 Need for Cognitive Closure ........................................................................................................... 66 Consensus Motive Versus Effort Minimisation.......................................................................... 68 Consensus Motive Versus Political Conservatism...................................................................... 70 2 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 70 CHAPTER 3 ........................................................................................................................... 72 3.1 Aim of Study 1 ........................................................................................................................... 72 Figure 3.1 Motivated Social Cognition Model (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983) ........................ 73 3.2 Method ........................................................................................................................................ 79 The Experimental Manipulation.................................................................................................... 84 The Four Political Biographies. ..................................................................................................... 84 Figure 3.2 Biographies..................................................................................................................... 87 Design. ............................................................................................................................................... 88 Procedure. ......................................................................................................................................... 88 3.3 Results ......................................................................................................................................... 89 3.3.1 Preliminary Analyses .............................................................................................................. 89 Table 3.3.1 Preliminary Analyses ................................................................................................... 91 Correlation for the measures.......................................................................................................... 92 Table 3.3.2 Correlation matrix between measures ...................................................................... 93 Table 3.3.3 Mean and standard deviations of the mean ratings of each politician for each of the high and low NFC participants in each of the MS and Control groups........................... 94 3.3.2 Mortality Salience and Need for Closure Analysis ............................................................ 94 Table 3.3.4 Main Deviance Analysis ............................................................................................. 97 Table 3.3.5 Interaction Model for Politicians in the Eccentricity of Shift .............................. 98 Centring Variables ........................................................................................................................... 98 Follow up Analyses.......................................................................................................................... 99 Figure 3.5 Support for Politicians who moved from the Political Centre to the Poles ...... 100 Figure 3.6 Support for Politicians who moved from the Poles to the Political Centre ...... 101 3.4 Discussion. ............................................................................................................................... 102 CHAPTER 4 ......................................................................................................................... 107 Study 2: Does Mortality Awareness Accentuate the Need for Closure when Rating Political Parties? ............................................................................................................................................. 107 4.1 Overview................................................................................................................................... 107 4.2 Aim of Study 2 ......................................................................................................................... 109 4.3 Method ...................................................................................................................................... 111 Participants...................................................................................................................................... 111 Materials .......................................................................................................................................... 111 Figure 4.1 Example of the mock “A New Handbook of Political Parties” with parties moving ............................................................................................................................................. 114 Figure 4.2 Example of the mock “A New Handbook of Political Parties” with no parties moving ............................................................................................................................................. 115 Figure 4.3 Example of the mock “A New Handbook of Political Parties” with two parties moving ............................................................................................................................................. 116 Dependent Variables ..................................................................................................................... 117 Correlations Among Dependent Variables................................................................................ 118 Procedure ........................................................................................................................................ 118 4.3 Results ....................................................................................................................................... 120 4.3.1 Preliminary Analyses ............................................................................................................ 120 Table 4.1. Means and standard deviations of measures. .......................................................... 121 Table 4.2 Internal Consistencies of Measures ........................................................................... 122 Table 4.3 Centred Variables ......................................................................................................... 123 4.3.2 Mortality Salience and Need for Closure.......................................................................... 123 Table 4.4 Means and Standard Errors for all Conditions ........................................................ 125 Table 4.5 Means and Standard Errors for the Movement Condition ................................... 126 3 Table 4.6 Means and Standard Deviations for Each ANOVA (“No Move” and “All Move”) ............................................................................................................................................. 126 Figure 4.1. Support for the “New Left” in the “Movement” Condition .............................. 128 Figure 4.2. Support for the “New Right” in the “Movement” Condition............................ 128 4.4 Discussion ................................................................................................................................ 130 CHAPTER 5 ......................................................................................................................... 137 Study 3: Further Exploration of Mortality Awareness, Need for Closure and Political Centrism ................................................................................................................................. 137 5.1 Overview................................................................................................................................... 137 Figure 5.1 Motivated Social Cognition Model .......................................................................... 138 5.2 Aim of Study 3 ......................................................................................................................... 140 5.3 Method ...................................................................................................................................... 144 5.3.1 Participants ............................................................................................................................ 144 5.3 Ethical Approval...................................................................................................................... 144 Figure 5.2 “Consensus Alliance” with a Clear Mandate .......................................................... 148 Figure 5.3. “Consensus Alliance” with a Divided Mandate .................................................... 149 Design. ............................................................................................................................................. 150 Procedure. ....................................................................................................................................... 150 5.3 Results ....................................................................................................................................... 152 5.3.1 Preliminary Analyses ............................................................................................................ 152 Table 5.1 Internal Consistencies of Measures ........................................................................... 152 Table 5.2 Means and standard deviations of measures. ........................................................... 152 5.3.2 Mortality Salience and Need for Closure.......................................................................... 153 Table 5.3 Means and Standard Deviations for all Participants ............................................... 156 Table 5.4 Means and Standard Deviations for Participants Low in Political Knowledge .. 156 Figure 5.6 Support for the “Consensus Alliance” with a clear mandate. .............................. 157 Figure 5.7 Support for the “Consensus Alliance” with a divided mandate. ......................... 158 5.4 Discussion ................................................................................................................................ 158 CHAPTER 6 ......................................................................................................................... 163 GENERAL DISCUSSION ................................................................................................ 163 6.1 Overview................................................................................................................................... 163 6.2 Theoretical Issues Examined ................................................................................................. 165 6.2.1 The Cognitive Need for Closure and Shared Reality...................................................... 167 6.2.2 The Link Between Mortality Salience and Political Preferences ................................... 168 6.3. Future Directions ................................................................................................................... 170 6.4 Final Comments ...................................................................................................................... 173 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The present research was made possible by a generous grant from the National Council for Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT, 196887). I am also grateful for the support of the Public Education Ministry of Mexico (SEP) that provided me with the complimentary funding that help me carry out this postgraduate research project –and stay just above the poverty line. I hope that by applying what I have learned throughout these years I will be able to repay what my country has invested in me, become a better citizen, and help my home country to grow to its full potential. Thank you for your trust in me. Academic work is a peculiar enterprise, even though a single person signs it and I am the sole responsible for the mistakes that this thesis contains the results of the research is also the accumulated work and intellectual generosity of many people, I would like to take the time to thank some of those who have paved my academic path. When I was a fresh Psychology graduate working at the office of the President of Mexico, Dr Yolanda Meyenberg-Leycegui was generous enough to take me under her wing and give me a glimpse of what the academic world was like, thank you Yolanda for insisting that I should open myself to this rewarding and intellectually demanding experience. My time at the University of Essex has been a life changing experience, not only did it allow me to experience the joy of playing outside in the snow for the first time in my life, discover myself, tolerate loneliness, recognise my many limitations, enhance my potentials, help me grow both internally and intellectually, but it has also help me become a more mature person. Dear Uni, I will always carry with joy, love and pride the knowledge and inner growth that this intricate maze that is your distinct 1960’s concrete brutalist 5 architecture build within me. The many laughs and endless hours of happiness that I have had in your areas, from the PhD “dungeons” to the overwhelming views of the sunsets from the fifth floor of the library –a place where I spend many, many hours–, will be with me forever. Thank you. During my time at the University of Essex, I have come to know an array of valuable people, persons who I respect academically and whom I will carry within my in my heart. My Masters’ supervisor, the late Eric Tanenbaum, was as knowledgeable about statistics as he was kind to me, supporting me and meeting with me at ungodly hours to answer some elementary questions about regressions. Thank you for your kindness, Eric, you –and your blue sweatshirt– will always live in my heart and in the fond memories of our chats and our bus trips from Wivenhoe to the Uni. Dr John Bartle, not only did you encouraged me to discover, explore, and inquire about the fascinating world that is Political Psychology, but you also shared with me our passion for classical music and our mutual admiration for Anne-Sophie Mutter. Thank your for your support and your constant reassurance. Patricia, JP, and you will always have a warm place at the table of my heart. At the Department of Psychology, under the supervision of Dr Philip Cozzolino, Prof Sheina Orbell and Prof Geoff Ward I discovered one of the most intellectual stimulating environments that I have ever experienced in my life. Thank you for your generosity. I would also like to thank the administrative and technical staff at the Department of Psychology, particularly Lesley Monk, Roger Deeble, and Alan Brignull who help me sail the intricate waters of the bureaucratic seas. Kristi Winters, it is a rare occasion that someone gets to know someone as honest, fun and intelligent as you are; your struggle for truth and for the advancement of women’s 6 rights are both admirable and inspiring. Thank you for your emotional support, for your intellectual inspiration, your dazzling wit, your utterly funny stories, and for setting up the TV so that we could stay up all night watching the election results; but above all thank you for I can call you my friend. Anja Neundorf, I would like to thank you for trusting in me and encouraging me to carry on in my dark hours, thank you for your intellectual generosity and your selfless interest in me as a person, I will always share with you more, much more than our mutual interest in political socialisation and photography; our trips to London and our debates at the kitchen table are tokens of joy that I look back at with happiness and love of my years at Essex. I would like to say a special “thank you” to Dr Laura Blackie, Dr Rachael Martin, and Dr Kali Demes who became my friends and companions in this academic adventure, with you girls I rediscover the joys of companionship, of a shared endeavour, and pride by proxy. Let us now eat a delicious Victoria Sponge Cake. Alma González and Reynaldo Sánchez are two joyful characters that made my life at Essex both heartening and fun; Reynaldo’s ceviche's, Alma’s “aspirational chatting” on Sundays, our late-night trips to TESCO, our many jokes, our trips to eat sushi at Kensington Gardens, and our visits to the Tate Modern Gallery together with our shared laughs are but a few examples of the good times that we had and that we continue to build. Anarela Vargas, we have known each other for longer than I can recall, I love and cherish you deeply, without restrictions. Our time at Essex was yet another confirmation of the deep bond that we have. Thank you for staying by my side all these years and accepting me in your life. There are many reasons why one would choose to embark in an enterprise as demanding and uncertain as postgraduate research studies. As a psychologist I cannot be oblivious to the psychological reasons behind my decision to choose this route. My path 7 was not exempt from bumps and frustrations, limitations and disappointments, but throughout my road I had the privilege of being accompanied by two fabulous psychotherapists who held my hand and lend me their Egos so I could grew internally. It is often said the words are insufficient to describe one’s gratitude, I hope these words can convey the profound thankfulness that I have for Amanda Portway my counsellor and psychotherapist in the UK and Dr Pedro Álvarez-Colin, my psychotherapist in Mexico. Thank you both from the bottom of my Ego. Elbert Hubbard has been quoted saying that “a friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you”, you know me well enough Galindes, and throughout the years you have been with me and demonstrated your love to me. I hope that I have live up to the standards of your friendship and that we can continue our “galindismo”. And so this brings me to my family, one of the most important parts of my life. Bola, Auro, Cadi, and Cotita, your messages, wit, acronyms, gossip and endless references to our life and memories were very important for me, thank you for keeping me company, thank you for being part of my life and loving me so much. You are, never doubt it, an essential element of who I am. Horrible Espanto, Querido Intelectual, Queridísima Stacy Malibu, Muy poco de este trabajo habría sido posible sin su presencia constante, sin su ayuda, sin su interés y su enorme paciencia. Decir “gracias” es muy poco para demostrar lo mucho que les agradezco su cercanía y su confianza. Debo a ustedes más de lo que sé. Desde el fondo de mi corazón, gracias y mil veces gracias por aceptarme, apoyarme y quererme, por cuidarme e interesarse en mi. Y ahora, vamos a comprar papayas. 8 9 ABSTRACT. Three studies assessed the relationship between need for closure (NFC; Kruglanski, Webster, & Klem, 1993) and evaluations of political ideology changes, as a function of mortality salience (MS). Based on terror management theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) and previous research (e.g., Cozzolino, 2006; Jost et al., 2003), we hypothesized that abstract reminders of death would activate the facet of NFC that seeks group consensus and stability (as opposed to deviation and persuasion). Following an MS or control induction, 156 participants evaluated politicians who switched political ideologies (moved from the left to the right). In line with recent research (Fu et al., 2007), results indicate that MS induced people high in NFC to express greater support for politicians seeking consensus in the political centre, compared to politicians endorsing liberal or conservative ideologies, an effect consistent with research linking NFC to desires for group centrism and collective closure. A second study (N= 170) clarified this issue further with participants evaluating political parties (rather than individual politicians) depicted as moving from their traditional left/right positions toward the political centre in one condition, or parties that remained true to their traditional ideologies in a second condition. Results revealed that participants high in NFC exposed to MS expressed significantly higher levels of support for parties moving from the right to the centre than for parties (including those moving from the left to the centre). A third study (N=276) explored how the activation of specific needs for cognitive closure via MS would result in an increased support for a centrist political party described as uniform in thought and enjoying an internal (vs. split) mandate for the party’s manifesto. The results further indicate that reminders of mortality amplify demands for consensus and clarity more than signalling a demand for ideological clarity. Results and implications are discussed. Abstract word count: 300. Thesis word count: 41,428. 10 11 Chapter 1. Brief theoretical review. Interactions between social psychology, political behaviour and political psychology. “The first condition of immortality is death”. Stanislaw Jerzy Lec. A vast number of human activities, from face perception (Krosch, Berntsen, Amodio, Jost, & Van Bavel, in press) and prejudices against homosexuals (Rios, in press) to food consumption (Lusk, 2012) and policy understanding (Fernbach, Rogers, Fox, & Sloman, 2013) are influenced by political ideology. This introductory chapter presents an overview of theories that are of direct relevance to the study of political preferences, including the experimental social psychology of politics (Ottati et al., 2002), Political Behaviour, Terror Management Theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986), Need for Cognitive Closure (Kruglanski & Webster, 1991), and motivated social cognition in politics (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003b). The current study addresses the relationship between need for closure (NFC) and evaluations of political ideology changes as a function of mortality salience (MS). It is proposed that, when faced with a reminder of one’s mortality, an individual will defend her/his own political attitude. Political Identity Never before has the study of politics been so psychological. As a result of the globalisation processes so prevalent in the modern world, we face rapid changes within 12 society. Among these are technological advances, a constant flow of information, and an increasing mobility of persons and goods. Consequently, the emergence of fast-paced changes in social structures and the political environment elicits adaptations to the ways in which we relate to and are influenced by social groupings, specifically within the political realm.” Features of stereotyping, prejudice, intergroup relations and a host of different psychological conditions are in play when investigating the concept of political identity. Numerous scholarly lines of inquiry examine this phenomenon today, including Political Behaviour (Bartle, 2003a, 2003b), Political Psychology (Krosnick, 2002; Krosnick et al., 2002), Experimental Political Science (Druckman, Green, Kuklinski, & Lupia, 2011) and the Social Psychology of Politics (Ottati et al., 2002). These schools of thought have come to realize that it is not so much identities or identification that we are dealing with when talking about political identity, but rather ideologies. That is, clusters of psychological conditions that prime responses to political attitudes, determine a growing party “dealignment” (Inglehart & Hochstein, 1972) and, overall, challenge the long-established conceptions of a life-long political party fidelity. For example, in the UK context the dynamics of party identity have been altered by this political party dealignment, a slow but steady divide between the political parties and their electorate (Carmines, McIver, & Stimson, 1987; Sanders, 1983). But the UK is by no means the exception, in Mexico a smaller number of people report to be interested or participating in politics (INEGI, 2011; Vázquez Cuevas, 2008), in the USA the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare”, has prove to be a divisive issue. This “deadening of Ideology” (Jost, 2006) has been embedded with – among other indications – experimental evidence about how priming people with images evoking death led liberals, moderates, and conservatives alike to adhere more strongly to politically conservative ideologies on issues such as taxation, same-sex marriage, and stem cell research. Those subject to a standard control condition that primed participants with 13 images evoking pain did not yield the same ideologically transformative results. Such findings are particularly important because they demonstrate that “death reminders increase support for conservative opinions as well as leaders and therefore rules out charismatic leadership as an alternative explanation for the resets” (Jost, 2006, p. 663). These findings are relevant to the present study since they show evidence of how in the presence of death some political ideologies become more attractive. Furthermore, these findings are important since participation in social manifestations, political civic engagement and social connectedness produce better schools, faster economic development, lower crime, and more effective government (Putnam, 2000). Motivated social cognition Motivated social cognition is a model developed by Jost and colleagues (2003b) to describe the relationship between people’s beliefs and their motivational underpinnings. The model states that ideologies are adopted because they satisfy some psychological needs and that political attitudes may well be principled and motivationally fuelled at the same time. Figure 1.2. Shows the “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition” model (Jost et al., 2003b). 14 Figure 1.2. Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition (Jost et al., 2003b). In summary, the selective exposure to information influences the ways in which people adopt ideological belief systems. Psychological needs, motives, and properties have an operating function within the adoption of political attitudes. The basic assumption is that there are cognitive styles, motivational needs, and adherences which create links between a clearly defined set of psychological needs, motives, and properties and the adoption of politically conservative attitudes (Jost et al., 2003b, p. 340). Hence, the question that arises is, how can we measure political ideologies if we can measure them at all? 15 Death Reflection Terror management theory is based primarily on the writings of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker (1924-1974); this theory posits that self-esteem is the byproduct of a protection against the overwhelming certainty and fear of death. Like any other living species humans have an instinct for survival, yet we are also equipped with a more developed intelligence, this higher intelligence makes us aware of the imminence of our own demise, which in turn creates the setting for a paralysing terror that needs to be dealt with in order to adapt and function adequately in the world. A form of adaptation to this certainty of death is the adherence to cultural worldviews and self-esteem, symbolic representations that offer the illusion of transcendence and beliefs about how well we are adapting to these worldview’s standards. Cultural worldviews are shared beliefs about the nature of reality that can be shared by large groups of people proving meaning, stability and symbolic immortality. Like the opening aphorism by Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, “the first condition of immortality is death”. According to Terror Management Theory (TMT, Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991), an individual’s internalised worldview is the basis of that individual’s psychological security. Therefore, after a manipulation (even a subliminal one, see for example, Arndt, Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1997) reminding individuals about their demise, their worldviews should be held more firmly and defended more strongly against external attacks as these worldviews offer a symbolic form of transcendence. In this sense, TMT helps us understand group adherences as it describes the consequences that reminders of mortality have on people’s emotions, cognitions, and actions. According to TMT, humans share with every other live species an instinct for survival; however, given our superior intelligence we know we are going to die and that our death might be imminent. Such certainty of human mortality activates a series of defence mechanisms that 16 serve as a safeguard against the anxiety caused by this existential threat (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1997). Large bodies of research show that reminders of mortality should intensify the desire for an individual to maintain faith in one’s own cultural worldview and defend it against any threat. TMT is relevant to national political issues given that the experimental manipulation known as Mortality Salience (MS; Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989) has been related to an increase in people’s defence of a global positive view of their own nation. That is, research has shown that reminders of mortality increase the willingness of people to express and adhere to socially accepted attitudes because cultures offer a symbolic way to transcend the inevitable demise of human existence whilst at the same time offering a symbolic, yet secure, vehicle to immortality. In operationalizing those reminders of mortality, terror management theorists have developed a range of experimental manipulations to induce mortality awareness in individuals. For example, researchers have interviewed participants in close proximity (vs. several blocks apart) from funeral homes to evaluate their willingness to give to charity (Jonas, Schimel, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2002), exposed them to gory footage to evaluate their blame and dislike for members of an out-group (Nelson, Moore, Olivetti, & Scott, 1997), or asked them to solve problems which required inappropriate use of the cultural icons (e.g., a devout Catholic using a cross as a hammer) to assess the time to complete the task (Greenberg, Porteus, Simon, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1995). Nevertheless, the most commonly used mortality salience experimental manipulation consists of two open-ended questions inquiring about the individuals’ feelings regarding their own death (Rosenblatt et al., 1989). The first question is intended to make participants conscious of death by asking them to describe the emotions that the thought of their own death arouses in them. The second question is meant to reinforce this mortality awareness and asks the participants to describe, as specifically as they can, what 17 they think will happen to them as they physically die and once they are physically dead. In the control condition, these two questions are changed to ask participants about a regular visit to the dentist, something that is, possibly, not as distressing as the thoughts of their own demise. Additionally, people primed with MS have proven to support national but not foreign charities; overestimate consensus for their beliefs (Pyszczynski et al., 1996; Simon, Greenberg, Arndt, et al., 1997); react more negatively to people who think differently to themselves and react more positively to people who share the same beliefs (Greenberg et al., 1990; Mikulincer & Florian, 2002); and strengthen their beliefs on topics that validate their cultural worldview (McGregor, Zanna, Holmes, & Spencer, 2001). However, TMT has also shown that MS can affect cognition and behaviour depending on individual and situational factors that make particular actions relevant or irrelevant to an individual’s belief systems (cultural worldviews) or self-worth. Therefore, the rationale of this thesis is that when reminded of death, people will defend their own political attitude as it interacts with their cognitive processes. That is, this interaction between fear of death and particular cognitive processes will result in the support of centrist ideologies, political spaces that are described as places where consensus, agreement, and understanding can be reached. As mentioned before, Terror Management Theory (TMT) is based on the works of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker (Becker, 1971, 1973, 1975). In his theory, he posits that pairing self-preservation and survival instinct with awareness of the inevitability of death creates a paralysing terror that is managed by a dual component cultural anxiety buffer consisting of: 1. Belief Systems (cultural worldviews). A set of beliefs about reality shared by groups that provides meaning, order, permanence, stability and the promise of literal or symbolic immortality for those who comply and, 18 2. Self-esteem. One’s belief regarding how well one is living up to the standards of that worldview. These two psychological structures will be defended against threats given that MS increases positive reactions to those who support one’s own worldview and negative reactions against those who violate them. The operationalization of Mortality Salience is based on the contrast of two thoughts: thoughts about one’s own death vs. thoughts about general topics. 1. 2. Thoughts about one’s own death i. Proximity to a funeral ii. Subliminal death primes Thinking about general topics. i. General pain ii. Dental pain iii. Fears of failure iv. Paralysis v. Social exclusion vi. Speaking publicly It has also been proven (e.g. Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994) that MS derives in a suppression of death related thoughts, increasing worldview defence and self-esteem when these thoughts of death are highly accessible but not in the focal attention. Moreover, it has been reported that MS exposure increases preference for persons who praised one’s country over those who criticised it. Additionally, MS participants have shown a bias towards organisations associated with one’s nation (e.g. inappropriate use of the national flag; less blame on American automakers; stronger ingroup identification). 19 MS effects are moderated by specific situational, individual personality and attitudinal variables. Certain personality traits become apparent in the way in which one copes with existential dilemmas. For example, authoritarianism (McCann, 2009), the need for closure (Kruglanski, Webster, & Klem, 1993), and Attachment Style (Mikulincer & Florian, 2000) have all been reported to be moderators of people’s worldview defence. For example, MS was reported to provoke more tolerance towards dissimilar others in liberals and, on a different study, unsympathetic bailout towards prostitutes in a group of judges (Rosenblatt et al., 1989). These results show that in the face of death the use of self-esteem defences lessens anxiety even at the physiological level of skin conductance response (Greenberg, Simon, Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Chatel, 1992). Since an individual’s cultural worldview determines the effects of Terror Management, the TMT conceptualisation of cultural worldview is both group-based and individual. Given that socialisation processes (Niemi & Hepburn, 1995) derive in an internalisation of culture, order, stability, meaning and value, cultural worldviews will be shared by members of the same culture (e.g. perceptions of time, meanings of dreams, etc.). Individual differences will also be present within a culture, however, and can create different understandings about the meanings of worldviews. Need for Cognitive Closure The psychological process by which humans become motivated to engage in an epistemic or cognitive-seeking process about themselves and their surrounding world is composed of two phases: problem formulation and problem solution (Kruglanski, 1989). Problem formulation is a phase in which an epistemic problem is laid out as a motivated behaviour, an attraction or curiosity that a person (the ‘knower’) might have towards a particular piece of information. This knower’s interest in a certain component of information could have either an intrinsic or and extrinsic motivation, thus covering the formulated problem with a 20 teleological functionality (Kruglanski, 1980). This functionality is an aim, end, design, and/or purpose, or a correlation between the knowledge problem and the knower for whom the resolution of the given query will serve intrinsic or extrinsic purposes within that individual’s life. For example, a person might be interested in buying a kitchen knife. Our hypothetical individual now has an epistemic problem (what kind of knife to buy) that can be understood as a motivated behaviour prompted by her enthusiasm for, say, chopping onions. Such interest for the knife could be intrinsic such that, as a child, he shared valuable moments in the kitchen while his parents cooked. Alternatively, his interest could be extrinsically spawned from the fact that he recently moved into a new flat and now has a need for kitchen utensils. Hence, the epistemic problem of buying a knife has a teleological functionality; that is, the problem’s resolution will provide value – either intrinsic or extrinsic – to our hypothetical individual. The problem solution segment of epistemic processing suggests that propositions are tested against their consistency with evidence in order to distinguish them from second possible propositions. In his conception of epistemic processes, Kruglanski (1980) developed the notion that judgments ought to be “validationally functional.” This means that in order to be deemed as evidence that contributes to the resolution of the epistemic problem and to the individual’s knowledge-seeking activities, an epistemic problem would not be addressed by a knower unless the resolution is believed to be beneficial to the person’s situational objectives. To use Kruglanski’s example, Paul's enjoyment of a movie was exclusively caused by (A) the movie’s properties, (B) Paul’s personality, or (C) Paul's interaction with the movie (1980, p. 70). Post-war Voting Studies In the post-World War II era, the work of Paul Lazarsfeld (e.g. Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944) was pioneering in the development of what came to be known 21 as “electoral sociology.” Lazarsfeld and his colleagues conducted a panel study of voters in Ohio, USA to investigate how and when voters choose their preferred candidate during a presidential campaign and whether their opinions would change in the period leading up to the election. Their results show that voters had relatively stable political preferences. Lazarsfeld’s follow-up study showed the influence of friends, family members, and coworkers in shaping the political preferences of voters. Political sociologist Seymour Lipset further developed Lazarsfeld’s work on the ways in which voters use information during the campaign. Lipset focused on the importance of reference groups and social membership, also emphasizing political behaviour in terms of social cleavages, the division of voters into voting blocs, social movements, and the pressure voters experience resulting from their multiple social group memberships (Lipset, 1960). Lipset’s seminal work on political cleavages (Lipset & Rokkan, 1967) argued that not all social divisions lead to cleavages in the party system. However, the most influential post-Second World war approach to the study of political behaviour was the Social-Psychological approach developed by the “Michigan School” of voting behaviour (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960). The Michigan voting theory is a multilevel understanding of the relationship between social cleavages, political psychology, and voting behaviour. This theory states that the attachment to political parties serves a socio-psychological function as it partially answers social reference questions such as: “Who am I? Who are you? Who is he? What do they believe?” (Miller & Shanks, 1996). Therefore, party identification serves as an ontological proxy. In this sense, my research is concerned with the psychological factors and cognitive processes that contribute to the formation of a certain political identification: an affective psychological attachment to a political party. As ideology helps to explain why people do what they do, it organizes their values and beliefs and elicits different types of political behaviour (Jost, 2006). 22 Early Political Socialisation Taking into account the understanding of the social processes through which political understandings emerge, Yates and Youniss (1998) developed an approach to the political that includes a broader range of civic activities in which youth take part. Their approach to the idiom of political development anticipated a new perspective regarding the long-established political socialization model focusing on the unidirectional influence of environmental conditions on individuals’ belief systems. This approach considers “youth as reflective agents growing up within specific social and historical contexts and interpreting the options, opportunities, and restraints they encounter” (1998, p. 496). In their research, Yates and Youniss (1998) found several attitudes that became significant in the development of political understandings and engagement. The analysts presented a connection between youth civic and extracurricular activities and a sense of political identity in adulthood, which included a sense of self-understanding, social integration, and political awareness that leads to the formation of political identity (1998, p. 496). Yates and Youniss also reported that membership in these organizations at age 15 was the best predictor of adult membership in community organizations at age 30. Moreover, they discovered that former members of these organizations were more prone to have children who would in turn become members of youth organizations as well. This correlation was the result of various factors including having the opportunity to participate, belonging to a social group of family and peers who valued service, and developing one’s own sense of commitment to continued service. Yates and Youniss also reported that students who expressed emotional engagement in their service in the forms of sadness, feeling good, or being angry about helping, were more likely to make more encompassing reflections and express a commitment to continued community service after the end of the program. 23 The emotional engagement and its effect on individuals’ levels of commitment will be studied throughout this thesis using a death awareness manipulation and its interaction with cognitive processes to evaluate support for individual politicians and political parties. Social and Political Identity The concept of identity is a controversial one. Particularly in relation to politics, the notion of identity has brought about large discussions within the disciplines of contemporary philosophical logic (Bricker, 1996; Forrest, 2006), metaphysics, political behaviour, and social identity (Brown, 2000; Tajfel & Turner, 1986), among others. Other approaches address the meaning of identity as a form of collective cultural expression, as well as the multifaceted and situationally contingent nature of individual identity. Nevertheless, there has been a slow inclusion of the concept of identity into the empirical studies of political psychology. A brief description of the theories surrounding identity that are of most relevance to the present study follows. Bricker (1996) describes the confusion embedded in the term “identity” as it speaks ambiguously to the idiom “identical” in three main points; the first source of confusion takes into account the qualitatively identical attribute that two things may share (i.e. numerical identity). A second source of confusion is English grammar as a source of misrepresentation of the underlying logic: “one must beware inferring logical from grammatical form” (Bricker, 1996, p. 567). The third source of confusion is the relation of co-designation, the relation that holds between singular terms whenever those terms designate the same object. According to Leibniz law (Forrest, 2006; Sève, 1989), there is a logical characteristic of any identity relation that can be enumerated and classified in logical terms because all its features derive from a single principle. Identity may properly be classified as a logical relation and the theory of identity as a branch of logic (Bricker, 1996, p. 568). Therefore 24 the idiom “identity” seems to be circularly characterized; when dealing with such a baffling idiom we must be careful about the interpretations we draw from its assessment. Given that there exists no fully general (noncircular) definition of identity, we must bear in mind that identity, at least as applied to the most basic entities, must be taken as primitive and analysable. Whether identity holds between objects, it does not depend upon how those objects are conceived, classified or referred to. Moreover, characterizations of identity are inevitably relative to the predicates of language. Notions of identity usually include the idea of a sense of oneself, developed in early childhood, as both an agent and an object that is seen, thought about, liked and disliked by others (Bricker, 1996). This conceptualization of identity helped develop the idea of individuals maintaining a self-continuity over time while still acting in accordance to a specific situation, recognising the “I” as a subject self and the “me” as the object of consideration by others (Monroe, Hankin, & Vechten, 2000). In this sense, Sigmund Freud’s (1922a) work addressed this identitarian division through his notions on Id, Ego and Superego structures. By the same token, Erickson (1959) shaped his work on identity formation where he considered that the conscious sense of individual identity and the need for a continuity of personal character is an ongoing process of ego synthesis, a maintenance procedure of solidarity with the ideals and identity of a group (Monroe et al., 2000, p. 421). Freud’s (1922b) views on groups and mobs revolved around the idea of ego psychology development as he considered that people in mobs grew a sense of closeness which was derived from the projection of their ego ideal onto the leader and her/his partisans. Giving precedent to the notion of political socialisation (Niemi & Hepburn, 1995), Freud developed the idea that an individual is never really alone, that her/his relations may be considered a social phenomenon and that the origin of her/his ‘social instinct’ may stem from early family interaction. In the Freudian perspective, these projection processes (Knight, 1940) also allow partisans to tear down the moral walls and 25 sink the Ego functions among their fellows, thus creating and increasing the excitement and affections that the leader stimulates. Freud’s theory of the conception of groups, their influence on the formation of individual personality and the emotional imprint that they generate in the ego structures coincides with later findings of how political party identifications have established a high persistence over time (Sanders, 1983). By the same token, Elias Canetti in his analysis of Crowds and Power (1962) points out that crowds are about belonging and that the power that this feeling of belonging can instil in its members also sets the boundaries – real or imagined – around and between the crowds and that such margins are crucial to develop feelings of belonging and identification among the multitude. In the psychoanalytic perspective, ideology also plays a fundamental role by channelling the destructive power of mankind in the formation and survival of a group. The social role that the adoption of an identity serves has been elegantly described by Otto Kernberg (1998) in his seminal book Ideology, conflict, and leadership in groups and organizations. Kernberg claims that all systems of beliefs and ideas count as an ideology and that the expression of ideological conflicts within an organisation is one of the social aspects of organizational functioning. Kernberg developed the theory that political processes operate in an open community rather than in a clearly delimited social institution with firm boundaries and a strict organizational structure, given that openness helps the institution’s primary task of survival. He exemplifies how a democratic election can activate the mass psychology with particular effectiveness through the simultaneity of communication offered by the mass media and how members of the open community experience themselves as an anonymous mass while this process also activates the projection of superego functions (Kernberg, 1998, p. 286). Kernberg underlines how in stable socio-political conditions, the electorate generally tends to experience politics as entertainment by observing the whole political process with an attitude of amusement and superiority. Voters are captivated by the 26 performance of politicians trying to impress them whereas in turbulent, potentially threatening social, economic, cultural or historical conditions, the level of paranoid regression is deeper activated. In these cases, the election is perceived as a potential threat as well as a potential opportunity to defy and overcome a real or imagined enemy. In his descriptions, Kernberg describes how social subgroups become sharply divided and serve as targets for the projection of aggression and paranoid distortions, thus raising the conditions for hostility and threat. This vicarious political process described by Kernberg allows partisans to invest a significant amount of social, religious, and psychological energy into idealising each candidate’s personality, background, and capacities “without them saying a single negative word, by such a focused idealization they have already implied a subtle (an not-so-subtle) denigration of their opponent(s)” (Kernberg, 1998, p. 287) in this process, individuals who remain relatively objective and independent “may gradually feel that they are being treated as ‘enemies’ by partisans of the feuding camps” (Kernberg, 1998, p. 287). Social Identity Theory A large number of studies in social identity theory, with replications in various countries, have reinforced the idea of the emergence of in-group favouritism (Tajfel, 1981; Tuner, 1996; Turner et al., 1997). Huddy's study on social identity theory, addressing the development of feminist identity in particular, shows that culturally established group prototypes create a powerful source of identity stability. This raises an important challenge: how do we explain an individual group member’s decision to identify as a group member? And, given that social identity tendency typically regards social identity as an all-or-nothing phenomenon, how do we account for identities of variable strength that persist across situations (Huddy, 2001)? 27 Moreover, which psychological traits are involved in the development of a political party attachment? There are two different branches of social identity theory: social identity theory and selfcategorization theory. Both theories recognize the influence of cognitive and motivational factors and early versions of the identity theory developed by Tajfel and Turner (1979, 1981). On the one hand, these theories emphasise the psychological motivations that direct group members to consent or reject an existing group membership. On the other hand, self-categorization theory stresses the cognitive foundations of social identity, which in turn promotes the labelling of oneself as a group member (Huddy, 2001). These two approaches of the social identity theory allocate the same principles of categorization for any other object as a means to explain the grouping of people and oneself into a single collective whether these are political groups or not. As it has been shown, cognitive factors alone are unable to explain the emergence of intergroup discriminations. The inclusion of other motivational factors must be considered to account for the development of this intergroup favouritism and, most importantly, for the internalization of the group label as a social identity. The above-mentioned studies suggest that identity formation cannot be simply explained by the salience of a group designation. A significant implication of these findings is that such strong identities have been found to undercut national unity and promote intolerance and intergroup antipathies, thus revealing the existence of a strong, internalized subjective identity, not simple group membership (Huddy, 2001). Furthermore, Jost (2006) points out how ideology serves as an interrelated set of moral and political attitudes that possesses cognitive, affective and motivational components. There is also evidence about how category salience shapes identity. Some studies (e.g. McGuire, 1978) have found that children belonging to an ethnic minority group are 28 more likely to describe themselves in terms of their ethnicity. The increment of group salience consequently promoted the development of in-group bias. The cognitive origins of identity include a new way of looking at categories: not as membership but as a set with unclear boundaries, which are important features for the research of political identification. These kinds of stereotypes may act as a prototype by which a group member can become the personification of a group’s notion of itself. This perceived similarity to the prototypic group member plays a key role in the formation and development of social identity because group members are more prone to think of themselves as members of the group. One’s perceived similarity to the prototypic group member plays a key role in the formation and development of social identity. For Huddy, the concept of self-categorization is a labile view of social identities as it seems to be completely driven by immediate perceptual context and overlooks the fact that identities vary because social categories (age/gender) differ in salience across situations while categories themselves change across social settings. Hence, under certain conditions, members of groups are more prone to think of themselves as belonging to social groups if that maximizes the similarities between oneself and other group members and heightens one’s difference from outsiders. “Group prototypes vary across social settings and thus contribute further to identify shifts” (Huddy, 2001, p. 134). If people, by nature, group themselves into a collective, there must surely be something to unite them “and this bond might be precisely the thing that is characteristic of a group” (Freud, 1921). Motivation There is more to social identification than a cognitive matter, a sense of security from the group, or a feeling of certainty. A need for positive distinctiveness among group members to distinguish themselves from outsiders is always present, especially among lowstatus group members who have a less stable group identity and therefore a stronger need 29 to develop an identity around alternative, positively valued group attributes. In this sense, motivational underpinnings of social identity suggest that low status members use tactics of social creativity to enhance their group standing. In contrast, members with higher self esteem are most likely to derogate from it to an out-group in order to protect group standing because in-group identity depends on a balance between the need to belong and the need for uniqueness. Social identity theories have gathered ample empirical evidence about the consequences of group membership but shed considerably less light on the development of political identity and the way in which group belonging affects political support (e. g. Greene, 1999). This is a serious omission for political behaviour researchers who are interested not only in what happens once group distinctions are made salient but also in the development of identities. This omission generates important questions regarding why individuals vary in the degree to which they identify with a group and what processes makes political identification become salient. Acquired Versus Ascribed Identities As opposed to what happened in a primitive, patriarchal power structure that exerted a centralized control over a community (Ortner, 1996; Sanderson, 2001), modern states only admit individual people characterized by a relationship of permanence, as subjects of laws and rights. In this sense, in a world that is dominated by nation-states, the particular identity of each individual is determined by her/his feeling of belonging to a wider group, by her/his nation, and by her/his nationality, which leaves behind all her/his other characteristics as merely accessorial. This raises the question of whether political identities are acquired by choice or are just an interaction between personality traits and cognitive predispositions. 30 As mentioned previously, ideology has been conceptualized as a belief system that is shared with an identifiable group as a structure that systematises, stimulates, and gives meaning to political behaviour (Jost, 2006). In this sense, the measurement of an ideology has been central to the debate surrounding British voting behaviour since it was introduced by Butler and Stokes in their seminal study of the British electorate Political Change in Britain (1969). Ever since its introduction, the concept of ideology has raised questions as to how people will report their sense of identity not as a result of a self-identity, but one imposed by the question wording itself (e. g. Bartle, 2000, 2003a). Nonetheless, some scholars have insisted that the man-in-the-street does have attitudes (Kerlinger, 1967), and that ideologies are in fact “the most potent form of ideation [making] ordinary motives look pale and insignificant” (Dember, 1974; p. 166 in Jost, 2006). Jost describes a measurement problem when accounting for the pale distinctions between core (stable) and peripheral (potentially malleable) aspects of ideological belief systems (2006, p. 654) this is important as we need to have the best possible instruments in order to really measure the attitudes that we want to study. Building upon Adorno’s assumption (1950), Jost suggests that a wide range of personality and situational factors affect one’s psychological needs. Therefore, the political orientations one develops and any changes or “shifts” within individuals and populations are a function of their cognitive and motivational needs. Clearly ideology “possesses cognitive organization, motivational significance, political content, and psychological specificity” (Jost 2006, p. 654). There is a core feature of liberalism and conservatism that goes beyond the measured policy-specific attitudes. That is, the psychological motivations for the adherence and identification with certain political options might be stronger than the philosophical postulations of such ideologies. Psychology, particularly social psychological theories, sheds light on the foundations of the links between individuals and political parties as they deal with the 31 concept of identity. Political identification produces “distortion, oversimplification, and selective processing of information at least as much as it breeds political sophistication” (Jost, 2006). Social psychological theories have included the individual’s need to consider her/himself as a partisan, a member of a grouping, given that, within a collective, the individual finds a means of expressing contributions that she/he wishes to make (Bion, 1961). A group is essential to the fulfilment of various needs of different individuals, especially on a mental level. In turn, this fulfilment can only be provided by the presence of a group. As mentioned above, the adherence, commitment, feeling of belonging and inner satisfaction that an individual develops towards a group—and more specifically, towards a political party—serves an internal, cognitive and political purpose which has proven to persist over time despite any form of official recognition. The Fuzzy Concept of Party Identification The concept of party identification was developed to explain the exhibited regularities in individual voting behaviour in the United States. In their seminal book, “The American Voter,” Campbell, Converse, Miller, Stokes (1960) and colleagues defined party identification as “the individual’s affective orientation to an important group-object in his environment” (p. 121). Party identification was considered to be an affective, psychological attachment to a political party, whereas the party was perceived to represent a stereotype, a reference group-symbol toward which the individual developed a strong lifelong orientation. This self-identity concept has its basis in early socialization processes that are informally learned in the family and the close social environment during childhood when the individual has almost no political awareness. Therefore its core is not the party’s policies or the party per se, but the social groups that were perceived to support that party’s membership and identification with a political group. 32 The origin of the “party identification” idiom accounted for its nature as an emotional proxy, a central emotional component of the belief structure of the individual that worked as a self-organising principle throughout life. Once established, party identification was considered to be an attitude stable in its direction, unconscious in its loyalty, and highly immune to the experiences of everyday politics as length of affiliation continued to strengthen this identification (Campbell et al, 1960). According to Miller and Shanks (1996) changes in party identification occur when conditions in the social environment of the individual alter the self-defining principles that link her/him to a political party. The treatment that the concept of party identification has had in political behaviour is relevant because it is the strongest and most consistent predictor of Americans’ voting preferences. As Hyman stated in 1959, “a man is born into his political party just as he is born into probable future membership in the church of his parents” (p. 74). Nevertheless, the concept of party identification has different meanings to different people according to their particular academic background and a priori assumptions. To understand how the concept of party identification differs across diverse groups, one should examine the definition of both attitude and identification. Much of the debate about identity in recent decades has been about personal identity, and specifically about personal identity over time. Leibniz held numerical identity equivalent to indiscernibility, or sameness, of all the features each thing has (Noonan, 2005). However, Locke maintained that judgments of identity are invariably made in reference to types or a vast multitude of particular existence (Uzgalis, 2007). The identity of individual persons is a troublesome case, especially when we try to relate it to an external activity such as political behaviour that we intend to measure. In political psychology, a conception of attitude is employed to designate inferred dispositions, attributed to an individual, according to which her/his thoughts, feelings, and 33 attitudinal tendencies are organized with respect to a psychological object (Smith, 1968a, p. 458 in Brewster Smith, 1973, p. 58). Thus far, political science has dealt with party identification merely as “the answer a respondent gives to a question of the form ‘Generally (sic), do you see yourself (sic) as a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, or what?’” (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, 1996, p. 363). These distinctions are crucial because by bearing in mind such a difference, one can identify whether the action of voting for a political party is a consequence of a more or less permanent attitude or, despite the faults and differences that a voter might have towards a given political party, his support for this party will be more or less constant given that it derives from his feeling of connectedness, not only with the political party per se, but with the group with whom he identifies himself. Political behaviour often confuses attitudes and identities. Some clarification regarding the choice of words and the concepts behind them would be of use when dealing with an idiom like party identification. A dictionary definition of the term reads, “a stable underlying orientation which might be disturbed by current affairs without being permanently upset” (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, 1996, p. 363). Nevertheless, the very essence of identity is that it should not be disturbed by momentary considerations. Attitudes represent enduring feelings towards an object. Clearly, identities might be indicated by attitudes or behaviour but we cannot necessarily infer identity from either. Therefore, in dealing with political behaviour, one can treat partisanship as an attitude or as an identity; and such an ambiguity will produce often-contradictory interpretations about the results of these findings. Relying on this concept of party identification leads to the discussion of whether the stable underlying orientation towards a political party could and should be considered as an attitude, which is essentially cognitive, or as an identity, which therefore has to be viewed in a more expressive context. Addressing the identity/expressive issue, The American 34 Voter (Campbell, et al, 1960) is perhaps the most influential study in political behaviour. The study is based on responses to two simple questions that each survey respondent was asked: “Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent or what?” followed by, “Would you call yourself a strong “X” or not a very strong “X”?” or, “Do you consider yourself to be closer to the Republican Party or the Democratic Party?” In this way, respondents are classified as “closer to the “X” Party” or “Independent leaning to the “X” Party.” Those who respond "Democrat" are labelled as "Democrat identifiers." Those who respond "Republican" are labelled as "Republican identifiers." The theory of Campbell and colleagues (1960) describes which party the voter is attached to as an identification and therefore expressive predisposition, typically acquired in pre-adult life from the parental family. With little to no elaboration of ideas about the relative merits of the two parties, this theory is highly stable and a good predictor of behaviour in partisan elections (Sanders, 1983; Sanders, Burton, & Kneeshaw, 2002). In an important sense, these attitude forces are intervening variables linking behaviour with a host of antecedent factors. The very success of these forces in accounting for behaviour heightens the interest in locating prior factors by which the properties of an individual attitude may in turn be explained (Campbell et al., 1960). Nevertheless, the way in which this concept of party identification has been used in electoral studies is rather vague. Asking a question phrased like, “Generally speaking, do usually think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent or what?” could induce the respondents to shift away from what they truly are, as has been reported. Moreover, this kind of question fails to account for the cognitive and psychological complexities involved in developing a political adherence. Since the notion of political party identification was first introduced by Angus Campbell (Campbell, Gurin, & Miller, 1954) in The Voter Decides as an important group 35 attachment which persists over time, it has been well acknowledged that the way citizens perceive and evaluate political parties influences their political behaviour (Timpone & Neely, 1997). These partisan attachments are one of the most important factors that act as psychological forces in determining political behaviour. Traditionally, political parties have been recognized as living groups by which their partisans express not only a political preference but a personal identity as well. As a group, political parties have a priming effect in structuring a person’s political identity by means of its influence on the individual’s evaluation of politics. In turn, this expressive political identity has been demonstrated to have an enduring persistence over time (Campbell et al., 1960; Sanders et al., 2002). Moreover, it has an effect on the structure of political debate since it acts as a mobilizing structure for citizenry (Yates & Youniss, 1998). Psychological predispositions Psychological predispositions are important as they are enacted within specific socio-political contexts. For example, Sidanius and Pratto (1999) have demonstrated the mediation effect that psychological qualities such as the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) has on the relationship between gender and social attitudes; partisanships and gender differences. The psychological traits of SDO have also been strongly associated with political ideology and conservative policy positions, vote choice, and political ideology. To understand the effect of political groups on a person’s political behaviour it is important to bear in mind that the events occurring in a collective of individuals are not merely aggregates of individual events. The social stimulus of human relations in the developmental route of political identification is closely connected to early group formation processes. This is true particularly in regards to political parties whose membership tinges partisans with a sense of “psychosocial protection” (Hinshelwood, 1987, p. 34). By the same token, people are sensitive to status and power cues and are psychologically equipped 36 to respond to these cues “coupled with other psychological biases such as the motivation to reduce cognitive dissonance and to have positive social identity, implies that people easily learn different general value orientations toward group dominance” (Sidanius and Pratto, 1999, p. 9). The topic of party identification calls for a psychological approach as it is entrenched within the study of political behaviour or, to use Niemi’s aphorism, “political ideas – like the consumption of cigarettes and liquor – does not suddenly begin with one’s eighteenth birthday” (Hinshelwood, 1987, p. 34). Campbell and colleagues (1964) have stressed the psychological elements of party identification. The way in which party attachment is created and developed during one’s lifespan is defined “not by rigid, immutable fixation on one party rather than the other, but by a persistent adherence and a resistance to contrary influence” (1964, p. 86). As such, the scholars define party identification as “an individual’s affective orientation to an important group-object in his environment” (1960, p. 121). Nevertheless, they are cautious about implying the use of voting behaviour to measure psychological identification with the party since one cannot infer identity from behaviour, even though you have to have attitudes in order to identify identity. Furthermore, in The Voter Decides, Campbell and colleagues described a psychological process by which every new political event was perceived by the voter against a background of attitudes and predispositions of which the individual himself may be only dimly aware. Perception is a highly selective process, influenced both by an individual’s past experience and present needs (1954, p. 84). Even though the psychological elements of party identification were not the primary focus of Campbell and colleagues’ analysis, they argued that, given that voters know little about the detail of politics, the political party becomes relevant as a supplier of cues by which the individual may evaluate the elements of politics. The strength of relationship between party identification and the dimensions of 37 partisan attitude suggests that responses to each element of national politics are deeply affected by the individual’s enduring party attachment (1960, p. 128). In The New American Voter (1974, p. 117), Miller and Shanks deal with the controversy of political identification by stating that party identification is the most enduring of political attitudes, responsible for shaping a wide variety of values and perceptions, and, therefore, an appropriate starting point for an analysis of a partisan political preference, such as a choice between presidential candidates (1996, p. 117). They derived the idea of party identification from small group theory as a concept that is categorized as one’s sense of self, which may include a feeling of personal identity with a secondary group such as a political party (1996, p. 120), though such a feeling might neither have a correspondent formal membership nor necessarily imply a voting record. Even the most relevant proponents of the political identity scheme have some ambiguity in the treatment of the idiom. Miller and Shanks (1996) use the notion of religious affiliation as an analogy to describe political attachment as a connection that often derives from family interaction as a matter of early socialisation and political socialisation in addition to group identification, which involves cultural, ethnic, religious or social entities that may lead to negative attitudes towards “other” groups even though party identification does not necessarily create this type of engagement. Next to the aforementioned distinction between the cognitive element of an attitude as opposed to the expressive quality of an identity, Miller and Shanks (1996) remark in their theory that identification may simply denote a sense of oneness with the identified group that sets off from other groups. Consequently, the role of church and political parties in these identitarian/expressive schemes of political identification serves to provide a structure to the ordinary person’s understanding of the external world. It provides a comprehensive framework of assumptions, ideas and beliefs through which an 38 individual interprets the world and interacts with it. This assertion of the utmost importance reveals the vast array of psychological implications that are at the origins of political attachment. Correspondingly, rational choice literature accounts for voting behaviour as a link between the national importance of voting and the individual calculus of voting. Upon the models that have been developed under the attitude/cognitive scheme, Anthony Downs’ An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957) soon became a touchstone. Downs’ purpose was to bring the study of voters and parties together under the same framework by treating the individual actor as the basic unit of analysis on the assumption that individuals behave rationally and with consistency of choice (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, 1996, pp. 420-421). Given that voting is a precondition for democracy, Downs suggested that the survival of democracy was such an important and noble cause that many individuals would feel obligated to go to the polls. Whatever the case may be, an intriguing fact about this cognitive attitude of voting is that the act itself generates no tangible benefits to the individual and offers no compensation for the effort it involves, especially if we weigh the policy impact that a simple vote would have. According to the rational choice theorists, the attachment that an individual has towards a political party represents a cognitive short cut, a running tally of retrospective assessments of party performance (1996) by which the individual votes and understands the political information to what she/he is exposed. This partisanship has proven to be stable over time and does not vary much between elections. Nonetheless, some critics have pointed out that addressing identification to a particular political party is not much of an explanation of vote. Voting is a specific act in which current demands and calculations can in principle over-ride partisanship and result in partisans casting their votes for parties other than those with which they identify (Sanders, et al., 2002). 39 A method for introducing some causal order in the study of voting behaviour is the “funnel of causality” (Sniderman, Brody, & Tetlock, 1991) in which the influences of voting behaviour are explained in terms of terms of prior temporary and casual forces with events following each other in a casual chain moving to the stem of the funnel. The “funnel of causality” provided a convenient framework to explain electoral behaviour with historical, social, and institutional antecedents (Campbell et al., 1960). Figure 1.1 shows a graphic depiction of the “Funnel of Causality.” Figure 1.1. Funnel of Electoral Causality (Bartels, 2008; Campbell et al., 1960). Just as longitude is measured in degrees, light in candles and time in seconds, democracy is measured in votes; by summing up the main participation theories it is clear that a complete explanatory model of political identities should include both macro factors and a thorough psychological account. As stated by Jost (2006, p. 662), the important point is not that Adorno and colleagues bested their critics but “it is that psychologists are finally returning to the kinds of questions raised by The Authoritarian Personality after many years of neglect during the end-of-ideology era.” 40 Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition There is a vast literature addressing the cognitive styles and motivational needs of political conservatives that describes the different psychological traits underlining ideological differences between political partisans from left to right. Furthermore, some individual characteristics have been associated with attitudes like dogmatism, intolerance of ambiguity, uncertainty avoidance, and need for cognitive closure. The study of political conservatism began with Theodor Adorno and colleagues (1950) in their seminal book The Authoritarian Personality. This study, together with other studies such as the Right-Wing Authoritarianism (Campbell et al., 1960) was criticized for its theoretical and methodological assumptions but withstood its critiques. If the understanding of the psychological basis for conservatism is the starting point, then we ought to ask some methodological questions that go beyond personality theory such as how we can measure individual attitudes that historically have been an amalgamation of two different constructs. The Conservatism scale (C-Scale) developed by Wilson and Patterson (1968) is a psychological instrument used to measure conservative tendencies that elicit general attitudes alongside explicit political attitudes. The connection between general epistemic motivations and conservative ideology is put forward given that political conservatism has been proven to be influenced by a multiplicity of social-cognitive motives and that there is a clear link between general epistemic motivations and conservative ideology. Summary of Theoretical Themes to be examined in this Thesis Several research hypotheses arise from the review of previous studies and theory examining the nature of political identity and party identification. The present research seeks to address questions related to the reviewed theoretical idioms, that is the relationship between need for cognitive closure and evaluations of political ideology change. 41 Based on Terror Management Theory (e.g. Campbell et al., 1960; Sanders et al., 2002), Kruglanski, Webster, and Klem’s (Greenberg et al., 1986) research on aversion to ambiguity, and Jost and colleagues’ (1993) model on the adoption of conservative ideologies, the studies in this thesis aimed to investigate whether it is possible to activate manifest preferences for the political centre. In line with research linking needs for cognitive closure to desires for group unanimity it was expected that mortality reminders would induce people with an elevated need for cognitive closure to express greater support for both individual politicians and political parties seeking consensus in the political centre as opposed to individual politicians and political parties adhering to liberal, conservative and extreme right/left ideologies. In the present thesis I study if there is an interaction occurring between awareness of mortality via the manipulation known as Mortality Salience (MS, vs. Control condition) and a need for cognitive closure (NFC) such that in a dynamic political environment centrist individual politicians (Study 1), centrist political parties (Study 2), and a centrist political party with a clear (vs. divided) mandate (Study 3) receive more attitudinal and behavioural support from individuals. Organisation of the Thesis Chapters 3 to 5 report experimental studies covering the themes to be examined. Chapter 6 discusses theoretical and practical implications of these studies, and suggestions are made for future research in this area. 42 43 Chapter 2. Theoretical review. This chapter builds on the discussion from chapter one, elaborating on theories and schools of thought that are directly relevant to the present study in order to better contextualize this project. All theories and concepts discussed in this chapter are related to the topics of political centrism, mortality salience (MS), or a need for closure (NFC). In particular, academic understandings of fear, social cognition, terror management, political conservatism, and consensus motive, among other issues, are examined. A Brief History of Fear Fear is the first feeling that the Bible records. When Adam eats from the tree of knowledge, he is scared and hides from God. Fear is one of the most repeated words in The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. One might conclude that fear is the great engine of history. In past centuries, both the Catholic Church and monarchs controlled the world through fear. Then came the French Revolution in 1789 which made men control the world through fear. The amount of fear generated by such a revolution was so great that even some of its chapters are still known as “Terror” (2003b). If one consider the phenomenon of fear historically, it could be determined that the state has been responsible for managing fear ever since the dawn of the French Revolution. The state’s mission, consequently, appears to be teaching people to fear certain things. By providing laws, regulations, and discipline, the state instils a certain consistency, a certain order within society. As a political idea, fear is the basis of public life. Hell, earthquakes, wars, floods and plagues are ways of naming the same thing: the fear of losing personal or collective welfare. Corey Robin (Gonzalbo, Staples, & Torres Septién, 2009) and Naomi Klein (2004) have pointed out that the feeling of anxiety and fear that accompanies moments of crisis 44 has, over time, contributed to the rise of despotic or dictatorial leadership that controls every detail of daily life in return for allegedly securing people’s welfare and certitude, among other appealing values. Where the government fails, said Montesquieu(2007), it yearns for discipline. As a result, frightening, building scenarios of terror, and “defending” people from threats has allowed political groups over the course of history to become the main beneficiaries of one of the oldest feelings experienced by man: fear. The psychological conditioning involved in people’s willingness to follow a fearsome leader are discussed in more detail below. Motivated Social Cognition Different psychological traits have been associated with ideological preferences between political partisans from left to right. A vast literature addresses the various cognitive styles and motivational needs of these political adherences (1762). Furthermore, individual differences are associated with dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity, uncertainty avoidance, need for cognitive closure, and social dominance orientation. The study of political conservatism began with Adorno and colleagues’ (e. g. Barbaranelli, Caprara, Vecchione, & Fraley, 2007; Burden & Klofstad, 2005; Gerber, Huber, Doherty, & Dowling, 2010) study on authoritarianism and the fascist potential in personality. However, this Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scheme has been criticised on both theoretical and methodological grounds. In a 2003 study, Jost and colleagues compare different cognitive styles and the motivational needs of political conservatives with those of liberals, moderates, radicals, and left-wingers. The researchers link individual differences, dogmatism and intolerance to ambiguity, need for cognitive closure (NFC), and social dominance orientation (SDO) as a way to understand the psychological variables that contribute to political conservatism. The study of personality theories of political attitudes is considered a controversial one; nevertheless Jost and colleagues assume that there are demonstrable links between a set of psychological needs, motives and 45 properties and the adoption of politically conservative attitudes. However, their methodological approach was more complex, applying the Conservatism Scale (C-Scale) (1950), which brings together both political and non-political stimuli eliciting uncertainty avoidance and political referents. As Jost et al. (2003) explain, these referents serve as early linkages between general epistemic motivations and conservative ideologies that differentiates psychological and ideological variables. Moreover, the study concludes that treating political conservatism only as an individualdifference variable overlooks the fact that other factors also influence both the experience and expression of conservatism. Further validating the methodological approach of the current study, Jost and colleagues indicated that if personality theories address how character rigidity and motivational threat are related to holding conservative attitudes, then threatening situations should increase conservative tendencies in the population as a whole. They conclude that “tendencies toward political conservatism are influenced by a multiplicity of social–cognitive motives.” (Wilson & Patterson, 1968). Jost and colleagues consider that a ‘motivated social-cognitive’ approach offers the best potential to unify diverse theories about the psychological basis of political conservatism by linking social and cognitive motives to the contents of explicit political attitudes. Specifically, they point to insights from epistemic and existential needs and socio-political theories of ideology. Their conclusions suggest that the adoption of conservative political attitudes occurs, in part, because it serves to reduce fear, anxiety and uncertainty and to avoid change, disruption, and ambiguity. Furthermore, Jost et al. states that this ‘motivated social cognition’ approach to political conservatism helps maintain a clear distinction between psychological and political outcomes by highlighting situational and dispositional variables. Their suggested approach also takes into account a wider variety of epistemic, existential and ideological motivations as an integrated framework that indicates that the adoption of conservative ideologies is due – at least in part – to an urge to satisfy some psychological needs. The present thesis builds upon Jost’s findings by suggesting that psychological needs precede the adoption of political ideologies, that is, that a 46 demand to satisfy cognitive needs for closure in a context in which people have been reminded about their own mortality will originate higher levels of support for centrist politicians (Study 1), centrist political parties (Study 2), and a centrist political party with a clear mandate among its constituents’ (Study 3). ‘Motivated social cognition’ thus refers to a number of assumptions about the relationship between people’s beliefs and their motivational underpinnings. In their perspective, beliefs are assumed to be drawn from premises that provide some psychological satisfaction as well as values, beliefs, and premises. Individuals adhere to these personal and social motivations although they may or not be consciously available to the political thinker. General Theoretical Assumptions. There are two separate forms of motivation in belief development and information processing: directional and non-directional. Directional motives are those that include the desire to reach to a specific conclusion, as opposed to non-directional motives that stem from a desire to arrive at an understanding independent of its content. Non-directional motives include “‘need to know’ (Rokeach, 1960), the need for nonspecific closure (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996), the fear of invalidity (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983), and the need for cognition (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982)” (Jost et al., 2003). The authors assume the existence of a ‘matching process’ whereby people adopt ideological belief systems (Conservatism, RWA –Right Wing Authoritarianism- and SDO) in order to satisfy some psychological needs and motives such as need for order, structure, closure, avoidance of uncertainty or threat. The theoretical assumption of Jost and colleagues is that “the same motives may underlie different beliefs and that different motives may underlie the same belief” (2003, p. 341). This means that a temporary motive like need for closure or terror management could lead to express liberal and conservative beliefs, depending on the accessible ideology. It also suggests that people might adopt conservative beliefs as a desire for certainty while others might adopt the same beliefs 47 as a response to a threat to one’s self-esteem or to the worldview. Information is the base in which belief formation is supported, either at a conscious or unconscious level and that this process of information acquisition also proves why parents and other authorities are effective at socializing children to hold specific political beliefs as information coming from these sources might be more readily assimilated when it is perceived as supporting prior beliefs thus serving a rationalising function in the construction of ideological belief systems. Furthermore, the study indicates that the reasons to hold certain beliefs that are conservative in nature may have little to do with the rational assessment of those ideologies. In other words, conservative beliefs are not false just because they are motivated by epistemic, existential and ideological concerns. Further examination of those motivations is warranted, which is one of the main objectives of the present study. The Motivated Social-Cognitive Perspective The ‘motivated social-cognitive’ perspective modelled by Jost and colleagues (2003) differs from other theories of conservatism in that it is based upon individual differences that are selfinterested and modelled by imitation and reinforcement. Jost and colleagues recognize that there are individual differences that lead to the adoption of conservative attitudes, but they also consider the situational variations in the expression of such tendencies. According to these scholars, a conservative perspective considers that fear, threat, and uncertainty ought to be prevented, thus demonstrating the connection between fear avoidance and the adoption of conservative attitudes. This in turn might explain why people in disadvantaged situations and low-status groups might adopt conservative attitudes given that adherence to such ideologies might serve to reduce fear, anxiety, uncertainty or instability whereas the more affluent might adopt the same conservative attitudes out of self-interest or social dominance. 48 The ‘motivated social-cognitive’ perspective has been applied and practiced in several research studies, including Chirumbolo, Areni, and Sensales (2004), Chirumbolo, Livi, Mannetti, Pierro, and Kruglanski (2004), Jost et al. (2003), and Kruglanski, Webster, and Klem (1993). This approach emphasizes how political conservative orientations are multiply determined by an array of personal and situational factors. These researchers suggest that the adoption of conservative attitudes is not exclusive to political ideologies, as individual and social influences are factors that might vary personally and situationally. However, the ‘motivated social-cognitive’ perspective also stresses the relationship between certain kinds of psychological motives that match specific ideological outcomes. In this sense, this researcher considers that a cognition process that is socially motivated can be applied to other belief systems that function as “system[s] of interrelated beliefs” (Jost et al., 2003b, p. 340). Conceptual Definitions of Conservatism Dictionary definitions of conservatism stress the tendency to preserve what is established: an opposition to change (Neilson, 1958, p. 568 in Jost et al., 2003), a fear of change that can be transformed into the fear of radicalism, a belief in the legitimacy of inequality, and a “tendency to rationalize existing institutions, especially those that maintain hierarchical authority” (p. 342, footnote 3). This dimension of acceptance of change, as opposed to resistance to change, has been measured in terms of the famous C-Scale (Wilson and Patterson, 1968) and the Right-Wing Authoritarianism RWA Scale (Jost et al., 2003b, p. 342). An additional element regarding conservatism is the way in which attitudes towards equality have been captured by measures of political-economic conservatism, Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and economic system justification. Theories Relating to the Psychology of Conservatism. The hypotheses consider by Jost and colleagues (e.g. Chirumbolo, Livi, Mannetti, Pierro, & 49 Kruglanski, 2004; Jost et al., 2003b; Kruglanski, 1996) is that specific psychological, cognitive motives and processes are related to particular ideological, social or political contents; and an integration of such motives and variables can predict (and explain) political conservatism. These variables are: 1. Fear and Aggression (2003b) 2. Intolerance of Ambiguity (Fibert & Ressler, 1998; Frenkel- Brunswik, 1949), 3. Rule Following and Negative Affect (Tomkins, 1963, 1965), 4. Uncertainty Avoidance (Sorrentino & Roney, 1986; Wilson, 1973b), 5. Need For Cognitive Closure (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996), 6. Personal Need For Structure (Altemeyer, 1998; Schaller, Boyd, Yohannes, & O’Brien, 1995; Smith & Gordon, 1998), 7. Need For Prevention-Oriented Regulatory Focus (Higgins, 1997; Liberman, Idson, Camacho, & Higgins, 1999), 8. Anxiety Arising from Mortality Salience (Greenberg et al., 1990; Greenberg et al., 1992), 9. Group-Based Dominance (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), and System Justification Tendencies (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Jost, Burgess, & Mosso, 2001). The categories in which these theories can be classified are: (i) personality (ii) satisfaction of epistemic needs, and (iii) socio-political rationalisation of social systems. In the present thesis we only focus on a couple of these categories, namely Need for Cognitive Closure, and Terror Management Theory via Mortality Salience. The Theory of Right-Wing Authoritarianism. Derived from The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al, 1950, p. 345) as an integration of 50 Marxist ideology and Freudian theories of motivation and personality development, Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) holds that fear and aggressiveness resulting from parental punitive approaches lead to a preference for control in the environment, an “anxious veneration of authority” (). Therefore, conservatism is the general factor that underlies all social attitudes of which authoritarianism is but one manifestation. Later, Robert Altemayer (1981) revised the model, rejecting the Freudian orthodox interpretation and inserting a new construal of the resistance to change and endorsement of inequality. Altemeyer’s model was more consistent with social dominance theory (Pratto et al., 1994; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999 in Jost, 2003) and system justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Jost et al., 2003 in Jost, 2003). In this sense, the RWA has been found to predict a broad range of attitudes and behaviours related to socio-economic and political conservatism and correlate with political party affiliations amongst other politically conservative attitudes with political elites an the public in general. Intolerance of Ambiguity Frenkel-Brunswik (1948) argued that intolerance of ambiguity constituted a general personality variable that was positively related to prejudice and other general and cognitive variables including “a disinclination to think in terms of probability; a comparative inability to abandon mental sets in intellectual tasks, such as in solving mathematical problems” (FrenkelBrunswik, 1948, p. 268 in Jost et al, 2003). Intolerance of ambiguity was therefore defined as “the tendency to perceive ambiguous situations as sources of threat” (Budner, 1962 p. 29 in Jost et al, 2003, p. 346). In turn, such trend leads people to adhere to the familiar, to adopt simplistic stereotypes and arrive at rapid conclusions in an effort to find certainty. Theories of ambiguity combine psychodynamic antecedents with perceptual, cognitive, motivational, social and political consequences. 51 Mental Rigidity, Dogmatism, and Closed-Mindedness. One of the criticisms that Adorno’s (Altemeyer, 1996) F-Scale, a personality test designed to measure the authoritarian personality received was that it failed to assess left-wing authoritarianism. Consequently, Rokeach (Adorno et al., 1950; Altemeyer, 1996) developed a scale of dogmatism as a more balanced measure of authoritarianism that merges epistemic and existential motives in social and political attitudes. In this scale the items identify contradictory beliefs and the denial of such contradiction in one’s own belief system. The scale suggests that resistance to change is important because it alleviates anxiety and also satisfies the need to know (Rokeach, 1960, in Jost et al, 2003). This relates to the present study, as my hypothesis is that there is an interaction occurring between cognitive needs for closure and anxiety-producing elements found in the mortality salience manipulation of the Terror Management Theory (1950). The Theory of Ideo-Affective Polarity The theory of ideological polarity, developed by Silvan Solomon Tomkins (1963), explicitly stresses the influence that affect and motivation have on ideology and, in turn, the impact that ideology has on many other aspects of a person’s life such as arts, music and science. These ideoaffective postures regarding whether the world belongs on the political left or right are associated with liberty and humanism for the left, and rule-following and normative concerns for the right. This perspective considers that individual preferences are developed in early childhood as a referent to affectively charged memories of social situations involving the self and other relevant figures (Jost et al., 2003, p. 347). It was found to predict a number of affective responses like political orientation preferences for sociotropic versus individualistic values. In this way, the theory has led to evidence that conservatives “are driven by a motivation to establish and follow rules and norms in a wide variety of domains inside and outside of politics” (Jost et al, 2003, p. 347). 52 A Dynamic Theory of Conservatism as Uncertainty Avoidance Researchers on intolerance of ambiguity proposed a dynamic model where conservatism is the by-product of partially unconscious motives related to fear and anxiety in the face of uncertainty (Greenberg et al., 1986). The principal assumption of this theory is that conservatism is the result of the interaction of multiple factors that include genetic (e.g. anxiety proneness, stimulus aversion, low intelligence, and physical unattractiveness); environmental (e.g. parental coldness, punitiveness, rigidity, inconsistency, low social class, and low self-esteem); death, anarchy, foreigners and social change. Additionally, Wilson (1973c in Jost et al, 2003) considers the reduction of uncertainty and threat as motives for political conservatism. Again, I build upon these findings for the present thesis as I hypothesise that an interaction occurs between psychological needs for cognitive closure, reminders of mortality (via mortality salience manipulation), and support for individual politicians (Chapter 1), political parties (Study 2), and centrist political parties with a clear mandate (Study 3). Epistemic and Existential Need Theories These theories emphasize the constitutive role of cognitive and motivational processes in determining conservative attitudes. Lay Epistemic Theory Kruglanski (1989) developed a theory of lay epistemic that specified how thought and motivation interface in the formation of subjective knowledge. This theory of lay epistemics serves as a way to unify cognitive and motivational descriptions of behaviour in which both knowledge and beliefs are treated as a function of a “motivated informational search” (Jost et al., 2003, p. 347). In this conjecture, knowledge is acquired through a two-step process of hypothesis development and testing; a progression by which individuals’ access to diverse knowledge structures serves to construct relevant hypotheses and their testable implications. A central element 53 of this theory is the individuals’ intrinsic need for cognitive closure, that is, the desire to attain a clear and firm belief instead of a confusing or uncertain one. This need for cognitive closure trait may have perceived benefits and costs and may also be “a function of the person, the immediate situation, and the culture” (Jost et al., 2003, p. 348). Additionally, need for cognitive closure increases under situations in which information processing is to be “subjectively costly” (Jost et al., 2003, p. 348). In order to measure this trait, Webster and Kruglanski (1994) developed a Need for Closure Scale (NFCS) as a 42-item measure with the following 5 factors: “(a) preference for order and structure, (b) emotional discomfort associated with ambiguity, (c) impatience and impulsivity with regard to decision making, (d) desire for security and predictability, (e) closed-mindedness” (Jost et al, 2003, p. 348). Over time, the scale has been demonstrated to assess tendencies to seize on information that affords closure and then “freeze” (Wilson, 1973a) on that information once closure has been reached. Additionally, Need for Closure (NFC) has been associated with tendencies of social stereotyping, impression formation, attitude attribution and rejection of opinions deviates. The relation between NFC and political conservatism is that NFC suggests a perpetuation of reigning ideology. Therefore, an increment in NFC will result in a stronger relation between NFC and an ideological content (either conservatism or liberalism). On the other hand, people high in NFC are attentive to ideological content that promises epistemic stability, clarity, order, and uniformity. Regulatory Focus Theory Developed by Higgins (1997, 1998), Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT) distinguishes between two categories of desired goals: those related to advancement growth and aspirations (ideals), and those related to safety, security and responsibilities (ought’s).Using this theory, different styles of parenting were compared, one focusing on the avoidance of negative outcomes with the exercise 54 of punishment as a disciplinary tool and another one in which love is not used as a form of discipline. “The theory suggests a general preference by prevention-oriented, versus promotionoriented, individuals for conservative over liberal ideologies” (Jost et al., 2003, p. 348). In this sense, if political conservatism is motivated by desires of security and stability, avoidance of threat and change “situations inducing a prevention-oriented regulatory focus might also induce a conservative shift in the general population” (de Dreu, Koole, & Oldersma, 1999). A Theoretical Integration of Epistemic, Existential, and Ideological Motives Jost and colleagues (2003) posit that a diversity of the following components is correlated to the expression of political conservatism: epistemic (dogmatism–intolerance of ambiguity; cognitive complexity; closed-mindedness; uncertainty avoidance; needs for order, structure, and closure), existential (self-esteem, terror management, fear, threat, anger, and pessimism), and ideological motives (self-interest, group dominance, and system justification) (p. 351). Epistemic, existential and ideological motives are correlated themselves. Figure 2.1 below shows Jost and colleagues’ (Jost et al., 2003b) motivated social cognition model. 55 Epistemic motives manage the ways in which people acquire beliefs that help them to deal with threatening social and physical worlds and to cope with the fear of the unknown. Existential motives involve a desire for certainty associated with resisting change; it has been demonstrated that both epistemic and existential motives are highly interrelated (e.g., Dechesne, Janssen, & van Knippenberg, 2000; McGregor, Zanna, Holmes, & Spencer, 2001 in Jost et al., 2003, p. 351) and influence social and political attitudes “Epistemic commitments, it seems, help to resolve existential conflicts, and existential motives affect the search for knowledge” (Jost et al., 2003, p. 351). Ideological beliefs serve to reduce uncertainty and alleviate feelings of threat and worthlessness. Thus, motivated social-cognitive perspective integrates a vast number of variables to overcome fear and uncertainty as a way to form coherent, though incomplete, psychological explanation of political conservatism. Epistemic Motives Epistemic motives related to mental rigidity and closed minds have traditionally been 56 associated with political conservatism, intolerance to ambiguity, authoritarianism, and dogmatism. A good way to evaluate this link between an epistemic motivation and political ideology is by describing the cognitive sophistication that motivates the adherence to a given political ideology. Dogmatism. A controversy in psychology of ideologies is to distinguish whether intolerance, closemindedness, and cognitive simplicity are associated more with right-wing attitudes rather than leftwing attitudes (e.g. Eysenck, 1954; Eysenck & Wilson, 1978; Sidanius, 1985, 1988; Tetlock, 1983, 1984; Wilson, 1973c in Jost et al., 2003, p. 352). Rokeach (1956) developed a Dogmatism Scale that contains ideologically neutral items such as “A man who does not believe in some great cause has not really lived”; “Of all the different philosophies which exist in this world there is probably only one which is correct”; and “To compromise with our political opponents is dangerous because it usually leads to the betrayal of our own side.” Dogmatism has been found to correlate consistently with authoritarianism, political-economic conservatism, and right-wing opinions (Barker, 1963; Christie, 1991; Elms, 1969; Pettigrew, 1958; Rokeach, 1960; Smithers & Lobley, 1978; Stacey & Green, 1971 in Jost, 2003a). As yet another shade of conservatism, dogmatism reflects similar tendencies of attracting individuals seeking stability and consistency. Integrative complexity Ideologues of the extreme left and extreme right are more dogmatic and closed-minded than political centrists (2003b). Some findings (e.g., Tetlock, 1984) actually suggest that extreme leftists show less cognitive complexity than moderate leftists. The findings of Tetlock (1983, 1984), among others, “lend indirect support to the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis” and indicate that a “general trait interpretation of integrative complexity appears to apply more readily to conservatives than to liberals and moderates” (Jost, et al., 2003, p. 356). In this thesis I advance the idea that there is an interaction occurring between cognitive needs for closure and awareness of 57 mortality such that centrist politicians and political parties are more attractive for those with an elevated need for cognitive closure who have been reminded about their own mortality. The relation between cognitive complexity and conservatism should depend on which specific sub dimension of conservatism one is dealing with as well as the psychological function that is related to that sub dimension (Sidanius & Lau, 1989 in Jost, et al., 2003, p. 356). Right- and left-wing extremists (on political and economic issues) are more likely than moderates to express political interest and to engage in active information search (Sidanius, 1984), to exhibit cognitive complexity (Sidanius, 1985, 1988), and to report high levels of self-confidence and willingness to deviate from social convention (Sidanius, 1988 in Jost, et al., 2003, p. 356). Jost and Thomson (2000) administered the Big Five inventory (Openness, conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism –OCEAN-) along with Economic System Justification Scale and found that system justification was associated with lower levels of openness to experience. The researchers, among others (Peterson & Lane, 2001), found that people who hold politically conservative attitudes are generally less open to new and stimulating experiences. Uncertainty avoidance The core of Wilson’s (1973b) theory is that ambiguity and uncertainty are highly threatening to conservatives. He found that conservatives showed stronger preference for simple rather than ambiguous paintings and less preference for representational rather than abstract painting. It has also been shown that conservatives are more likely to prefer simple poems rather than complex ones (Gillies & Campbell, 1985), unambiguous over ambiguous literary texts (McAllister & Anderson, 1991), and familiar to unfamiliar music (Glasgow & Cartier, 1985). Thus the avoidance of uncertainty manifests itself in many aspects of an individual’s life, politics being only one of them. 58 Pessimism, Disgust, and Contempt Differences among left and right-wingers have also been accounted for in terms of affective dimensions such as optimism-pessimism. It has been reported that right-wingers would gravitate toward fear, anger, pessimism, disgust, and contempt (Tompkins, 1963, 1965, 1987, 1995). Williams (1984) found that conservatives expressed greater disgust and less sympathy than did their liberal counterparts, further demonstrating their inflexible nature (Jost et al., 2003, p. 362). In order to explain such correlations, many scholars have identified the ability of certain parental styles to produce offspring that grow up to hold right-wing attitudes. This assertion has been shared “by theories of authoritarianism (Adorno et al., 1950; Altemeyer, 1988), ideo-affective polarity (Tomkins, 1963, 1965, 1995), uncertainty avoidance (Wilson, 1973b), and regulatory focus (Rohan & Zanna, 1998)” (Jost et al, 2003, p. 362). This connection between the parenting style and children’s political attitudes is considered to be insufficiently studied. The authors projected that “it would require 20 or 30 years of continuous snooping to do it comprehensively” (Jost et al., 2003, p. 362). An interesting report indicates that right-wing parents are more likely to be demanding and punitive in stressing concerns over their children’s good manners and that they be neat and clean. In contrast, “egalitarian parents are more likely to use warmth in stressing values related to being considerate of others. These differences in parenting styles may help to explain why right-wing parents are apparently less close to their children in comparison with more egalitarian parents (Rohan & Zanna, 1998; Sidanius & Ekehammar, 1979).” Finally, they point out discrepancies (i.e., prevention-focus failures) that have been related to anxiety and resentment anger (Strauman & Higgins, 1988) and how these emotional states have also been associated with political Conservatism (Altemeyer, 1998; Carlson & Levy, 1970; Sales, 1972, 1973; Tomkins, 1963, 1965). Fear and Prevention of Loss Given that conservatives are more sensitive to the fear of loss (Adorno et al., 1950; Altemeyer, 1988) and uncertainty (Wilson, 1973b), as well as more consistent with regulatory focus 59 (Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Liberman et al, 1999), they are more motivated towards negative outcomes rather than positively framed ones. This is based on the fact that “pessimism is characteristic of right-wing personalities and optimism is characteristic of left-wing personalities” (Jost et al., 2003, p. 364). In their meta-analysis, Jost and colleagues point out as how authoritarians are more responsive to threatening messages than to positively framed ones as it was demonstrated in a study (Lavine et al., 1999) where high authoritarians (as classified by a short version of the RWA Scale) were moved more significantly by threatening messages than by rewarding ones. Additionally, these findings were found to carry over into actual voting behaviours. “In general, research indicates that a prevention orientation, which focuses on potential threats and losses, does facilitate cognitive conservatism, but the extension to politically conservative attitudinal contents has yet to be demonstrated conclusively.” (Jost et al., 2003, p. 364). Mortality Salience A relevant implication of theories of uncertainty avoidance (Wilson, 1973b in Jost et al., 2003) and terror management (Greenberg et al., 1990, 1992 in Jost et al, 2003) is that the salience of our own mortality should increase ideological defensiveness in general, and perhaps political conservatism in particular (p. 364). Events such as the attacks of September 11, 2001 might increase both the cognitive accessibility of death and the appeal of political conservatism. The authors cite the seminal study by Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, and colleagues (1990, 1995) in which mortality salience led people to defend culturally valued norms. Mortality salience has also been shown to evoke greater punitiveness, however – even aggression – toward those who violate cultural values. “It is conceivable that political conservatives’ heightened affinities for tradition, law and order, and strict forms of parental and legal punishment (including the death penalty) are partially related to feelings of fear and threat, including fear and threat arising from chronic (or situational) mortality salience.” 60 In addition to these correlations, Adorno et al. (1950), Altemeyer (1998), Peterson et al. (1993) (in Jost et al., 2003) demonstrated how political ideology and mortality salience interact with one another leading high authoritarians to derogate someone who they viewed as dissimilar to them. Furthermore, mortality salience enhanced political intolerance among conservatives, but it enhanced political tolerance among liberals (Greenberg et al., 1992, study 1 in Jost et al., 2003, p. 365). This was the case “presumably because tolerance is an important attribute of the cultural worldview for the latter but not the former group.” (p. 365). Even as the needs aroused by terror management are broad enough to be satisfied by a wide range of attitudes, a better match appears to be present in matching politically conservative attitudes than liberal or moderate attitudes (p. 365). In summary, Jost and colleagues show sufficient evidence to support the hypothesis that social-cognitive motives are significantly related to political conservatism and that evidence is related to uncertainty avoidance, integrative complexity, needs for order, structure, and closure, and fear of threat in general, intolerance of ambiguity. Openness to experience, mortality salience, and system instability support the hypothesis that a set of interrelated epistemic, existential and ideological motives successfully predict the holding of conservative attitudes. The ways in which people respond to different threats, fears and uncertainty plays an important role in the expression of these political beliefs that are related to resistance to change, inequality, and other core aspects of conservative ideology. A psychological assessment of political conservatism will only be partial “because the peripheral aspects are by definition highly protean and driven by historically changing, local contexts” (p. 369). Political conservatism as an ideological belief system is significantly related to motivational concerns of psychological management of uncertainty and fear. In this respect, the avoidance of uncertainty might be attached to the core aspects of conservatism, resistance to change (Wilson, 1973c in Jost et al., 2003, p. 369), and endorsement of inequality (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). More importantly, this scheme sheds light on the nature of relations between the 61 micro and the macro and the dynamic structure of individuals and group actors, as well as the social and political characteristics of systems, institutions, and organizations. Terror Management Theory. As described earlier, Terror Management Theory (Greenberg et al., 1986; Greenberg et al., 1990; Rosenblatt et al., 1989) states that cultural worldviews serve to alleviate the terror produced by human mortality and work as a means to transcend the futility of live. In turn, fear of death increases the defence of one’s worldviews. Hence, when confronted with a threatening condition, people appear to behave and endorse more conservative positions. However, Greenberg et al. (1992 in Jost, 2003) argued against a relation between mortality salience and political conservatism as the effects of mortality salience lead to a defence of dominant values whether those values are liberal or tolerant. People need self-esteem and humans share with every other living species a survival instinct. However, humanity’s highly developed intelligence makes them realize they are going to die and that that is a looming reality. They could die instantly or in a few years time, however, the destiny is clear: death and oblivion. The realization of one’s impending demise creates an existential anxiety that needs to be dealt with. In everyday life, people are reminded of the fact that death is inescapable. These mortality reminders can be highly visible, for example a road accident, the death of a loved one or a shocking news report; they can also be –and arguably most constantly are- subtle and indirect, such as passing by a funeral home or walking through a cemetery. In the 1950s researchers began to collect quantitative evidence concerning the need for self-esteem, as a low self-esteem was associated with a variety of psychological problems, but as the studies were correlational there was the need for alternative explanations. Karen Horney (1951; Klandermans & Mayer, 2006; Merkl, 2003; Stenner, 2005) researched the ways people try to attain and maintain a favourable self-image, ways in which people attempt to defend and enhance selfesteem, and maladaptive ways to maintain self-esteem. 62 The importance of self-esteem has been supported by studies demonstrating “a self-serving bias in individuals’ casual attributions for their own successes and failures” (Horney, 1951). A consistent finding was that individuals who experienced success “assign greater responsibility to factors within themselves (e.g., internal factors, such as ability) and less responsibility to factors outside themselves (e.g., external factors, such as luck) than do individuals who experience failure.” Hence, individuals take credit for their success but deny responsibility for failure. Miller and Ross (Miller & Ross, 1975) proposed that a number of cognitive mechanisms prime a self-serving bias in the absence of a self-esteem motive. Terror Management Theory (TMT) (Greenberg et al., 1986), states that given that as humans we are aware of the inevitability of our death and this awareness creates existential terror that is controlled by (i) maintaining faith in an internalised worldview or (ii) obtaining self-esteem by living up to the standards of values prescribed by worldview. In this sense, worldview serves as a buffer against existential anxiety, especially when it is shared by others. However, the fact that those ‘others’ might differ from our worldviews undermines and threatens our own stance, reducing this buffering effectiveness, thus creating disparaging attitudes toward those who adhere to different worldviews, consequently trying to convert or kill them so as to eliminate the threat and assert their own superiority. It has been reported that reminders of death such as Mortality Salience (MS) lead people to conform to the norms of their culture and increases worldview defence; participants under a MS condition account for more negative evaluations of critics of the US or diverse political orientations. Given that MS effects are specific to thoughts of death, the operationalization of MS that the authors used were open-ended questions; other operationalization included writing single sentences about death, exposure to gory accident footage or having proximity to funeral homes or cemeteries. Although MS induction did not arouse negative affects per se, the increased potential of experiencing anxiety motivated a worldview defence (p. 526); Interestingly it was also reported 63 that being under a MS condition reduced the liking of art that seemed as lacking of structure and meaning. Worldviews that offer a clear and orderly meaning of the world are likely to be particularly appealing when thoughts of mortality are activated. By the same token, ideologies depicting one’s group as particularly valuable are especially affective for persons under a MS condition. Authors refer to a study (Cohen, Solomon, Maxfield, Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 2004) in which a mock gubernatorial candidate was more appealing for participants in an MS condition as he emphasised the superiority of the in-group views. Enhanced perceived values of one’s group are likely to be especially useful as buffers against existential anxiety. The authors also refer that when in an MS priming condition supporters of Kerry reversed to support Bush. MS increases the appeal of worldviews in which one’s own group is portrayed as pursuing a heroic fight against evil. In their study they hypothesised that reminders of death should increase support for martyrdom attacks against “Americans” and increase “American” support for military action against opposition to the U.S. in the Middle East. MS would increase evaluation of martyrdom attacks and also increase interest in joining martyrdom cause. The authors reported how an MS condition led to significantly more favourable evaluations of the pro-martyrdom group and incited greater interest in joining the pro-martyrdom cause as opposed to the anti-martyrdom cause. Seeing that MS did not affect mood in any subscale it was ruled out as accountable for change in attitude towards martyrdom. Thus, thoughts of death could potentially motivate a person who normally has a pacifist stance to modify his/her view and begins to support bombings, just as supporters of Kerry changed sides and began to support Bush given that when need for protection from existential fears is heightened, people will support whatever (or whomever) is more likely to provide them an effective sense of protection from this potential terror. Therefore, MS will lead to greater commitment and extreme ways of affirming the worldviews, enhancing regards for positions associated with improved security and protection that under normal situations would not be 64 present or as highly considered. Interestingly, political orientations did not reveal any effect of the priming manipulation but it accurately predicted variations in the support for extreme military intervention within both the MS and the 9/11 conditions but not within the control condition. Higher conservatism was also associated with greater support for military measures. Support for extreme force use was high among conservatives in MS and 9/11 conditions and the reminders of both own mortality and the 9/11 attacks increased support for military interventions in the Middle East and the Patriot Act among liberals. MS can lead to an expression of attitudinal tendencies that are not exhibited under less threatening conditions. It is interesting that the psychological conditions that make Iranians want to kill “Americans” were the same that made “Americans” want to kill Iranians as reminders of death produced dramatic increases in support for extreme solutions. The authors also point out that it was the thought of own death and not a specific conflict that produced these shifts towards extreme solutions. MS thoughts of death arouse feelings of uncertainty that in turn provoked a preference for extreme actions. For TMT, people adhere to a worldview as it significantly contributes to a meaningful enduring reality as a protection against fear of death. Increased awareness of death can lead people to desire to inflict harm on ‘enemies’; frequent reminders of death that result in armed conflict may be increasing these feelings. Authors also reported that MS condition greatly increased support for a charismatic leader who gathered little support under the control condition. In conclusion, MS leads people to gravitate toward conceptions of reality (worldviews) that provide security in any way but sometimes also means moving toward less dominant aspect of the world view that are related to security, structure and superiority. 65 Need for Cognitive Closure The adherence to cultural norms is motivated by a desire to reach and maintain epistemic (e.g. knowledge, information or understanding) closure. Measuring such differences is accomplished by using a scale called Need for Closure (1975). Studies using this theory have found that individuals actively decide to conform to cultural rules if doing so serves to maintain their epistemic integrity. In other words, cultural conformity is motivated and it is not an unconscious or unprincipled adherence. Secondly, it has also been found that cultural influence is dependent upon the context in which people make their judgment and that the influence of these cultural norms can be accentuated. Moreover, NFC has been linked with effort-minimizing strategies, such as epistemic heuristics or shortcuts (NFC, Kruglanski et al., 1993), as well as adherence to political conservatism (Fu et al., 2007). In their own research, Fu and colleagues (2007) sought to find the moderating variables that accounted for the difference between participants high in NFC who adhere to cultural norms as opposed from those participants low in NFC who processed the task in different ways. By doing this the experimenters also wanted to distinguish the specific epistemic closure motives that increase cultural conformity. Their hypothesis was that individuals conform (e.g. adhere) to cultural norms because they provide standards accepted and shared by everyone else in their in-group. “Put differently, cultural conformity is driven by the desire for consensual validation” (2007). People feel their judgments are valid as long as their reference groups share them. This is especially true for people high in need for epistemic closure that are especially willing to reach judgment and understanding that is shared by salient reference groups. Two subscales constitute the NFC scale: specific and non-specific closure. The first one is the desire for a judgment whose content is clear, simple or familiar; the latter is a judgment that is quick regardless of its content. Combined, these two motives create a 66 desire in high NFC’s to reach judgments that are in line with the cultural norms. People high in NFC will line up with cultural norms as long as those judgments are simple, familiar and decisive. In this research scholars ought to clarify the evidence for cultural norms of conflict resolution. They did so by introducing an individual difference variable that moderates the cultural group effect. Their hypothesis is that cultural norms will reflect the conflict resolution behaviour of people high in NFC but not of those low in NFC. Cultural patterns will be more clearly demonstrated in the interaction than in the main effects of the cultural group. NFC was used as a moderating variable to account for the differences between American and Chinese conflict norms. An important source of epistemic closure is consensus; people feel more secure about their epistemic beliefs when others share them. The hypothesis is that the need for epistemic security underlies the tendency of high-NFC people to conform to cultural norms. Epistemic closure is intended as a way to end potentially endless sequences of hypothesis generation and validation, as such, the NFC model accounts for four motivational categories. Specifically, these are the needs for: (i) non-specific and (ii) specific closure and the need for avoidance for (iii) specific and (iv) non-specific closure, respectively (Kruglanski et al., 1993, p. 864). NFC is a multidimensional scale and it has two sub-motives: (a) specific closure (preference for order, stability, predictability and fear of uncertainty) and (b) a preference for non-specific closure (topic or situation specific; strongly strive to attain answers to some questions but be content to remain ignorant about others). Researchers hypothesised that the conjunction of these motives generates the consensus-seeking tendency. For the purpose of this thesis, the NFC scale is used as a whole divided in either high or low need for closure as a way to assess a general disengagement with the cognitive process in general and as a proxy for interest in politics in particular. 67 This consensus-seeking tendency in NFC is emphasised by research that found that people high in NFC were keener to reach an agreement with their counterparts in a jury simulation (Fu et al., 2007; Jost et al., 2003b). Fu and colleagues also refer how people high in NFC were more disturbed by violations of social norms which threatens to violate social consensus (Kruglanski, 1989). Additionally, they refer how perceptions of opinion homogeneity serves high-NFC’s (but not low-NFC’s) to particularly like in-group favouritism because these groups can provide the security of consensus. Likewise, high-NFC observed more pressure to reach opinion uniformity (Kruglanski et al., 1993) and higher propensity to silence dissenters (Fu et al., 2007; Pierro, De Grada, Mannetti, Livi, & Kruglanski, 2004). “In summary, there is ample evidence that a motive for consensus is tapped by the NFC Scale.” (Chirumbolo, Areni, & Sensales, 2004; Fu et al., 2007). Fu and colleagues also acknowledge that consensus-seeking tendency is more socially oriented as opposed to self-oriented as was initially suggested in the initial research in NFC, that is not just desires for judgments that are in line with our previously-held beliefs but also judgments that are socially motivated. In order to test for the interaction of NFC with cultural group variables, Fu and colleagues measure the effects of the consensus motive account against (i) effort minimisation and (ii) political conservatism as mechanisms that might explain the relevance of NFC. Consensus Motive Versus Effort Minimisation Firstly, Fu and colleagues test for the link between NFC and effort-minimising strategies of judgment that has linked NFC with some judgment patterns that indicate a heuristic process (Chirumbolo, Livi, et al., 2004; de Grada, Kruglanski, Mannetti, & Pierro, 1999; Fu et al., 2007). Fu and colleagues argue that to the extent to which NFC is associated with an effort-minimising cognitive style, the link between high NFC and 68 cultural conformity might only be the result of high HFC’s dependence on the use of heuristics rather than their desire for consensus. However, research in NFC (Fu et al., 2007) has separated the ways to test for differences between the effort-minimisation and the consensus motivation processes. In their research, Kruglanski and colleagues tested participants role-playing in a mock jury condition and found that participants high in NFC expressed more desire to reach agreement with their fellow jurors than those low in NFC. Conversely, when those participants high in NFC lacked information to support their position, they were more likely to consider opposing arguments and shift their initial stance. “This finding is incompatible with the effort-minimization account, which predicts that high-NFC individuals would always be less likely to shift positions.” (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). Fu and colleagues describe the way in which the argument-familiarity condition was manipulated in a study (Kruglanski et al., 1993) in which participants high in NFC who were confident in their own stance showed a significantly reduced attitudinal change as opposed to those high-NFC’s who were in an insecure condition and, in turn, showed a more significant attitude change. In other words, for high NFC’s the more familiar participants were with their arguments the stronger their attitude was. Conversely, for those high in NFC less security in their stance meant more attitude variance. In sum, these results demonstrate that certain conditions in which high NFC participants engage in more information seeking can serve to differentiate the consensus seeking from the effortminimisation mechanism. In their study, Fu and colleagues hypothesised that high- (vs. low-) NFC participants would gather more information in order to falsify a consensus. The effortminimisation account predicts that high-NFC individuals would gather less information regardless of the condition. 69 Consensus Motive Versus Political Conservatism The second account that Fu and colleagues’ use is the link between NFC and political conservatism. “Given that political conservatism affects attributional judgments (Tetlock, 2000), the links between NFC and cultural conformity in past research might run through conservatism.” (Fu et al., 2007). In order to distinguish political conservatism from the consensus motive, Fu and colleagues considered two separate motives. The first component of conservatism regarding the embracement of tradition was discarded as it was too closely related to their dependent variable of cultural conformity. However, they relied on a second component – acceptance of economic inequality – as it can be distinguished from cultural conformity (dependent variable) and can be tested against the consensus motive. More conservative people would favour equity (proportional) rewards allocation as opposed to favour equality. Their argument was that high NFC’s should favour equity over equality. Conclusion Through an examination of the relationship between different psychological traits and tendencies, we have indicated the interrelation of factors influencing those traits, all of which are examined in the present study. Different approaches to these traits include Jost et al.’s (2003) concept of ‘motivated social cognition,’ as well as the studies associated with NFC, MS, and RWA, among others. Building upon Jost’s model I advance a hypothesis, one in which psychological traits, for example, cognitive need for closure (NFC), interact with abstract reminders of mortality in the form of mortality salience (MS) to produce elevated approval ratings for individual politicians (Study 1), political parties (Study 2), and a centrist political party with a clear mandate (Study 3) in a dynamic political environment as they move closer to the ideological centre of the political spectrum. That is, individual politicians and political 70 parties who come closer to the ideological centre will enjoy a higher level of acceptance and support among these participants who have an elevated need for cognitive closure and have been, in turn, reminded about their own mortality; the same will hold true for an already centrist political party that enjoys a clear (vs. divided) mandate among its constituents. It is important to note that even though the scenarios will be adapted from the UK political context, these situations can be verified elsewhere in real-life. In Mexico, in 2012, a General Election was held, in it, three candidates ran for the Presidency. Both candidates from the Left and from the Right approach the centre with their policy proposals (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994, p. 1051), discourses and slogans; in the end, the winner of the National Election was Mr. Enrique Peña, a centrist politician who ran not a derogatory campaign, but one based on commitment, inclusion, and agreement, a symbolic place for understanding much like the one that a few months back I have created, albeit fictitiously, for the participants in my study. In more than one sense, reality proved that my hypothesis was correct. 71 CHAPTER 3 Study 1: Does Mortality Awareness Accentuate the Need for Closure when Rating Individual Politicians? 3.1 Aim of Study 1 The aim of this study, derived from a number of elements of the Motivated Social Cognition model ("The PRI is back," 2012) – namely TMT (Jost et al., 2003b), and the epistemic Need for Closure (Greenberg et al., 1986) – was to explore the hypothesis of the interactive effect of reminders of mortality (MS) on individuals. It is predicted that an existential threat should interact with a high epistemic need for closure (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983) by activating needs for group centrism and collective closure. It is assumed that those participants presenting an increased epistemic need for closure, as a result of existential threats, will express increased levels of support for politicians who switched to the political centre. I will refer to movement from the centre to the poles or the poles to the centre as “Eccentricity of shift” and to a change from left to right or right to left as “Direction of shift.”. 72 Figure 3.1 Motivated Social Cognition Model (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983) As reviewed in Chapter 2, humans share with every other living species an instinct for survival. However, given a presumably unique capacity of cognitive abilities, humans are also distinctively aware of our own looming demise; we know that we are destined to die and that our death is imminent. This unique awareness of our impending end generates an overwhelming anxiety that, in turn, motivates individuals to mitigate those tensions using different cognitive strategies. One such strategy to deal with this irrepressible dread consists in investing psychic energy (Jost et al., 2003b) or mental activity in the developing of and adherence to cultural belief systems or “worldviews.” These belief systems are symbolic conceptions of life that serve to offer some form of transcendence over the futility of human existence. TMT research (Laplanche & Pontalis, 1973) has shown how reminders of death amplify the need for “cultural worldviews” − defined as shared figurative conceptions of reality that give life meaning − by assigning relative degrees of 73 value, order and permanence to one’s culture, thus serving as agents that alleviate the anxiety produced by human mortality. Mortality awareness can be activated through a variety of manipulations that differ in their approach. From sample word completion tasks to interviews outside cemeteries, TMT makes use of different accessibility measures to bring about this consciousness of death. Broadly speaking, MS manipulation falls into four different categories: (i) essay questions, (ii) subliminal death prime, (iii) survey questions, and (iv) other methods (e.g.Greenberg et al., 1986). As described in previous chapters, Rosenblatt and colleagues' (Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010; Pyszczynski et al., 1997) instrument is the most common mortality awareness manipulation, a narrative that consists of two open-ended questions that ask participants to describe the emotions that the thought of their own death stimulates in them. The first question – aimed at inducing a participant’s consciousness of death – asks the individual to describe the emotions that the thought of their own death evoke in them. The second question – designed to reinforce this mortality awareness – asks the participants to describe what will happen to them as they physically die and once they are physically dead. In the control condition, these two questions are changed to ask participants about a regular visit to the dentist, something unpleasant but, arguably, not as distressing as the thought of their own death. It has been suggested that when participants evoke death-related thoughts, symbolic cultural worldview defences emerge as a way to minimize the threat caused by the awareness of human mortality. However, this worldview defence arises once participants have been distracted from the manipulation presented to them in the previous stage; the effect caused by this distraction is known as “distal defence” (1989). In the present study, participants are asked to solve a word puzzle that serves as a distracter from the 74 manipulations to aid them in surpassing the relatively rational defence strategies that minimise the threat from death-related thought accessibility. TMT posits that in order to alleviate the all-consuming fear of death, humans generate a need for social constructions. Research has shown that MS motivates individuals to sustain cultural beliefs and focus their attention on the outside world as a strategy to keep unconscious concerns with mortality at bay. To put it in the terms of the creators of TMT, “psychologically speaking, then, the more the merrier. When large clumps of humanity become convinced of the merits of a cultural worldview, they legitimize it virtue of their agreement” (Arndt, Cook, & Routledge, 2004). Humans depend on social agreement and unanimity to validate their beliefs and values. Cultural beliefs and ideologies provide a secure place to share an understanding about reality. Additionally, worldviews serve as a way to build self-esteem, providing a social consensus that substantiates the understanding of the world, enhances a need for affiliation, contributes to the development of a feeling of belonging, and serves as a cognitive reassurance that our convictions and conventions are “normal” tenets of “truth” (Arndt et al., 2004; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 2003, p. 31). As Jost, Kruglanski, & Simon noted: “It is also plausible that one of the functions of society is to provide organization and clarity for the individual and to reduce his or her epistemological uncertainty. In other words, social organizations facilitate the meeting of cognitive needs as well as material needs” (Jost et al., 2003b). When social constructions cannot be found in the face of existential anxiety, individuals might turn to cognitive or epistemic signals to look for information that allows them to embrace a clear judgment (1999a, p. 94). This cognitive strategy resembles some features described in the motivated social cognition model of political conservatism (Greenberg, Solomon, & Arndt, 2007), specifically those of the epistemic need for closure (Jost et al., 2003b), which is the desire 75 to reduce cognitive closure and maintain it permanently. Recent theorising (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983) has described how certain elements in the need for closure can predict group centrism and collective closure; that is, valuing the in-group as a motivation to attain social validity and reach consensus. Kruglanski and colleagues (e.g. Kruglanski, Pierro, Mannetti, & De Grada, 2006) have described how, in an environment where agreement is not clear or easy to achieve – like the political fringes – people with an elevated need for cognitive closure will demonstrate an increase in their motivation to approve of politicians who reach consensus. In relation, the theory of lay epistemics (e. g. de Grada et al., 1999) studies the processes through which individuals attain their subjective knowledge. The theory emphasizes the motivation interface whereby people develop subjective knowledge of its content and grow confidence around that knowledge. The properties underlying this human need to acquire general knowledge denote an exemplary psychological ability to develop both reasoning and social bonding. This includes an ability to understand principles, define truths, refine knowledge, and apply that openness and awareness to the understanding of the world. This ability to discover and to think abstractly has helped humans throughout time to solve problems, create language, learn about the world and, at the same time, learn about themselves. However, our advanced human intellect is also a “sentient intelligence” (Kruglanski, 1989; Kruglanski et al., 2006), a sensible apprehension of stimulus that allows us to form bonds, develop relationships, cooperate and attach ourselves to larger groups. These two distinctive features of humans – the capacity for reasoning and the primacy for social interaction – derive in the creation of a social cognition, a process by which the formation of judgments, attitudes, assessments, behaviours and beliefs is the by-product of socialisation. 76 As stated above, a fundamental characteristic of the human condition is our strong cognitive and social proclivities. This disposition for the construction of reality is in part possible because we know that reality is a medium, a means by which the world – or the state of things as they actually exist – is communicated, known and actualised. The Spanish philosopher Zubiri noted in his book Sentient Intelligence (1999), “society is a medium of intellection. It is not something which pertains to what is intellectively known, but it is nonetheless something which makes what is so known to be seen in a particular way” (Zubiri, 1999). We understand that things are real; however, the social, religious, and other types of mediums by which we apprehend reality transform this intellection of the logos and profoundly affect the insight with which we experience those things. Thus, society serves as a qualification for reality as opposed to an epistemological solipsistic view of the world. Social psychological analyses of groups have been performed since the early 1900s (Zubiri, p. 131), which have demonstrated that there is a proclivity within groups towards conformity (e.g. Binet, 1900). The presence of opinion uniformity among their members has also been documented with results indicating that an increase in cohesivenessindependent of its natureproduces greater effort to reach an agreement (Asch, 1955; Le-Bon, 1896). Such compliance effects reveal the profound effects that groups exert on their members’ practices, judgments and beliefs. Together, the results of Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon (Asch, 1956; Back, 1951; Bar-Tal & Kruglanski, 1988), Jost et al. (Festinger, 1950; 1986), and Kruglanski (2003b) suggest that it is possible to activate a general cognitive schema which results in a preference for politically conservative candidates who offer a strong leadership in times of threat. However, to date, these studies do not directly investigate the possibility that, in said times of threat, individuals with an elevated need for cognitive closure might incur in a 77 consensus-seeking strategy somewhat independent of its ideological content. If this is true, then Jost et al.’s (2003) findings could be extended to study whether such specific schema can be activated in order to enhance adherence to centrist politicians. That is the objective of the present study: In the same way that Jost, et al. demonstrated that a general support for conservative politicians can be triggered using a threat activation, it is expected that it will be possible to activate support for a centrist politician. It is hypothesised that if a need for cognitive closure is the desire of certain individuals to attain clear, unambiguous information and maintain it permanently, the current study should find support for the assertion that existential threats would interact with epistemic needs for closure by activating demands for centrism, consensus and concurrence. This would consequently justify that those persons with a high NFC express reduced levels of support for politicians who have deviated from the political Centre. Therefore, I begin this chapter with a bold hypothesis (H1): Abstract reminders of death will activate the facet of NFC that seeks group consensus and stability such that people high in NFC will express greater support for politicians seeking consensus in the political centre, independent of their previously established ideology. Again, when reminded about their own death, people become both sensitive and more protective of any threats to their worldviews. Reminders of death amplify the need for cultural worldviews as a way to alleviate the anxiety produced by human mortality (1980, 2004). In short, the MS manipulation seems to drive attention to the external cues (Greenberg et al., 1986) given that a reminder of their own death seems to further convince people about the merits of their own cultural worldviews. 78 This study focuses on the assertion that preferences for the political centre, portrayed as a place where consensus can be reached, will be intensified for people with an elevated need for cognitive closure when they are reminded about their own mortality. This study is not merely concerned with individual political identification with the political right or left whose philosophies are assumed to have particular value and ideological attractiveness in their own right; instead, I consider that the awareness of mortality will activate facets in the need for epistemic closure that will make the consensus facet offered by the political centre (an ideological position where consensus and unanimity can be reached) become more attractive. Again, this study’s hypothesis is that existential coercion will interact with epistemic needs for closure by activating demands for centrism, consensus and agreement, thus justifying penalties for those who deviate from the political centre. 3.2 Method Ethical Approval. An Ethical Approval of Research Involving Human Participants (see Appendix) from the Departmental Research Director, Faculty Ethics Committee (FEC) and the University’s Ethics Committee at the Research and Enterprise Office (REO) was requested and obtained for all studies presented throughout this thesis. Participants. A total of 156 students and staff from the University of Essex (98 women, 56 men. 2 not reported) aged 18 to 48 (M = 21.93, SD = 5.25) volunteered to complete the study in exchange for course credits or payment for their participation. All participants were English speakers. Participants were randomly allocated to either an experimental or control condition. Materials. A series of seven questionnaires were administered to all participants, followed by a text that led to the experimental manipulation, followed finally by four political biographies for the participants to rate. The seven questionnaires were: 79 1) National attachment questionnaire. In line with previous research (Arndt et al., 1997; Pyszczynski, 2004; Pyszczynski et al., 2006; Pyszczynski et al., 2003), this questionnaire included a standardised bi-dimensional measure of national attachment: the Nationalism/Patriotism scale (e.g. Sidanius, Feshbach, Levin, & Pratto, 1997). The questions were modified to refer to the national British context. All ten items were answered using a seven-point response scale ranging from one (strongly disagree) to seven (strongly agree). Nationalism was determined using five items: (i) “The more that England actively influences other countries, the better off they will be,” (ii) “England should not dominate other countries” (Reverse-coded), (iii) “For the most part, England is no more superior than any other industrialised country in the world” (Reverse-coded), (iv) “To maintain England's economic superiority, aggressive economic policies are sometimes necessary,” and (v) “To maintain England’s superiority, war is sometimes necessary.” The five items related to nationalism were recoded and then averaged such that higher mean scores indicated higher levels of nationalism. Patriotism was measured using five items: (i) “I find the sight of the English flag very moving,” (ii) “Every time I hear the English national anthem, I feel strongly moved,” (iii) “The symbols of England (e.g. St. Georges Cross, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben) do not move me one way or the other” (Reverse-coded), (iv) “I have great love for England,” and (v) “I am proud to be English.” Similarly, the five patriotism scores were recoded and then averaged such that that higher mean scores indicated stronger levels of patriotism. 2) Participant’s political attitude preference and Political ideology questionnaire. This questionnaire contained a single item assessing the participant’s political attitude preference, and following Bartle (Federico, Golec De Zavala, & Dial, 2005), a single item assessing participant’s pre-existent political ideology. 80 The participant’s political attitude preference was assessed by the question: “How would you describe your political attitude preference (circle a number)? (1. - Very Liberal; 2. - Liberal; 3. - Slightly Liberal; 4. - Moderate; 5. - Slightly Conservative; 6. - Conservative; 7. - Very Conservative).” The participant’s pre-existent political ideology was assessed using the traditional British Election Study (2003a) question: “Generally speaking, do you think of your political positions as? (1. - Strongly Leftwing; 2. - Leftwing; 3. - Slightly Leftwing; 4. - Neutral; 5. Slightly Rightwing; 6. - Rightwing; 7. - Strongly Rightwing).” 3) The Need for Closure Scale (NFCS). The 42 items of the NFCS (BES, 2009) were used to measure participants’ disposition to secure a definitive answer on any topic as measured on a 6-point scale (1 - strongly disagree, 2 - moderately disagree, 3 -slightly disagree, 4 - slightly agree, 5 - moderately agree, 6 - strongly agree). The NFCS is a standardised psychometric measure of formation and change of people's opinions and judgments, as well as their tendency to reduce ambiguity by attaining a cognitive conclusion on a judgmental topic and maintain it permanently. Some examples of the NFCS questions are: “I enjoy the uncertainty of going into a new situation without knowing what might happen,” “I feel irritated when one person disagrees with what everyone else in a group believes,” “My personal space is usually messy and disorganized” (reverse coded), “When considering most conflict situations, I can usually see how both sides could be right” (reverse coded). Items 2, 5, 7, 12, 13, 16, 19, 20, 23, 25, 28, 29, 36, 40, 41, and 47 will be reverse-scored. The Need for Closure Scale also includes the following factors: 1. Order (1, 6, 11, 20, 24, 28, 34, 35, 37, 47) 2. Predictability (5, 7, 8, 19, 26, 27, 30, 45) 3. Decisiveness (12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 23, 40) 81 4. Ambiguity (3, 9, 15, 21, 31, 32, 33, 38, 42) 5. Closed Mindedness (2, 4, 10, 25, 29, 36, 41, 44). The NFC measure was employed to divide participants into two groups by using a median split: 1. Low need for closure. Those participants who scored below the median on the NFC measure. 2. High need for closure. Those participants who scored above the median on the NFC measure. All items are included in the Appendix. 4) The Social Dominance Orientation Scale (Kruglanski et al., 1993). This scale measures the degree of preference for inequality among social groups. There are 16 questions, such as “It is OK if some groups have more of a chance in life than others?”, “Inferior groups should stay in their place,” and “We should do what we can to equalize conditions for different groups,” and participants responded using a 7-point scale (1 = very negative to 7 = very positive). Averaging the mean of the 16 items of the SDO scale created a new variable. 1. Low social dominance orientation. Those participants who scored below the median on the SDO measure. 2. High social dominance orientation. Those participants who scored above the median on the SDO measure. All the Social Dominance Orientation Scale questions are included in the appendix. 82 5) The Political Knowledge Questionnaire. Political knowledge was measured by the sum of the correct answers a participant gave to the U.K. version of the political expertise scale (SDO; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). In this questionnaire, respondents are asked ten factualknowledge items to define their possession of information about political institutions and actors. The assessment asked participants to indicate, among other questions: “‘What job or political office does Gordon Brown currently hold?’; ‘What job or political office does Dick Cheney currently hold?’ and, ‘Which political party currently has the most members in the House of Commons?’” All questions are included in the appendix. 6) Rosenberg’s (Federico & Schneider, 2007) self-esteem scale. Rosenberg’s (1965) self-esteem scale measures state self-esteem by asking the respondents to reflect on their current feelings (1965). The scale consists of ten items, such as “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself,” and “I certainly feel useless at times.” Participants responded using a 4-point Likert scale – from 1 - strongly agree to 4 - strongly disagree. Five of the items had positively worded statements and the other five had negatively worded assertions; items 2, 5, 6, 8, 9 are reverse scored. The ten responses were recoded and then averaged such that higher mean scores indicated stronger levels of self-esteem. 7) Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin’s (Tomas & Oliver, 1999) satisfaction with life scale. The scale is comprised of questions such as: “In most ways my life is close to my ideal,” “The conditions of my life are excellent,” and “I am satisfied with my life.” Participants responded using a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = Strongly disagree to 7 = Strongly agree. Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) is not reverse coded. All measures are included in the appendix. These two last scales, Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale (1985), and (1965) satisfaction with life scale were included in the packet without any a priori predictions about their results. 83 The Experimental Manipulation. The respondents were presented with the traditional materials used in Terror Management research that have been described in previous chapters, materials associated with the Mortality Salience condition, or materials associated with the Control Condition. Mortality Salience. In the mortality salient setting, participants were asked the traditional two open-ended questions: “Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you,” and: “Jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you as you physically die and once you are physically dead.” Control condition. Participants assigned to the control condition received a control prime that was identical to the experimental prime save that the word ‘death’ was substituted for the word ‘dentist’. Participants in the control condition received the following test: “Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of going to the dentist arouses in you”, and “jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you physically at the dentist.” The Four Political Biographies. All participants were presented with the same four fictional biographies of individual politicians who switched political parties. These biographies were adapted from current and past Members of Parliament (M.P.) in the United Kingdom who actually changed political alliances. In the biographies, the politicians moved (a) from the Right to the Centre, (b) from the Left to the Centre, (c) from the Centre to the Right, and (d), from the Centre to the Left. Thus, the biographies crossed the “direction of shift” (two politicians moved to the political left and two moved to the political right) with the “eccentricity of shift” (two politicians moved from the Centre to the outside and two moved from the outside into the 84 Centre). The Centre of the political spectrum was presented as a place where the emphasis was on the creation of ideological coalitions, a space where compromises had to be achieved. Although all participants rated the same four biographies, each biography was given an anonymous large identification number to suggest that participants were being asked to sample from a wider range of politicians. Each biography was associated with a series of questions to elicit the participant’s political approval and support for that politician. Participants responded to the following eight items with a response scale ranging from 1 (very untrue for me) to 7 (very true for me): (i) “I respect this politician” (ii) “I would likely vote for this politician if I had the opportunity,” (iii) “I do not have a high opinion of this politician.” (Reverse scored), (iv) “I could imagine advocating publicly for this politician,” (v) “I do not think this politician is worthy of esteem.” (Reverse scored), (vi) “If I had the chance I would help raise money for this politician,” (vii) “I think that this politician is in politics for the ‘right reasons,’” and (viii) “I could imagine volunteering to help this politician’s campaign.” The eight items were recoded and then averaged such that higher mean scores indicated higher levels of political approval. Following Krosnick’s (Diener et al., 1985) and Feldman and colleagues’ (1999) suggestions regarding questionnaire design and the powerful influence of affect on political attitudes these eight questions for the dependent variables were designed to tap into both the affective (4 questions) and behavioural (4 questions) intentions of the participants with regards to each of the four politicians’ biographies. Affectively, the questions address the emotional attachment that each politician may instil in the participants once s/he has adopted her/his new political ideology, the affective component assesses the distinct effects of emotions on political thinking indicative of deep emotional attachments and a sense of belonging; behaviourally, these four questions look at possible political attitudes 85 while at the same time looking at how a politician can produce a set of political attitudes and behaviour (Feldman, Huddy, & Cassese, 2012). The four biographies are presented in full below in Figure 3.2. 86 Figure 3.2 Biographies (a) The Right to Centre Biography. (c) The Centre to Right Biography Politician #286 Politician #357 • • This politician attended a prestigious British University and later moved to an American University to study a postgraduate degree. Served successively in the British Diplomatic Service and in investment banking. • • This politician studied at an influential overseas University obtaining both a Bachelors and a Masters Degree in International Relations. Was elected to parliament following the retirement of a long serving MP and secured a majority seat that was held thereafter. Early career: Began on the Political Right. • Was known as a solid-minded and outspoken M.P. with a firm anti-European Union posture. • Decidedly opposed educational maintenance allowances to keep poor 16-year-olds in school or training. • Resolutely supported privatising the NHS. Early career: Began in the Political Centre. • Attempted to bring together opposing views on a wide range of issues and advocated many multi-party schemes. • Sought guidance from experts on an array of matters, from the housing and regenerations bill to pensions policies. • Made an effort to form coalitions that could develop alternative schemes for the NHS funding design. More recently: Has moved to the political centre. • Created a coalition to find compromised solutions on student top-up fees. • Has attempted to bring a middle ground perspective to the NHS privatization scheme. • Sought compromise from both sides on safeguards for political and social rights. More recently: Has moved to the Political Right. • Resolutely promoted tougher controls over trade unions. • Adopted a firm position in favour of strict fiscal measures to keep inflation low. • Has determinedly voted for a cut on public spending and deregulation of public entities. (b) The Left to Centre Biography. (d) The Centre to Left Biography Politician #227 Politician #194 • • This politician was educated at a University in the United Kingdom where obtained a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Political Science. Worked as a Civil Servant at the Home Office, and in a community-based organisation promoting racial equality. Early career: Began on the Political Left. • Regarded as someone with deeply held opinions opposed higher education bill -which included plans for variable student tuition fees. • Strongly opposed the hunting of wild mammals with dogs. • Resolutely contested the privatisation of the NHS. More recently: Has moved to the political centre. • Promoted a moderate economic plan that embraces a mix of market and interventionist policies. • Advocated for a coalitional social agenda scheme based on balanced budgets, support for globalization and fiscal moderation. • Endorsed the creation of a multi-party partnership to find a compromise position on the decision to remove hospitals from the health and social care bill. 87 • This politician studied at a University in the UK. • Entered as an MP for a contested seat that was confirmed with a majority in the following election. Early career: Began in the Political Centre. • Had a record of looking for consensus between those on the Left and Right on a number of policies. • Was in a group of politicians attempting to reach relevant compromises on social development issues. • Together with members of both the Left and Right supported an alternative bill on crime control. More recently: Has moved to the Political Left. • Severely opposed the Private Finance Initiative to the let the private sector run social institutions. • Fiercely criticized a project to abandon the European Union. • Vigorously proposed and defended a scheme on environmental protection. Design. There were four independent variables. The between-subjects independent variable was experimental condition with two levels: Mortality Salience and Control. The within-subjects variables were Need For Closure with two levels (high and low), and the political movement of the politicians in the biographies described as Direction of Shift with two levels (towards the Political Left and towards the Political Right), and Eccentricity of Shift with two levels (towards the Centre and towards the Extreme). The dependent variable is the mean of the 8 recoded questions assessing the political approval and support for the politician, such that minimum approval is a mean of 1.0 and maximum approval and support is a mean of 7.0. Procedure. Half of the participants were randomly allocated to the Mortality Salience Condition and half were randomly allocated to the Control condition. All participants were shown into a testing room where there was a packet containing a standard consent form and payment slip (see Appendix for a copy of the standard consent form). These were completed in the presence of the Experimenter. The experimenter informed the participants that he will leave the room (to avoid distraction during the task) and that the participant should open the packet and answers the questionnaires and assignment. Inside the packet were the seven questionnaires that were to be performed in the order in which they are detailed in the Materials section, and the assignment associated with the experimental manipulation. Those assigned to the Mortality Salience condition performed the Mortality reminder task; those assigned to the Control condition answered 88 the questions associated with Dental pain. Participants responded with a free text narrative to each question, and could take as long as they wished to complete the task. Upon completion of the questionnaires and experimental manipulation, the experimenter then examined the narratives of the participants to ensure that they had engaged in the task as required for the priming manipulation. After the participants answered the manipulations they were asked to complete a word search puzzle that acted as a delay for the manipulations because previous research (see Bizer, Krosnick, Petty, Rucker, & Wheeler, 2000; Cacioppo, Petty, Feinstein, & Jarvis, 1996; Holbrook, Krosnick, Visser, Gardner, & Cacioppo, 2001) has shown that the accessibility of death-related thoughts becomes higher after a delay and distraction. This part of the procedure lasted for approximately 25 minutes. Finally, all participants were presented with the same four biographies that were presented in one of four orders. One quarter of the participants in each group were randomly allocated to one of the four orders: (i) abcd, (ii) bdac, (iii) cadb, and (iv) dcba, where each of the letters a to d, represent one of the four biographies in Figure 3.2a to 3.2d, respectively. After reading each biography, the participants rated their approval and support for each of the politicians by answering the 7 associated questions. 3.3 Results 3.3.1 Preliminary Analyses To assess the data for internal consistency, a scale reliability test was conducted using SPSS (e. g. Greenberg et al., 1994) on the test wave data. The National Attachment Scale generated a combined alpha coefficient (Federico et al., 2005) of .80 on eight items (Nationalism, α = .65 / Patriotism, α = .78), above the recommended .50 for scales of less 89 than 10 items (Cronbach, 1951). Eliminating any one particular item did not improve the reliability of the scale. This information was incorporated into the item selection decision. Reliability analyses also revealed that the 42-item Need for Closure Scale (Pallant, 2010, p. 90) (α = .80) and the U. K. version of the Political Expertise Scale (Kruglanski et al., 1993) (α = .72) were internally consistent. The internal consistency of the Political Approval (respect) variables exploring both affective and behavioural attitudes was also explored for each set of the politicians’ biographies; the respective alpha coefficients of these scales are given in table 3.3.1 Again, the items were above the .5 score often recommended for scales of less than 10 items (Federico & Schneider, 2007). The analysis began with a comparison of the means of the response scores for the conditions. Means, standard deviations and reliability coefficients of the responses to the measures are given in table 3.3.1. 90 Table 3.3.1 Preliminary Analyses Measure Nationalism Patriotism Political Attitude Preference Political Ideology (political attitude / political position) Need for Closure Social Dominance Orientation Scale Political knowledge Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale Satisfaction With Life Scale Age Political Approval Ratings: Politician 1 [(Right > Left) (Out > Centre)] Politician 2 [(Right > Left) (Centre > Out)] Mean Standard Deviation α 3.02 1.05 0.65 3.85 1.26 0.78 3.52 1.28 3.65 1.08 r = .69, p < 0.005 4.30 2.61 2.98 2.21 4.47 21.93 0.52 0.88 2 0.40 1.28 5.25 0.8 0.87 0.72 0.86 0.82 4.09 1.13 0.76 4.84 1.07 0.76 Politician 3 [(Left > Right) (Centre > Out)] 4.37 1.12 0.77 Politician 4 [(Left > Right) (Out > Centre)] 4.88 1.09 0.8 Politician 1 [(Right > Left) (Out > Centre)]. Behavioural 2.79 1.22 0.853 Politician 2 [(Right > Left) (Centre > Out)]. Behavioural 3.46 1.29 0.854 Politician 3 [(Left > Right) (Centre > Out)]. Behavioural 3.05 1.39 0.899 Politician 4 [(Left > Right) (Out > Centre)]. Behavioural 3.50 1.31 0.876 Affective and Behavioural subscales of the Political Approval Ratings: N = 156 91 Correlation for the measures To illustrate how the measures relate to each other and to each of the four politicians depicted in the dependent variables a correlation matrix for the measures of Nationalism, Patriotism, Political attitude preference, Political ideology, Need for Cognitive Closure, Social Dominance Orientation Scale, Political Knowledge, Self-esteem, Satisfaction with life, age, and the political biographies was produced and is presented in Table 3.3.2; below. 92 93 11 12 13 14 Nationalism Patriotism Political attitude preference Political Ideology Need for closure Social Dominance Orientation Scale Political knowledge Rosenberg's self-esteem Satisfaction with life scale Age Political Biographies: Left -> Centre Centre -> Right Right -> Centre Centre -> Left - 2 3 4 0.491** 0.362**0.463** 0.316**0.379** 0.933** - 5 0.017 -0.07 0.131 0.156 - 6 7 8 9 0.478** -0.05 -0.13 0.067 0.245** 0.144 -0.08 0.079 0.337** 0.001 0.056 -0.057 0.411** -0.05 0.032 -0.023 0.242** -0.04 0.128 -0.003 *-0.161 -0.1 0.121 0.024 0.012 0.136 - 10 11 -0.15 -0.027 -0.06 -0.064 -0.13 -0.044 -0.15 -0.056 -0.08 0.057 -0.08 *-0.166 0.1 0.109 0.085 -0.058 0.136 -0.086 -0.05 - N=156 **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). 12 0.178 0.235 0.316 0.36 0.062 0.103 -0.1 -0.07 -0.05 -0.06 13 0.213** 0.242** 0.184** 0.016 0.097 0.045 -0.04 *0.161 0.075 0.075 14 **-0.272 *-0.172 **-0.275 **-0.342 0.018 **-0.332 0.145 0.086 0.059 0.033 0.036 -0.083 0.359** 0.115 -0.096 -0.078 - Table 3.3.2 Correlation matrix between measures 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 The mean and standard deviations of the mean ratings of each politician was also computed for participants with either a high or a low Need for Cognitive Closure in each one of the experimental groups, MS or Control; the results are displayed in Table 3.3.3 below. Table 3.3.3 Mean and standard deviations of the mean ratings of each politician for each of the high and low NFC participants in each of the MS and Control groups. Experimental Condition Need for Closure Direction Left to Right. Eccentricity to Centre Direction Left to Right. Eccentricity from Centre MS High NFC Low NFC High NFC Low NFC 4.90 (0.95) 4.61 (0.97) 4.93 (1.42) 4.79 (1.20) 4.41 (1.24) 4.27 (1.04) 4.62 (0.94) 4.23 (1.34) CN Direction Direction Right to Right to Left. Left. Eccentricity Eccentricity to Centre from Centre 4.14 (1.37) 4.65 (1.06) 3.99 (1.04) 4.82 (0.90) 4.00 (1.11) 5.01 (1.13) 4.09 (1.49) 4.52 (1.13) 3.3.2 Mortality Salience and Need for Closure Analysis To test the hypothesis previously described: “abstract reminders of death will activate the facet of NFC that seeks group consensus and stability such that people high in NFC will express greater support for politicians seeking consensus in the political centre, independent of their previously established ideology”, I started the analysis by setting up a within subjects factor based on the two dependent variables, respect for politicians either moving left to right or right to left (direction of movement), and respect for politicians moving outside-in or inside-out (eccentricity of shift) with the between-subjects factors of Need for Closure —low need for cognitive closure (those who score below the median on the NFC measure) and high need for cognitive closure (those who score above the median 94 on the NFC measure) (medium split)—, and Condition (MS/Control), while controlling for age, ideology and political knowledge (as covariates) because we were not interested in evaluating the interaction with the main factors. The analysis consisted of a 4-way mixed design with between-subjects variables NFC (median split: high NFC/low NFC) and the experimental condition consisting of two levels, MS (mortality salience) or CN (dental pain, control). The within-subjects variables were the ideological direction or “Eccentricity of Shift” of politicians who came outsidein/inside-out of the political spectrum, and the ideological position or “Direction of Shift” of the ideological move in the political spectrum (i.e. left-right or right-left). Again, it is theorised that the MS manipulation would activate psychological processes suggestive of a high NFC trait that, in turn, would increase approval of politicians who moved from the poles to the Centre of the political spectrum (i.e. the extent to which the participants would respect, have a “high opinion” about the depicted politician, or consider her/him worthy of the participant's volunteer help in her/his campaign). 95 The support for the politicians who came outside-in/inside-out and the direction of the ideological move in the political spectrum (i.e. left-right or right-left) was included as the within-subjects while age, political attitude and political knowledge was controlled for. The results of this analysis did not reveal any higher order 4-way interaction [F (1, 145) = .207, p = .650]. No main effect of NFC [F (1, 145) = 1.891, p = .171], Condition [F (1, 145) = .818, p = .367], nor of NFC x Condition [F (1, 145) = .081, p = .777] were found. The direction of the ideological move in the political spectrum, “direction of shift” (i.e. leftright or right-left) did have a significant interaction with ideology [F (1,145) = 8.007, p = .005] as it probably ought to; however, ideology is a control variable in this analysis. The “direction of shift” did not have a significant interaction with age [F (1,145) = .775, p = .380], political knowledge [F (1,145) = .558, p = .456], NFC [F (1,145) = .006, p = .939], nor condition [F (1,145) = .954, p = .330]. The “direction of shift” did not have a significant interaction with NFC and Condition [F (1,145) = .026, p = .871]. With regards to the “eccentricity of shift” (moving from the centre to the pole or from the pole to the centre), there was no significant interaction with political knowledge [F (1,145) = .445, p = .506], NFC [F (1,145) = .002, p = .963], nor condition [F (1,145) = .480, p = .490]. Both “direction of shift” and “eccentricity of shift” did not have a significant interaction with age [F (1,145) = 1.172, p = .281], political knowledge [F (1,145) = 2.927, p = .089], NFC [F (1,145) = 1.811, p = .180], nor with condition [F (1,145) = .114, p = .736], nonetheless “direction of shift” and “eccentricity of shift” did show a significant interaction with ideology [F (1,145) = 31.067, p = .001]. the deviance analysis can be found in Table 3.3.4; below. 96 Table 3.3.4 Main Deviance Analysis df F p NFC 1 1.891 0.171 Condition 1 0.818 0.367 Direction of Shift 1 0.232 0.631 Eccentricity of Shift 1 1.798 0.182 Condition x NFC 1 0.081 0.777 Condition x Direction of Shift 1 0.954 0.330 Condition x Eccentricity of Shift 1 0.448 0.490 NFC x Direction of Shift 1 0.006 0.939 NFC x Eccentricity of Shift 1 0.002 0.963 Direction of Shift x Eccentricity of Shift 1 20.766 0.001 Condition x NFC x Direction of Shift 1 0.026 0.871 Condition x NFC x Eccentricity of Shift 1 5.127 0.025 Condition x Direction of Shift x Eccentricity of Shift 1 0.114 0.736 NFC x Direction of Shift x Eccentricity of Shift 1 1.811 0.180 Condition x NFC x Direction of Shift x Eccentricity of Shift 1 0.207 0.650 Direction of Shift x Age 1 0.775 0.380 Direction of Shift x Ideology 1 8.007 0.005 Direction of Shift x Political Knowledge 1 0.558 0.456 Eccentricity of Shift x Age 1 0.219 0.641 Eccentricity of Shift x Ideology 1 1.036 0.310 Eccentricity of Shift x Political Knowledge 1 0.445 0.506 Direction of Shift x Eccentricity of Shift x Age 1 1.172 0.281 Direction of Shift x Eccentricity of Shift x Ideology 1 31.067 0.001 Direction of Shift x Eccentricity of Shift x Political Knowledge 1 2.927 0.089 Factors N = 156 97 However, the analysis did reveal an interesting three-way interaction [F (1,45) = 5. 127, p = .025] between condition (MS/CN), NFC (High/Low NFC) and eccentricity of shift (whether the politicians moved from the centre to the poles, or from the poles to the centre). Table 3.3.5 Interaction Model for Politicians in the Eccentricity of Shift Politician df F p Eccentricity of Shift 1 1.798 0.182 Eccentricity of Shift x Condition 1 0.448 0.490 Eccentricity of Shift x NFC 1 0.002 0.963 Eccentricity of Shift x Age 1 0.219 0.641 Eccentricity of Shift x Ideology 1 1.036 0.310 Eccentricity of Shift x Political Knowledge 1 0.445 0.506 Eccentricity of Shift x Condition x NFC 1 5.127 0.025 N = 156 Centring Variables Aiken and West (1991) emphasize the importance of centring continuous variables before creating a product term with them to represent an interaction. A variable is mean centred by subtracting the mean of the variable from each case. One argument advanced for mean centring in moderated multiple regressions is that it reduces multicolinearity between the product and the constituent terms of the interaction (e.g., Aiken & West, 1991; Eveland, 1997 in Hayes, 2005 p. 465).(Pallant, 2010, p. 90). Following the recommendations of Aiken and West , the NFC variable was centred thus creating a “new” NFC variable representing a deviation score to avoid 98 multicolinearity; additionally, an interaction term was formed by multiplying the centred predictor by the MS/CN condition (coded -1 for MS and 1 for Control). Control variables for the ideology, age, and political knowledge of the participants were also created. Simple slopes for the relationship between the condition and support for politicians who moved from the poles to the political centre were computed at NFC one standard deviation above and below the latter variable’s mean. Follow up Analyses To understand where the aforementioned effects of the three-way interaction [F (1,145) = 5. 127, p = 0.025] between condition (MS/CN), NFC (High/Low NFC) and eccentricity of shift were occurring –either for the politicians who moved from the centre to the poles, or for the ones who moved from the poles to the centre–, the interaction model was decomposed into two moderated regressions. Said analyses revealed a significant interaction between the experimental condition (MS/CN) and NFC (High/Low) on those politicians who moved into the centre [F (1,145) = 806.21, p = 0.001], but not on those who moved away from the centre to the poles [F (1,145 ) = 0.348, p = 0.91]. The first regression was performed on the support for politicians who came insideout, that is, those politicians who left the centre of the ideological spectrum to go to the poles, with the independent variables: (i) centred NFC, (ii) MS/CN condition, and (iii) their interaction, while controlling for the participant’s age (1991), ideology (Franklin & Jackson, 1983) and level of political knowledge (Jost, Federico, & Napier, 2009). The second regression was performed on the support for politicians who moved from the political poles to the centre, while also controlling for age, ideology and political knowledge. The results of the first moderated regression showed that the expected interaction between epistemic need for closure and mortality awareness was not significant (β = -.02, p 99 < .86) when politicians changed their position from the Centre and moved to either side of the political continuum (Fig. 3.5). There were no other main effects occurring neither for NFC nor for Condition. Figure 3.5 Support for Politicians who moved from the Political Centre to the Poles As mentioned above, the second analysis regressed support for politicians who moved from the political poles to the centre, while controlling for age, ideology and political knowledge; this analysis revealed only one significant interaction between cognitive need for closure and mortality reminders (β = 0.323, p < 0.005) such that participants who reported an elevated need for cognitive closure and, in turn, were reminded about their own mortality significantly approved of politicians moving from the extremes to the centre of the ideological spectrum. The simple slopes of the significant interaction for the politicians who moved from the poles to the political centre can be seen in Fig. 3.6. Analysis of the slopes revealed that the relationship between NFC and support for 100 politicians was significant for people in the MS condition (t = 2.218, p = 0.0281). The effects of political approval in the control condition (although marginally significant, t = 1.7704, p = 0.0788) declined as NFC increased for those politicians abandoning the political poles to move to the centre. These analyses indicated that the relationship between NFC and support for politicians who moved from the poles to the political centre was positive and significant among those in MS condition (t = 2.8128, p = 0.0056), and negative and significant for those in the control condition (t = -2.2097, p = 0.0287). Figure 3.6 Support for Politicians who moved from the Poles to the Political Centre In sum, then, the regression analyses confirm our hypothesis: among those who have been reminded about their own mortality, an elevated need for closure is indeed associated with a stronger support of politicians who switched sides from the poles to the Centre of the political spectrum. 101 3.4 Discussion. The purpose of this study was to expand one of the key hypotheses of the motivated social cognition model (Federico & Hunt, 2011); specifically, the interaction between epistemic and existential motives and the activation of adherences to certain political ideologies. Recent theorizing (Jost et al., 2003b) has suggested that certain elements in the cognitive need for closure (e.g. de Grada et al., 1999) can predict group centrism and enhance a desire to attain collective closure. The motivated social cognition model (Kruglanski, 1980; Kruglanski & Freund, 1983; Kruglanski, Shah, Pierro, & Mannetti, 2002) describes a number of assumptions about the relationship between people's beliefs and the adoption of political ideologies in order to satisfy psychological needs. One such psychological trait is the need for closure, a construct that describes the desire that certain individuals feel to reach straightforward, explicit conclusions and cling to that information permanently (Jost et al., 2003b). The present study found that prompting individuals’ existential anxiety creates an interaction with epistemic needs for closure that triggers needs for centrism, agreement, and unanimity, thus lessening the support for those politicians who diverge from the political Centre, a place that was presented as a space of consensus and agreement. Support for this effect is provided by the significant interaction between need for closure and mortality awareness. These results support the main hypothesis of this thesis in that participants primed with reminders of mortality exhibited a heightened approval rating for politicians who switched positions and came closer to the political centre. A further interesting implication about these findings is that moving left or right on the ideological spectrum was less relevant in terms of a cognitive appeal to secure the support of potential voters; what was more important for those participants with a high need for cognitive 102 closure primed with mortality reminders was the fact that politicians came to – or left – the hub of agreement and consensus. According to the motivated social cognition model (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983) the adoption of conservative ideologies is a ‘matching process’ that looks to satisfy psychological needs. The results of this study suggest that reminders of mortality interact with relevant cognitive schemas that, in turn, activate a need to attain unambiguous cognitive closure in information processing thus making homogeneous in-groups – those that share beliefs, and convictions – an attractive congregation because their shared views provide a firm, socially validated reality to be sure of. The present study extends the research conducted by Jost et al. (Jost et al., 2003b) by indicating that reminders of mortality can increase expressed levels of support for politicians who have changed their ideological positions, particularly among those who switched from the right to the Centre of the political spectrum. The present study shows that if the prime contains reminders of mortality, a specific interaction with psychological needs for closure can occur as participants primed with the dentist scenario did not exhibit an increase in the politician’s approval rating. Although it was hypothesised that the approval ratings for every direction of change in the politicians’ ideology would be related to the participant’s high NFC score and their exposure to an MS manipulation, no such interaction occurred for those politicians who moved from the political Centre out to either the left or the right pole; moving left to right, or right to left in the political spectrum was not implicated in the approval ratings of the politicians. It seems likely that those participants who scored high in the cognitive need for closure scale perceived the political Centre as a place where coalitions can be achieved, a 103 secure space where confrontation with the two opposing bands right and left are diminished, thus reducing the cognitive demand to justify the ideological position. A group that promises consensus and agreement will be more attractive for those with elevated cognitive needs for closure because in ideological terms, people in the centre of the political spectrum would be less likely to be subjected to a constant intellectual demand to justify the adoption of such political identity from identifiers of the other sides of the political spectrum. The fact that these high approval rating relationships were positively correlated with MS manipulations indicates that those participants with a heightened or severe need to reach a cognitive closure saw their need for collective closure and consensus activated, which could manifest as preferences for the political Centre. Importantly, there were no significant differences in the reported levels of approval from gender, ideology or level of political knowledge. This provides some evidence that the activation of consensus desires from the MS prime corresponds with explicit needs for homogeneous in-groups related to NFC. It is important to reiterate that political knowledge, political identity and age were controlled for, thus suggesting that tacit political interest and involvement is isolated from the activated schema. To speculate, it may be that the political Centre is perceived as a place where consensus can been achieved. Results from the present study provide some preliminary evidence for a perspective where MS may lead to the activation of categorical worldviews. In addition, the resulting bias is significantly related to the dislocation and alienation of the mortality manipulation consequently enhancing a need for more meaningful identities. Thus, the present findings are grounded in a more explicit theory of epistemic processes in which the need for cognitive closure plays a pivotal role. 104 The results suggest that it is possible to activate a specific cognitive closure schema related to group-centrism and that activation reduces uncertainty, dispels ambiguity, and produces higher support for politicians moving to the Centre. However, as people also make judgments and vote for political parties, shifting the focus from individual politicians to political bodies might provide additional corroborating evidence. Perhaps the recent increase in support for radical political groups and parties as they present themselves as moving closer to the political Centre, will show symmetrical effects to the present study. That is, do people perceive the extreme left and right as the same parties once they have "moved" closer to the political Centre? 105 106 CHAPTER 4 Study 2: Does Mortality Awareness Accentuate the Need for Closure when Rating Political Parties? 4.1 Overview Findings from Study 1, presented in Chapter 3, provide important evidence regarding the possibility of activating specific components of the Motivated Social Cognition model (Jost et al.), namely the epistemic Need for Closure (Jost et al., 2003b), and the Terror Management Theory (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983) via the Mortality Salience (MS) manipulation, such that an existential threat interacts with a high epistemic need for closure (Greenberg et al., 1986) by triggering needs for group centrism and collective closure. Study 1 looked at individual politicians and saw how MS and NFC predicted higher support for politicians moving to the centre. However, people also make judgements and, more importantly, vote for political parties. Study 2 tries to address this issue and see if similar results to those found in Study 1 can be found in relation to political parties. The overall goal of these studies was to gain a better understanding about the recent increase in support for radical parties as they present themselves as moving closer to the political centre. That is, do people perceive the extreme left and right as the same parties once they have “moved” closer to the political centre and are they attracted to such political options? The answer to this question is important for several reasons. Firstly, it is important to corroborate the findings from Study 1 by activating the schema to an alternative political scenario. This is necessary to provide evidence of replication and also to out the possibility that the effects obtained in Study 1 may be due to particular features 107 of the primed schema or the individual politicians, which may be not present for other political settings, particularly if the election of a political party has different characteristics than that of an individual politician. Secondly, it is important to look at possible methodological flaws, where it might be questioned whether participants high in NFC who were exposed to MS expressed significantly higher levels of support for parties moving from the extreme right to the centre, than for parties moving from the extreme left to the centre. The present study addresses the first argument: the issue of replication and the possibility that effects obtained using the MS manipulation may be accounted for by an individual politician’s appeal rather than by the proposed scheme with moving political parties. This study uses political parties changing their ideological positions from the extreme right to the centre, and parties moving from the extreme left to the centre as an alternative scenario. The use of political parties as opposed to individual politicians allows for the closest replication of the previous study with very few methodological modifications needed, as this setting was also used in Study 1. Replicating the study as closely as possible ensures that both studies are measuring the same processes, and are therefore comparable. The use of political institutions as the dependent variable also allows for a scenario with very different characteristics to that of individual politicians. In contrast to individual politicians, a political party often espouses a particular ideology as a merger of disparate interests, serves as an instrument of mobilisation and socialisation (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983) and structures the vote (Niemi & Hepburn, 1995; Settle, Dawes, & Fowler, 2008). Additionally, unlike the case of the United States where the selection of candidates is a central function of political parties, candidate appointment is a rather unimportant function of European political parties (King, 1969). 108 While Study 1 focused on political support for individual politicians, Study 2 focused on holistic judgements by looking at political parties. If we know that MS and NFC predict heightened support for politicians moving to the centre, will there be similar results when political parties are used as the unit of analysis? Can this relationship between existential threat and NFC help us understand small, but meaningful increases in support for political parties that were once fringe–extreme, but have now positioned themselves closer to the centre? If so, is the effect symmetrical? In other words, do people view fringe left and fringe right parties the same, once those parties have moved closer to the centre? In summary, the goal of the following study is to provide corroboration to the findings of the study described in Chapter 3 and validation of those conclusions. 4.2 Aim of Study 2 It has been proven that people are prone to obtain knowledge and grow certainty around it (Bryce, 2002; Kurian et al., 2011), this twofold process of knowledge acquisition and certainty development is particularly apparent amongst members of a group (Kruglanski, 1989). This dual process of knowledge acquisition and certainty development also implies that knowledge has both a psychological and a social function by bringing psychological calm into the knower and tightening their social bonds (Kruglanski, 1990). For some participants then, this need for cognitive closure should result in a desire to reach and hold definite knowledge and maintain that certainty permanently. The present study will attempt to replicate the interaction found in Study 1 between existential threats and epistemic needs for closure. In addition, it is hypothesized that participants primed with the mortality reminders will be highly supportive of political parties changing from the extreme right to the centre, as opposed to political parties moving from the extreme left to the centre. 109 In summary, previous research has suggested that some components in the NFC trait can predict group centrism and collective closure (Kruglanski, 2004; Zubiri, 1999). That is, when the cost of not achieving consensus is high, incentives to reach such agreements among people with an elevated NFC increase because valuing the members of their own group intensifies the need to achieve consensus and attain a socially shared reality. Consequently, in a context with opposing views like the one experienced in the outer edges of the political continuum where consensus is not well-defined, people with a high NFC trait would experience an increased motivation to reach consensus (de Grada et al., 1999; Kruglanski et al., 2002). Research has shown that NFC is the urge of certain individuals to obtain rapid knowledge by appropriating the most accessible information and maintaining it permanently. It also motivates people to protect an opinion once it has been formed. Additionally, research has showed that MS engenders a need for social constructions, a focus on external factors. Study 1 hypothesized that even though NFC can mean seizing and freezing and ‘black-and-white’ thinking, there are times when the need for uniformity, consensus, centrism and collective closure is high. This study will also attempt to replicate the relationships found in Study 1 between existential threat and epistemic need for cognitive closure. By activating needs for centrism and consensus, off-centre political parties will see their support belittled –or not– among participants with a high (vs. low) NFC who, in turn, have been exposed to abstract reminders of their own mortality (vs. control). It is hypothesized that participants presented with the MS manipulation will instantiate their need for cognitive closure, given that MS should generate a need for social constructions, groups, and culture, as it typically does. This heightened existential need should interact with the epistemic need for closure. In addition, desires for group centrism, 110 collective closure, and consensus will be activated and will be revealed in support (or lack thereof) received by the political parties that change their ideologies to/from the political centre. 4.3 Method Ethical Approval. As described in the previous chapter, Ethical Approval of Research Involving Human Participants (see Appendix) was requested and obtained for this study. Participants One hundred and seventy participants (males = 56; females = 114) at the University of Essex volunteered to complete the study in exchange for course credits or payment for their participation (age M = 24.25, SD = 9.98). All participants were English speakers. Participants were randomly allocated to either an experimental or control condition. Materials Participants were presented with (i) seven questionnaires described in the previous chapter (and included in the appendix), (ii) the experimental manipulation, followed finally by (iii) a fictional excerpt from an invented source. The seven questionnaires. The seven questionnaires (in order) were (1) National attachment questionnaire (Golec De Zavala & Federico, 2004), (2) Participant’s political attitude preference and Political ideology questionnaire (Federico et al., 2005), (3) The Need for Closure Scale (NFCS) (Bartle, 2003a), 4) The Social Dominance Orientation Scale (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983), 5) The Political Knowledge Questionnaire (SDO; Sidanius & 111 Pratto, 1999), 6) Rosenberg’s (Federico & Schneider, 2007) Self-esteem scale, and 7) Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin’s (1965) Satisfaction with life scale. The Experimental Manipulation. The participants were presented with the same materials used in Experiment 1 that are used in Terror Management research. Thus, one half of the participants saw text related to the Mortality Salience condition, the rest saw text related to the Control Condition. The Experimental Task. The participants were presented with either one of three excerpts from the fictitious “A New Handbook of Political Parties”, that described (a) how the political Left-Right dimension had changed, with all political parties moving closer to the political centre of the ideological spectrum (b) how all parties remained fixed to their original positions, or (c) how the political Left-Right dimension had partially changed, with only two political parties coming closer to the ideological centre. The three excerpts differed from each other in that for the first condition I made sure the description underlined that there had been a sharp movement in the ideological positioning of all the political parties within the Left/Right continuum regarding their traditional ideological stance. That is, that what was once considered as an “Extreme Right” (or “Extreme Left”) party was now to be considered as a “New Fringe Right” (or “New Fringe Left”) political party, namely, that all political parties had experienced a movement towards the ideological centre. For the second condition, the opposite was true; I adapted the excerpt of the handbook to describe the Right/Left ideological continuum as static in their ideological positions referring that “the majority of experts still feel that the traditional political continuum as depicted above remains intact”. For the third and final excerpt I described how the Left/Right continuum had been modified recently, but only for the mainstream political parties that had moved towards the political centre thus creating a gap that has been filled by other parties. 112 Each one of the three excerpts was accompanied by a graphic depiction of the changes (or lack thereof) in the political continuum describing their initial position in the ideological spectrum and another one showing their new location. Participants saw only this single-page “excerpt” from the fictitious handbook. These excerpts are reproduced in full in Figures 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 below. After reading the description of each excerpt, participants were asked to rate their political approval and support for the political party by providing ratings to six questions using a scale ranging from 1 (very untrue for me) to 7 (very true for me). The six questions were: “I identify with this party’s stance on political issues”, “I feel this political party stands for values that are important to me”, “I would likely vote for this political party if I had the opportunity”, “I feel this political party would make a positive contribution to society”, “This political party makes me feel insecure”, and “Given the opportunity, I would likely support this political party”. 113 Figure 4.1 Example of the mock “A New Handbook of Political Parties” with parties moving A variety of methodologies have confirmed that the single Left/Right dimension is an adequate representation of the space in which political parties compete for the electorate; a way to generalise about overall political orientations and ideologies that extend beyond specific issues. Traditionally, political philosophies have been discussed or summarised on a Left/Right or Liberal/Conservative continuum. These labels provide reference points that make it easier for voters to interpret and evaluate political activities; a graphic depiction of such typologies and a range of issue-positions for each of the traditional parties occupying space on the continuum is presented below. Extreme LEFT Fringe LEFT LEFT CENTRE RIGHT Fringe RIGHT Extreme RIGHT •Suppression of social classes •Increase social welfare state •Formalised state structure •Common ownership of the means of production •Extension of democratic suffrage •Trade union rights •State intervention in the economy •Social justice for working people •Egalitarian policies •Oppose social welfare •Defend and enhance human rights •Empower ethnic minorities to build cohesion within their communities •Attempt to reconcile seemingly opposed ideologies •Average elements from opposing sides into stabilising, moderate political force to preserve the harmony of an existing order that is under threat from partisanship. •Smaller government •Less state regulation of the economy •Stress law and order •Religious tolerance •Respect for individual rights •Supports capitalist economy •Regulation and taxation •Stress nationalism and national identity •Opposes immigration •Opposes the welfare system •Starkly opposes immigration •Nationalism •Rejection of cultural pluralism •Introduction of selective education More recently, scholars have observed that political parties have moved sharply to the centre of the ideological spectrum. Empirical evidence shows that the traditional Left/Right parties and their positions have changed, and that these movements by mainstream political actors and parties towards the centre of the political dimension have created a gap that has been filled by other parties in the continuum; a graphic depiction of this movement - and of the new political continuum created by this movement - is presented below. Extreme LEFT Fringe LEFT LEFT CENTRE RIGHT Fringe RIGHT New Fringe LEFT New LEFT New CENTRE New RIGHT New Fringe RIGHT 114 Extreme RIGHT Figure 4.2 Example of the mock “A New Handbook of Political Parties” with no parties moving A variety of methodologies have confirmed that the single Left Right dimension is an adequate representation of the space in which political parties compete for the electorate; a way to generalise about overall political orientations and ideologies that extend beyond specific issues. Traditionally, political philosophies have been discussed or summarised on a Left/Right or Liberal/Conservative continuum. These labels provide reference points that make it easier for voters to interpret and evaluate political activities; a graphic depiction of such typologies and a range of issue-positions for each of the traditional parties occupying space on the continuum is presented below. Extreme LEFT Fringe LEFT LEFT CENTRE RIGHT Fringe RIGHT Extreme RIGHT •Suppression of social classes •Increase social welfare state •Formalised state structure •Common ownership of the means of production •Extension of democratic suffrage •Trade union rights •State intervention in the economy •Social justice for working people •Egalitarian policies •Oppose social welfare •Defend and enhance human rights •Empower ethnic minorities to build cohesion within their •Attempt to reconcile seemingly opposed ideologies •Average elements from opposing sides into stabilising, moderate political force to preserve the harmony of an existing order that is under threat from •Smaller government •Less state regulation of the economy •Stress law and order •Religious tolerance •Respect for individual rights •Supports capitalist economy •Regulation and taxation •Stress nationalism and national identity •Opposes immigration •Opposes the welfare system •Starkly opposes immigration •Nationalism •Rejection of cultural pluralism •Introduction of selective Political scholars, using the continuum presented above, have produced a specification of the ideological themes associated with left and right positions, respectively. These fall into three broad groupings on each side. The emphasis for right-wing ideologies is broadly focused on freedom (with a particular application to the economy), an ordered society, and stronger defence. Parties on the left typically focus on an extended sphere for government influence, the welfare and protection of labour, and peaceful internationalism. Some scholars have recently argued that mainstream political parties have moved to the centre of the ideological spectrum, abandoning their traditional ideologies for positions of compromise. Despite these assertions, however, little empirical evidence seems to support those claims, and the majority of experts still feel that the traditional political continuum as depicted above remains intact. Historical origin of the terms The terms Right and Left refer to political affiliations which originated early in the French Revolutionary era of 17891796, and referred originally to the seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France. The aristocracy sat on the right of the Speaker (traditionally the seat of honor) and the commoners sat on the Left, hence the terms Right-wing politics and Leftwing politics. Originally, the defining point on the ideological spectrum was the ancient regime ("old order"). "The Right" thus implied support for aristocratic or royal interests, and the church, while "The Left" implied opposition to the same. Because the political franchise at the start of the revolution was relatively narrow, the original "Left" represented mainly the interests of the bourgeoisie, the rising capitalist class. At that time, support for laissez-faire capitalism and Free markets were counted as being on the left; today in most Western countries these views would be characterized as being on the Right. Similarly, the opposition to capitalism was counted as being as "Right-wing", whereas now it is likely to be characterised as "Left-wing". As the franchise expanded over the next several years, it became clear that there was something to the left of that original "Left": the precursors of socialism and communism, advocating the interests of wage earners and peasants. The historical facts seem 115 Figure 4.3 Example of the mock “A New Handbook of Political Parties” with two parties moving A NEW HANDBOOK OF POLITICAL PARTIES 354 A variety of methodologies have confirmed that the single Left-Right dimension is an adequate representation of the space in which political parties compete for the electorate; a way to generalise about overall political orientations and ideologies that extend beyond specific issues. Traditionally, political philosophies have been discussed or summarised on a Left/Right or Liberal/ Conservative continuum. These labels provide reference points that make it easier for voters to interpret and evaluate political activities; a graphic depiction of such typologies and a range of issue-positions for each of the traditional parties occupying space on the continuum is presented below. Extreme LEFT Fringe LEFT LEFT CENTRE RIGHT Fringe RIGHT Extreme RIGHT •Suppression of social classes •Increase social welfare state •Formalised state structure •Common ownership of the means of production •Extension of democratic suffrage •Trade union rights •State intervention in the economy •Social justice for working people •Egalitarian policies •Oppose social welfare •Defend and enhance human rights •Empower ethnic minorities to build cohesion within their •Attempt to reconcile seemingly opposed ideologies •Average elements from opposing sides into stabilising, moderate political force to preserve the harmony of an existing order that is under threat from •Smaller government •Less state regulation of the economy •Stress law and order •Religious tolerance •Respect for individual rights •Supports capitalist economy •Regulation and taxation •Stress nationalism and national identity •Opposes immigration •Opposes the welfare system •Starkly opposes immigration •Nationalism •Rejection of cultural pluralism •Introduction of selective More recently, scholars have observed that political parties have moved sharply to the centre of the ideological spectrum. Empirical evidence shows that the traditional Left/Right parties and their positions have changed, and that these movements by mainstream political actors and parties towards the centre of the political dimension have created a gap that has been filled by other parties in the continuum; a graphic depiction of this movement - and of the new political continuum created by this movement - is presented below. ! Extreme Fringe New Fringe LEFT New LEFT LEFT CENTRE New CENTRE RIGHT Fringe Extreme New RIGHT New Fringe RIGHT Historical origin of the terms The terms Right and Left refer to political affiliations which originated early in the French Revolutionary era of 1789-1796, and referred originally to the seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France. The aristocracy sat on the right of the Speaker (traditionally the seat of honor) and the commoners sat on the Left, hence the terms Right-wing politics and Left-wing politics. Originally, the defining point of 116 Design. As described in the preceding chapter, the between-subjects independent variable was formed by the experimental condition with two levels: Mortality Salience and Control. The between-subjects variables were Need For Closure with two levels (high and low), and the political movement of the political parties in the “Handbook” with participants seeing any one of the three conditions: either (1) all parties moving from the extremes towards the Centre, (2) all the political parties maintaining their original position, or (3) only two parties moving to the Centre. The dependent variable was the mean of the 6 recoded questions assessing the political approval and support for the politician, such that minimum approval is a mean of 1.0 and maximum approval and support is a mean of 7.0. As it has been previously described in the preceding Chapter 3, the dependent variables were created following Krosnick’s (1985) and Feldman and colleagues’ (1999) suggestions regarding questionnaire design and the powerful influence of affect on political attitudes. These questions for the dependent variables were intended to assess affective components, behavioural intentions, and political identity. A table of scale reliability for these items is provided below. Dependent Variables 1. I identify with this party's stance on political issues 2. I feel this political party stands for values that are important to me 3. I would likely vote for this political party if I had the opportunity. 4. I feel this political party would make a positive contribution to society. 5. This political party makes me feel insecure. 6. Given the opportunity, I would likely support this political party. 117 Correlations Among Dependent Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 1 2 3 4 .756** .754** .709** 1 .779** .726** 1 .694** 1 5 .343** .421** .382** .504** 1 6 .713** .762** .878** .732** .379** 1 ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). Procedure The procedure of this study was identical to the one used in Study 1 and described in Chapter 3, except for the content of the dependent variables. In contrast to Study 1, the dependent variables in this study were modified from individual politicians to political parties in three different scenarios, one in which all political parties changed their original ideological position moving closing to the political centre, a second scenario in which only two parties changed their original ideological positions moving closer to the centre, and a third and final scenario in which none of the political parties changed their original ideological position. As has been previously described in the preceding Chapter 3, participants answered the seven questionnaires containing the psychological pre-measures and then the traditional Terror Management Theory manipulations and controls, then they were asked to read a mock passage of the fictitious “A New Handbook of Political Parties” explaining a supposedly recent ideological realignment of political parties. The pretend excerpts of which participants received only one copy depicted either (1) all political parties switching their original positions in the political spectrum (Right or Left) to move the Centre, (2) only two political parties changing their original ideological positions (Right or Left) to move 118 closer to the Centre, or (3) a “excerpt” of the mock handbook in which no political parties had movement in political ideologies. After reading each excerpt of the “Handbook”, the participants rated their approval and support for each of the political parties by answering the 6 associated questions using a 1 – 7 Likert type scale ranging from 1 (Very untrue for Me) to 7 (Very True for Me). Just as with Study 1, it is important to note that the Centre of the political spectrum was presented as a place where the emphasis was on the creation of coalitions, a space where compromises have to be achieved. Figures 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4 show the three examples used of the mock “A New Handbook of Political Parties” depictions. A full overview of the “excerpts” used in this study can be found in the Appendix. Once they had finished the experimenter asked them to complete a payment slip and read them a disclosure (see Appendix for a copy of all the standard materials). 119 4.3 Results 4.3.1 Preliminary Analyses The design of this study was a 3-way between-subjects design. The factors were: Experimental Condition with two levels (Mortality Salience and Control), Need for Closure with two levels (High NFC and low NFC) × Political party movement with three levels (Move Left, No Move, Move Right). The sample for this study was split on the political parties ‘movement’ condition, and a three way mixed ANOVA [condition, NFC, and polarity (left/right)] was ran, once the sample was split there were not enough cases to analyse the “two move” condition (N = 31) nor had I sufficient funds to recruit more participants, therefore I had to make the decision of leaving this condition out of the analysis. The analysis revealed no effects in the ‘no move’, traditional spectrum condition. This result was somewhat problematic, however it did reveal a significant three-way ANOVA in the ‘movement’ condition (where all parties move toward the centre) that offered a more sophisticated approach to the results by hinting at the context in which political parties shift to the centre and that, when MS and NFC are combined, not all centrism is equal. Means and standard deviations in the answers to the measures are described in table 4.1. 120 Table 4.1. Means and standard deviations of measures. Measure Mean Standard deviation Nationalism 4.31 0.93 Patriotism 3.90 1.27 Political Preference 3.49 1.24 Political Knowledge 0.41 0.24 Ideology 3.64 0.91 NFC 4.33 0.53 Left Support 4.38 1.17 Centre Support 4.41 1.14 Right Support 3.30 1.38 N = 170 As with the study in Chapter 3, the internal consistency of the scales was explored following Cronbach’s (2012) recommendations. As detailed above, the Nationalism/Patriotism scale –adjusted to the English context– yielded an internal consistency of (α = .73). Political Ideology returned a correlation of (r = .43, p < 0.005). The UK version of the political expertise scale (1951) was (α = .58). Reliability analysis for the Need for Closure Scale (Federico & Schneider, 2007) was (α = .74). A check regarding the internal consistency of the political Support variables for each of the showed political parties revealed the following results: Political Support for the Left (α = .91), Political Support for the Centre (α = .90) and, Political Support for the Right (α = .92). 121 Table 4.2 Internal Consistencies of Measures Measure α Nationalism / Patriotism Scale 0.73 (Nationalism) 0.49 (Patriotism) 0.78 Political Ideology (political attitude / political position) r = 0.42, p < 0.005 Political Expertise 0.58 Need for Closure 0.74 Political Support for the Left 0.91 Political Support for the Centre 0.90 Political Support for the Right 0.92 N = 170 As has been previously described in Chapter 3, in order to test the hypothesis that the interaction between MS/NFC predict low support for new left, but increased support for new right the NFC variable was centred a la Aiken and West (Kruglanski et al., 1993) thus creating a “new” variable to symbolise the deviation scores. As it has been previously described, a variable is mean centred by subtracting the mean of the variable from each case this procedure also served as a way to prevent a multicolinearity effect. An interaction term was also created by multiplying this centred predictor variable by the MS/CN condition (-1 for MS and 1 for Control). Other variables such as ideology, and political knowledge were also centred and included in the model. Table 4.3 includes a list of the centred variables. 122 Table 4.3 Centred Variables Measure Need for Closure Ideology Political Knowledge Interaction Term (Centred NFC x MS/CN) 4.3.2 Mortality Salience and Need for Closure As it was the case with Study 1, this second study theorised that the MS manipulation would motivate a psychological response that would suggest the presence of an elevated need for cognitive closure. Such a response would, subsequently, stimulate approval for political parties that appeared to have repositioned themselves from their original ideological positions (either to the Right or to the Left) to become more centrist. Following the analytical strategy used in Study 1 and previously described in Chapter 3, an exploratory three-way mixed model ANOVA was performed. This analytic strategy allowed me to test the impact of MS on those people with an elevated NFC. The polarity of the political parties that changed their original ideological positions was included as the within-subjects. The standard variables of age [F (1, 150) = .663, p = .417], party identification [F (1, 150) = 1.642, p = .202], and political knowledge [F (1, 150) = .642, p = .424] were controlled for and did not reveal any significant effects. The results did not reveal any significant main effects for Condition [F (1, 150) = .085, p = .771], Need for Closure [F (1, 150) = 2.172, p = .143], Polarity [F (1, 150) = 26.60, p = .001], or for NFC × Condition [F (1, 150) = .370, p = .544]. The analysis did not reveal a significant interaction between Support × NFC [F (1, 150) = 1.721, p = .181] or a three-way interaction between Polarity × NFC × Condition [F (1, 150) = 1.887, p = 123 .153]. The analysis did not reveal a significant interaction between Polarity × Condition [F (1, 150) = 1.721, p = .181]. Once these results were obtained the sample was split into the “movement” of political parties (“no move”, “all move”) and run the ANOVA testing for “condition”, “NFC” and “Support” for the LEFT and RIGHT. No effects were found for the “No Movement” condition –where political parties did not change their ideologies. Focusing on the “Movement” condition –where political parties moved to the centre– the analysis did not reveal a significant main effect for Condition [F (1, 78) = .207, p = .651], NFC [F (1, 78) = 778, p = .380], nor NFC × Condition [F (1, 78) = .100, p = .753]. These results were somewhat disappointing as I was expecting to find significant interactions as those found in Study 1. However, the analysis did reveal an attractive result that opened the door for an interesting interpretation: a significant interaction for Support × NFC [F (1, 78) = 8.269, p = .005]; such that those high in NFC expressed a lower level of support for the “New Left” (M = 2.87, SD = .970) as opposed to the support expressed for the political party in the “New Right” (M = 4.97, SD = .892). The interaction between Support × Condition was also significant [F (1, 78) = 7.157, p = .009] with people with a high NFC in the MS condition expressing a lower support for the “New Left” (M = 2.87, SD = .97) than those with a high NFC in the MS condition who expressed a higher support for the “New Right” (M = 4.97, SD = .89). These results are interesting in their own right as they point to a differentiated approval for political parties coming from the right than of those coming from the left in a dynamic political environment. In other words, even when extreme political parties appear to be less extreme, in a dynamic political environment, not all centrism is the same, that is, participants with an elevated need for cognitive closure who have been exposed to mortality reminders are more prone to support political parties coming from the extreme right to the centre, a result in line with 124 previous research (1991) showing that uncertainty avoidance and conservatism is mediated by resistance to change. More importantly, the analysis revealed a rather interesting significant three-way interaction between Polarity × NFC × Condition [F (1, 78) = 6.462, p = .013] such that those participants with an elevated need for cognitive closure who, in turn, were reminded of their own mortality, saw their support for the “New Right” political party increased as opposed to those in the control condition or even for the “New Left” political party thus suggesting the possibility that the hypothesis was actualised in a dynamic (vs. static) political environment and for “new right” (vs. “new left”) political parties. Means and standard errors can be found in Table 4.5. Table 4.4 Means and Standard Errors for all Conditions Low NFC Condition Political Movement Mean Std. Deviation CN All Move No Move All Move No Move No Move All Move No Move All Move 3.87 4.01 3.89 3.90 4.71 4.80 4.79 4.78 .286 .375 .295 .356 .277 .342 .331 .276 MS High NFC CN MS 125 Table 4.5 Means and Standard Errors for the Movement Condition Low NFC Condition “New” Political Party Mean Std. Error CN “New Left” “New Right” “New Left” “New Right” “New Left” “New Right” “New Left” “New Right” 4.46a 3.52a 4.41a 3.52a 4.28a 3.48a 3.02a 4.42a .23 .23 .26 .26 .20 .20 .41 .41 MS High NFC CN MS Table 4.6 Means and Standard Deviations for Each ANOVA (“No Move” and “All Move”) Political Spectrum No Movement Movement Left NFC TMT Mean Std. Deviation Low NFC CN MS CN MS CN MS CN MS CN MS CN MS CN MS CN MS 4.37 4.50 4.82 4.37 2.37 3.29 2.74 3.63 4.47 4.48 4.27 2.87 3.50 3.41 3.42 4.97 1.04 1.15 1.25 0.85 1.23 1.05 1.35 1.23 1.13 1.05 1.33 0. 97 1.38 1.35 1.48 0. 89 High NFC Right Low NFC High NFC All Move Left Low NFC High NFC Right Low NFC High NFC 126 The relationships found between MS, NFC, and support for politicians moving to the centre in Study 1 were replicated in this Study 2 in a context of a changing political parties as opposed to a static political environment. To further understand these results and how these interactions were occurring figures 4.1 and 4.2 are showing the three-way ANOVA in the ‘movement’ condition (where all parties move towards the centre) for the “New Left” (4.1.) and the “New Right” respectively. As it is clear from the figures the relationship between NFC and support for the “New Left” was negative and significant among those in the MS condition (t = -2.94, p < .01) and positive and significant for the “New Right” amongst those in the MS condition (t = 2.99, p < .01). Such results displaying increased polarity for new right as opposed to a lower support for new left in the context of political party shifts to the centre–when MS and NFC are combined–shows that in a threatening environment not all centrism is equal for the electorate and that an extreme right party moving toward the centre (albeit in paper only) will be more appealing for those with an elevated need for cognitive closure in a threatening environment. 127 Figure 4.1. Support for the “New Left” in the “Movement” Condition Figure 4.2. Support for the “New Right” in the “Movement” Condition 128 As it can be appreciated in Figure 4.1, those political parties that came from the left into the centre, the “New Left”, enjoyed a superior mean of support among those participants who had a low need for cognitive closure and where, in turn, in the control condition, that is, those participants who were not reminded about their own mortality and who had a lower need to stop the cognitive processing involved with discussing, and understanding politics, a lesser aversion towards ambiguity. This result is interesting in itself as it could be pointing at an assumption about the left’s stance and ideological coherence. By the same token, those with a high need for cognitive closure and who, in turn, were reminded about their own mortality showed a lower mean level of polarity (support) for the “New Left”, one possible interpretation about this latter result is that in times of peace and calm the left should come closer to a centrist position, compromise and negotiate, but once in a dynamic political environment with individuals scared about symbolic reminders of death (unemployment, economic crisis, the ghost of immigration, etc.) the left could be interested in appear to stay true to its ideological stances, particularly among those people who pay less attention to the intricacies of the political game. This interesting question that exceeds the possibilities (and statistical power) of the present thesis could be explored in more detail to understand the implications of the perceptions of the left on those people with both high and low need for closure. On the other hand, as it can be seen in Figure 4.2, the “New Right” enjoyed a higher mean level of support among those participants with a high need for cognitive closure. This result goes in line with the previous study presented in Chapter 3, that is that participants with an elevated need for cognitive closure, or an intolerance of ambiguity, who in turn are reminded about their own mortality, show more support for a less radical version of an extreme right-wing political party (think BNP, UKIP, National Front, and the alike). 129 Altogether, the analyses gave support to our hypothesis: those participants who had an elevated need for closure to begin with and were reminded about their own impermanence in life, were more likely to show support for political parties that moved from the poles of the political spectrum to come closer to the political centre. It seems that this “New Right’s” clarity, unified vision and lack of variance is particularly appealing to those people high in Need for Closure who have, in turn, been reminded about their mortality. Furthermore, these results showing a lower level of support for a leftist political party that is coming to the centre might be in line with electoral results of past General Elections both in the UK and the US (Jost et al., 2007) and with political further political outcomes in natural settings (Gershtenson, 2004; Huddy & Mason, 2008; Kiss & Hobolt, 2011; Willer & Adams, 2008) particularly for extreme right-wing parties that campaigned with a somewhat more extreme positions during the 2010 UK General Election campaign (BBC, 2010). 4.4 Discussion This chapter has reviewed the research strategy that I employed to gauge and incorporate psychological measures of need for cognition into an exploratory dataset designed to better understand the contribution of mortality awareness and support for a new centrist political party. The overall research design was outlined, along with the processes by which the measures were selected. The use of the scales as interval variables was justified on theoretical and methodological grounds. The subsets were evaluated for their reliability and the selected measures were analysed. The results of these analyses indicate that although the interaction between NFC and MS is related to support for a new centrist political party, it is only weakly associated and that a dynamic environment there 130 where all the political parties change sides is more conducive for people high in need for closure to express support for centrist political parties. In the past decades political parties have been presenting themselves as being less fringe by claiming to have moved towards the ideological centre but without actually modifying their original ideologies (e.g. the British National Party). The present study aimed to expand one of the key hypotheses of the Motivated Social Cognition model (Topping, 2010) and the findings of Study 1 as described in Chapter 3 regarding people’s support for extreme–Right (and Left) political parties once they have "move" closer to the political Centre to occupy an ideological position conventional parties once held. It has been suggested (Jost et al., 2003b) that selected elements of the cognitive need for closure can lead individuals to express a preference for groups and centrism, and display a tendency to favour shared closure. Additionally, as it has been mentioned above, the motivated social cognition model (Adams & Merrill, 2006) assumes a relationship between people’s epistemic, existential, and relational motives and the political ideologies to which they adhere. The need for cognitive closure (Jost et al., 2003b; Kruglanski et al., 2006; van Hiel & Mervielde, 2003b) –the desire to reach certainty, order, and structure, as well as a manifest intolerance towards ambiguity– has been described as one of those psychological motivations. The results presented here provide additional evidence to those reported in Study 1 by showing how participants high in NFC, who in turn have been exposed to MS, are significantly more prone to express support for political parties that moved from the extreme political right to the centre than they are to support for parties moving from the extreme left to the centre, even when the centre has been described as a place where compromise can be reached. This effect, supported by a significant interaction between polarity, NFC and MS when all parties move, partially validates the main hypothesis 131 proposed throughout this thesis that people with an elevated need for cognitive closure who are primed with reminders about their own mortality will express higher support for centrist (vs. extreme) political alternatives. This study corroborates the relationships found in Study 1, one interesting addition from the current study to those presented in Study 1 is that the level of support for the “New Left” declined for those participants high in NFC who were exposed to MS, and increased for those same participants in terms of their support for the “New Right”, that is, there might be something about a leftist ideology that stands its own ground that make it more appealing than a moderate left. Thus, the combined evidence from both studies suggests that it might be possible for individuals to possess a schema specific to a position in the ideological spectrum, regardless of their party identification. The motivated social cognition model (Kruglanski, 1980) posits that the adoption of conservative ideologies is a matching process by which some individuals satisfy their psychological requirements with ideas that “match” or “resonate” their own interests and needs (Jost et al., 2003b). Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that elevated needs to reduce uncertainty is not only not associated with extreme political attitudes, but it is actually associated with centrist, moderate, and less extreme views (Jost & Amodio, 2011; Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003a). The results of the present study suggests a similar pattern as reminders of mortality significantly interacted with cognitive structures that triggered demands to arrive at explicit information and certainty as well as amplified the sympathy towards homogeneity and uniformity within groups, beliefs, social norms, and values. If Study 1 demonstrated that a specific interaction will occur between reminders of mortality and a psychological need for cognitive closure by increasing the levels of support for individual politicians who altered their ideological positions, the present study expands 132 those findings by corroborating the presence of a significant interaction between MS and NFC that stimulates supports for right-wing political parties that claim to have repositioned their ideological stance towards the Centre of the political scale, and found a high degree of influence associated with the psychological attractiveness of the former extreme-right wing party but not for the former extreme-left. It appears that, in the context of political party shifts towards the centre, when MS and NFC are combined, not all centrism is equal. The results of this second study suggest that under high (vs. low) threat those participants who displayed a high (vs. low) need for cognitive closure expressed significantly higher levels of support for parties moving from the extreme right to the centre, than for parties moving from the extreme left to the centre. One interpretation of this interesting result is that those participants with an elevated need for cognitive closure who, in turn, have been reminded about their own mortality might perceive the political centre as a space where agreements can be reached and consensus can be built thus reducing the excessive cognitive demands that are present in justifying adherences to other extreme ideological positions, an effect that might be appreciated by someone who has a high need for closure to begin with and might want to devote those cognitive resources to a different activity. That is, in a dynamic political environment, where political parties are constantly changing, a centrist political party might offer a much-needed space of solace to a person with an elevated need for closure, a middle point that reduces the cognitive demands coming from the right and from the left. Furthermore, these results are also interesting as they suggest that fringe right (vs. fringe left) ideologies that present themselves as a more moderate option convey a kind of psychological lure that is very attractive for people with an elevated need for cognitive closure under high (vs. low) threat. When evaluating individual politicians, this effect 133 occurs without implicating ideological movements to the left or the right. However, when evaluating political parties, there is an MS/NFC preference but only for right-wing parties moving toward the political centre as parties moving from the left to the political centre receive significantly lower levels of support. The results presented here are given further credence by previous literature both in psychology (Jost et al., 2007) and political behaviour literature (Sidanius, 1988) that describe how “holding extreme views requires some degree of cognitive sophistication and complexity” (Chirumbolo, 2002; Golec De Zavala & van Bergh, 2007; Milbrath & Goel, 1977; van Hiel & Mervielde, 2003a). Overall, these results show that the political centre was perceived as an ideology that, cognitively, was less demanding to support than its opposites. In other words, to have ideological extremity –particularly extreme-left ideologies– one must be able to tolerate uncertainty. On the 1st March 1974, The New Yorker magazine published a cartoon by Robert Weber. It depicted an “Opinion Research INC” pollster standing outside a flat where a pile of New York Times newspapers had been accumulating; hiding behind a dimly opening door a frightened person was answering a survey. The caption below the cartoon read: “Put me down as ‘Don’t know and don’t want to know’” (Cobb & Elder, 1972; Dalton, 1996; Jost et al., 2007, p. 999; Verba, Nie, & Kim, 1987; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 2000; Verba, Schlozman, Brady, & Shapiro, 1996). For all the good humour contained in The New Yorker’s cartoon, the political preferences of voters occupying the political centre has been a central issue of study for both political parties seeking to develop a less polarizing message in order to attract the legendary Downsian (Weber, 1974) median voter’s support and political scientists trying to understand voter’s motivations (1957), that is, an elector in the median of the political spectrum who by means of hers/his disaffection for extreme political positions forces all 134 the political parties to move their policies closer towards the centre where her/his preferences stand and where her/his vote can be captured (Abramson, 2013; Ansolabehere, Snyder, & Stewart, 2000; Arai, Mimura, & Murakami, 2009; Barbaranelli et al., 2007; Isbell & Ottati, 2002). The present study examines the psychological reasons behind political attitudes of people precisely like the one illustrated by The New Yorker’s cartoon: scared individuals with an elevated need for cognitive closure who, in turn, hold the critical influence to decide political elections and whose ignorance – and vote – are decisive for Democracy. 135 136 CHAPTER 5 Study 3: Further Exploration of Mortality Awareness, Need for Closure and Political Centrism 5.1 Overview Studies presented so far in this thesis have shown, first, that it is possible to activate specific components of the Motivated Social Cognition model (Black, 1948), namely the epistemic Need for Closure, via the Mortality Salience (MS) manipulation of the Terror Management Theory (Congleton, 2001; Hotelling, 1929; Yon, 2011). Secondly, it was found that such existential threats interact with a high epistemic Need for Closure (Jost et al., 2003b) by activating needs for group centrism and collective closure that, in turn, influence expressed levels of support for individual politicians moving from the political fringes to the centre (Study 1). This is also the case for political parties moving from the extremes to the centre of the ideological spectrum in a dynamic context (Study 2). 137 Figure 5.1 Motivated Social Cognition Model As was discussed in Chapter 3, study 1 looked at individual politicians and saw MS and NFC interacting to predict higher levels of support for politicians moving to the ideological centre from the fringes of the political continuum. Study 2 (detailed in Chapter 4) went on to provide evidence about the increase in support for radical parties when they present themselves as being closer to the political centre than they were previously; this effect was evident in a dynamic rather than in a static political environment. From these studies, it is apparent that there is an interaction occurring between a high need for cognitive closure and being exposed to mortality reminders, given that participants expressed significantly higher levels of support for politicians and political parties moving from the extremes to the centre, particularly when the political environment is dynamic. These results laid the ground to ask whether these effects are limited to the political centre in particular or if a place of consensus is what is particularly attractive for people with an elevated need for cognitive closure. 138 The aim of Democracy is to reach a reasoned consensus among citizens. Democracy is a process of public justification (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983), and consensus is an important criterion to validate those judgments. Instrumentalists argue that one of the salient elements of Democracy is the ability to settle matters in spite of intense disagreement among discussants and that the quality of those decisions is not diminished but rather enhanced by the moral power of consensus. Or to paraphrase Rawls (Greenberg et al., 1986), society must be governed by principles with overlapping consensus. Researchers (Cohen, 2003, p. 21) have looked at the consensus component of NFC and found that high- (vs. low-) NFC individuals would gather more information in order to attain a consensus (2005). Additionally, the links between NFC and cultural compliance have also been assessed as an element of conservatism (e.g. Kruglanski & Webster, 1991). Study 3 builds upon research findings from the previous two studies described in this thesis by looking at approval ratings of a new political party that is described as a centrist, consensus-seeking organization. In one condition, the party membership is defined as uniform in thought, in that there is a mandate for the party’s manifesto. In a second condition, the party membership is described as split in its approval of the party’s manifesto. We expect to find support for the party among high- (vs. low-) NFC individuals as a function of MS and NFC when there is internal consensus, but not when the party is divided. This prediction of support created by the NFC × MS interaction distinguishes the ideological component of right and left included in the two previous studies by focusing exclusively on an openly centrist political party to determine whether it is the political centre in particular, or a place of consensus in general that is attractive among high- (vs. low-) NFC individuals. 139 5.2 Aim of Study 3 The purpose of this study was to explore whether there are links between the MS manipulation and elevated needs for cognitive closure that increase the appeal of a centrist political party when it is described as uniform in thought regarding the party’s manifesto as opposed to one with internal divisions. An element of the Motivated Social Cognition model (Fu et al., 2007) suggests that psychological variables such as needs for order, structure, and closure predict political adherences. According to Jost and colleagues, there is a “matching relationship […] between certain kinds of psychological motives and specific ideological outcomes” (Tetlock, 2000). It is therefore expected that an interaction between MS and NFC will be present when supporting a political party that offers a space where consensus can be achieved. Given that Studies 1 and 2 have shown that it is possible to activate a specific cognitive schema where reminders of mortality amplify demands for consensus and clarity for those high in need for closure – at least when the political environment is dynamic rather than static – the present study aimed to evaluate whether support for a political party, described as centrist and uniform in thought, is a function of MS and NFC when there is internal consensus and a mandate for the party’s manifesto, but not when the party is divided. It is expected that this effect would be stronger in individuals who have an elevated need for cognitive closure and who, in turn, have been reminded of their own mortality. This would constitute a confirmation of the hypotheses that have been explored in this thesis as it would imply that consensus, more than ideology, holds a particular psychological lure for people with a high need for cognitive closure when they support a political party. 140 If it is the case that the use of a particular cognitive strategy (i.e. cognitive closure) is enhanced when death reminders have been primed to individuals, approval for a centrist political party that promotes agreement and unity may also be activated. Evidence from Study 2 shows that when evaluating political parties, there is an MS × NFC preference for political parties moving toward the political centre, but only for parties on the ideological right. Parties moving from the left to the political centre received significantly lower levels of support, thus suggesting that there is an association between cognitive behaviour (e.g. high NFC) and approval for ideological consensus. The links between personality traits and the strength and direction of partisan identification have been traditionally evaluated in terms of how people are socialised into their political preferences (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983), how they process political communications (Jost et al., 2003b, p. 342), engage with the economy (2003b, p. 342), and make political judgements about leaders (Abendschön, 2006; Achen, 2002; Settle et al., 2008). As stated in Study 2, knowledge structures are enhanced according to experience (Lodge & Taber, 2000; Redlawsk, 2002; Westen, Blagov, Harenski, Kilts, & Hamann, 2006). An individual may be attracted by ideologies that help her/him unravel the cognitive requirements and thus lessen the ambiguity, opacity, and confusion implicated in the constantly changing, somewhat intricate, and at times even daunting political world. This allure might result in the adoption of a specific psychological schema to deal with the fluctuating political environment. If individuals are compelled (or scared) into adopting certain behaviours to cope with fear and confusion, and they evaluate a political party based on that coercion, the appeal of a political party will be modified by the peace of mind a given political institution provides them. This peace of mind will depend upon the success or effectiveness of the institution’s calming conditions; in other words, epistemic needs for closure are better served by ideologies that are easily decipherable, reduce 141 discussion, and lessen uncertainty (Gerber & Huber, 2009; Rudolph, 2003; Sanders, Ward, Marsh, & Fletcher, 1987). As described in Study 2, right-wing parties that move closer to the political centre can provide such cognitive appeal. Few studies have looked at the process involved in the formation and activation of cognitive strategies in the interaction between MS and NFC and heightened support for centrist political parties. The present study examines whether the relationship between existential threats and cognitive needs for closure helps us understand support for centrist political parties that are described as uniform (vs. divided) in thought, having a clear consensus among their constituents. Kruglanski (Green, Palmquist, & Schickler, 2002; Winter, 1987) suggest that when people acquire knowledge, they grow certainty around it – particularly when they are part of a group – and that they are likely to exhibit behavioural tendencies that serve the psychological and social function of calming the knower while reinforcing their social bonds (Chirumbolo, 2002; de Grada et al., 1999; Fu et al., 2007; van Hiel & Mervielde, 2003b). For example, de Grada and colleagues found that certain elements in the need for cognitive closure trait favour group centrism and collective closure (Chirumbolo, Livi, et al., 2004; Jost, Kruglanski, & Simon, 1999b; Kruglanski & Webster, 1996). For some people, a need for cognitive closure ought to mark a wish to grasp and hold definite knowledge and maintain that conviction permanently (1980, 1989; Kruglanski & Webster, 1991). Following that premise, the aim of the present study was to explore whether the activation of an individual’s specific needs for cognitive closure would result in increased support for a centrist political party that is described as uniform in thought with an internal mandate for the party’s manifesto (vs. a split in its approval). This result would further indicate that reminders of mortality amplify demands for consensus and clarity more than signalling a demand for ideological clarity. 142 The present study will also extend the research discussed in the previous chapters by exploring interactions between existential threats and epistemic needs for closure. The use of existential threats further explores the theoretical link examined in Studies 1 and 2 where mortality manipulations significantly interacted to determine support for individual politicians who moved from the poles to the political centre (Study 1), and preference for right-wing political parties moving toward the political centre in a dynamic political environment (Study 2). This study was performed to explore whether activation of specific cognitive functions of MS and NFC results in increased support for political parties that are uniform in thought. It is expected that this backing would be indicated by an elevated support for a centrist political party that is described as having a clear mandate for the party’s manifesto as opposed to one showing an internal division. As mentioned above, Study 3 will extend research presented in previous chapters by presenting participants with mortality reminders to instantiate fear that interacts with psychological needs for cognitive closure and testing whether this activation results in an increase in participants’ support of centrist political parties that are uniform in thought. It is hypothesized that participants who have a high psychological need for cognitive closure and are primed with mortality reminders will demonstrate an increased support for a uniformed centrist political party; in the control condition when no mortality awareness is activated or when the centrist political party is presented as having internal divisions, support for this centrist political party will decrease. In other words, among participants with an elevated need for cognitive closure, NFC and MS will interact, consequently increasing the support for a centrist political party that has a clear mandate with its members. 143 In the discussion of Study 2, it was suggested that reminders of mortality amplify demands for consensus and clarity for those high in need for closure given that uniformity, more than ideology, appeals to those high in NFC and that participants presented with the MS manipulation increased their need for cognitive closure as MS boosted a pre-existing need for group centrism, collective closure and a firm, socially-validated reality. This will be tested by examining the relationships between MS and NFC, and support for a centrist political party with a clear (vs. divided) mandate of its manifesto. 5.3 Method 5.3.1 Participants Two hundred and seventy six participants at the University of Essex (age M = 23.89, SD = 6.63; age range from 17 to 53; 127 male/147 female, 2 not reported) volunteered to complete the study in exchange for course credits or payment for their participation. Participants signed a consent form; those who chose to be paid received approximately £5 for their participation. The majority of the sample was White British (47.6%) or White European (23.6%), followed by Indian (11.6%), Black African (7.3%), Chinese (6%), Black Caribbean (2.6%), Pakistani (.9%), and Bangladeshi (.4%). All participants were English speakers. Participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control condition. No participants were excluded on the basis of their political affiliation. As in previous studies, the number of participants was chosen to achieve statistical power. 5.3 Ethical Approval Ethical Approval of Research Involving Human Participants was requested and obtained from the Departmental and the University’s Ethics Committee (see Appendix). 144 Materials. The same series of seven questionnaires were administered to all participants, followed by the same text that led to the experimental manipulation, followed finally by a fictional excerpt from The Electoral Commission describing a survey of a centrist political party, that was the novel feature of this study. The series of seven questionnaires have been detailed in Chapters 2 and 3, and were: 1) National attachment questionnaire (Kruglanski, 2004; Zubiri, 1999). 2) Participant’s political attitude preference and Political ideology questionnaire Bartle ("Seizing and Freezing", Pierro & Kruglanski, 2008). 3) The Need for Closure Scale (Federico et al., 2005). 4) The Social Dominance Orientation Scale (2003a). 5) The Political Knowledge Questionnaire (NFCS, Kruglanski et al., 1993). 6) Rosenberg’s (SDO; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) self-esteem scale. Rosenberg’s (Federico & Schneider, 2007). 7) Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin’s (1965) satisfaction with life scale. All measures are included in the appendix. The Experimental Manipulation. These are detailed in the materials section of chapter 2 and consisted of the traditional materials used in Terror Management research. Some participants were presented with materials associated with the Mortality Salience condition and others where assigned to the Control Condition. The Experimental Task: The “Consensus Alliance” Party. Participants were presented was a cutting allegedly taken from The Electoral Commission’s Annual Report for the then 145 pending general election. In that extract, it was explained that an up-and-coming political party in the centre of the political spectrum – labelled “Consensus Alliance”– had released their manifesto to the party’s constituents and a survey had found either: a) significant approval and a clear “mandate among the constituents with citizens demonstrating unified support for the Consensus Alliance Party manifesto” (80% vs. 20% approval, condition labelled 1), or b) a clear divide among those people who identify themselves as Consensus Alliance voters “opposing views among the Consensus Alliance constituents with citizens indicating divided support for the Party’s manifesto” (49% vs. 49% approval, condition labelled 2). As was the case with the previous studies, this centrist political party was presented as a place where an emphasis was put on the creation of coalitions, a space where compromises could be achieved. Figures 5.2 and 5.3 show the two alleged excerpts of The Electoral Commission’s Annual Report, only one of which was presented to the participants. As in the previous studies, the centrist political party was presented as a place where the emphasis was put on the creation of coalitions, a space where compromises could be achieved. Therefore, participants rated their political approval and support for each of the political parties by answering the following 17 questions using a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (very untrue for me) to 7 (very true for me). To maintain stability among studies these questions were designed to tap into the affective components, behavioural intentions, and political identity of the participants with regards to either the centrist political party with a clear agreement versus a split among party members. 1. I identify with the “Consensus Alliance” party on political issues. 2. I feel the “Consensus Alliance” party stands for values that are important to me. 3. I would likely vote for the “Consensus Alliance” party if I had the opportunity. 4. I feel the “Consensus Alliance” party would make a positive contribution to society. 146 5. The “Consensus Alliance” party makes me feel uncomfortable (recoded). 6. Given the opportunity, I would likely support the “Consensus Alliance” party. 7. Thinking about the “Consensus Alliance” party makes me feel uncertain (recoded). 8. I think the “Consensus Alliance” party members are very much like me. 9. To what extent would you consider engaging in activism (e.g. Advocating, Promoting) for the “Consensus Alliance” party? 10. If there were a general election tomorrow, do you think you would support the “Consensus Alliance” party? (recoded). 11. How good or bad a job do you think that the “Consensus Alliance” party would do in Government? (recoded). 12. I imagine that among members of the “Consensus Alliance” party there would be a good deal of infighting. 13. I think I would get along with other members of the “Consensus Alliance” (recoded). 14. I wouldn't know what to expect from the “Consensus Alliance” party (recoded). 15. I appreciate the clarity that the “Consensus Alliance” party offers. 16. I would need to engage in extensive research before committing to support the “Consensus Alliance” party. 17. I think agreement among members of the “Consensus Alliance” party on any given issue could be reached quickly. 147 Figure 5.2 “Consensus Alliance” with a Clear Mandate 148 Figure 5.3. “Consensus Alliance” with a Divided Mandate 149 Design. As with the previous studies, the between-subjects independent variable was the experimental condition with two levels: Mortality Salience and Control. The within-subjects variables were Need For Closure with two levels: high and low. The dependent variable is the mean of the 17 recoded questions assessing the political approval and support for the centrist party, such that minimum approval is a mean of 1.0 and maximum approval and support is a mean of 7.0. The political party that the participants saw was had either: a clear mandate or a divided mandate. Procedure. This Study followed a similar procedures to those described in Studies 1 and 2, except that in this study, the dependent variables reflected approval of the aforementioned centrist political party rather than individual politicians (Study 1) or political parties (Study 2). Half of the participants were randomly allocated to the Mortality Salience Condition and half were randomly allocated to the Control condition. All participants were shown into the testing booth, where there was a packet on a table. The experimenter asked the participant to complete a standard consent form (included in the Appendix). The experimenter informed the participants that he will leave the room (to avoid distraction during the task) and that the participant should open the packet and answer the questionnaires and assignment. Inside the packet were the seven questionnaires that were to be performed in the order in which they are detailed in the Materials section, the assignment associated with the experimental manipulation, and the experimental task. After completing the seven 150 questionnaires, those participants assigned to the Mortality Salience condition performed the Mortality reminder task; whereas those assigned to the Control condition answered the questions associated with Dental pain. Participants responded with a free text narrative to each question, and could take as long as they wished to complete the task. Upon completion of the questionnaires and experimental manipulation, the experimenter then examined the narratives of the participants to ensure that they had engaged in the task as required for the priming manipulation. After the participants answered the manipulations they were asked to complete a word search puzzle that acted as a delay for the manipulations because previous research (1965) has shown that the accessibility of death-related thoughts becomes higher after a delay and distraction. This part of the procedure lasted for approximately 25 minutes. Finally, the participants were presented with one (randomly allocated) fictitious extract from The Electoral Commission’s Annual Report. After reading each biography, the participants rated their approval and support for each of the centrist parties by answering the 14 associated questions. Once they had finished answering they completed the payment slip for administrative purposes (see Appendix for a copy of all the standard materials). There was no time restriction for them to complete the task. 151 5.3 Results 5.3.1 Preliminary Analyses Table 5.1 Internal Consistencies of Measures Measure α National Attachment .74 (Nationalism) .54 (Patriotism) .77 Political Ideology r = .49, p < 0.005 Need for Cognitive Closure .84 Political Knowledge .65 Need for Closure .80 Consensus Alliance Approval .88 N = 276 Table 5.2 Means and standard deviations of measures. Measure Mean Standard deviation “Consensus Alliance” Support 3.48 .99 NFC 4.25 .58 Nationalism 3.22 1.04 Patriotism 3.88 1.35 Political Knowledge 2.95 1.83 Political Preference 3.63 1.28 N = 276 152 Following the analysis strategy employed in the previous studies, using SPSS the internal consistency of the scales was explored following Cronbach’s (1985) suggestions. As described in table 5.1 above, the UK version of the Nationalism/Patriotism scale generated an internal consistency; such as Need for Closure Scale (e. g. Greenberg et al., 1994); and the UK version of the political expertise scale (1951). The internal consistency of the political support for the “Consensus Alliance” variable was also explored. Means and standard deviations in the answers to the measures are described in Table 5.2. 5.3.2 Mortality Salience and Need for Closure The present study hypothesised that the MS manipulation would stimulate a psychological response suggestive of the presence of an elevated cognitive need for closure, and that such response would motivate approval for a centrist political party that had a mandate among its members. Or, to put it in the words of Jost et al. (2003), political preferences are psychologically motivated. To respect the analytic strategy implemented in Studies 1 and 2, an exploratory 2 × 2 × 2 ANOVA was performed with the MS (labelled as 1) / CN (labelled as -1) condition, the NFC variable as the between-subjects, and support for the “Consensus Alliance” (clear vs. divided mandate). This strategy allowed me to set a threshold and divide participants into two groups; those who scored below the median of the NFC scale were included in the low NFC group, and those who scored above the NFC mean level were included in the high NFC group. Additionally, a variable label “combo DV” was created as the result of computing the mean of the dependent variable, namely the approval for the Consensus party. An interaction term for the centred NFC × Condition was also created, as well as an ideology variable was created resulting from the mean of both political preference and political position as they address party identification and political identity questions 153 Federico, Jost, Pierro, and Kruglanski (2007), and a variable for “political knowledge”. As with the previous studies presented in this thesis, the age, party identification, and political knowledge variables were controlled for. A 2 Experimental Condition (MS and CN) × 2 NFC (High NFC and Low NFC) × 2 Support for the “Consensus Alliance” (clear vs. divided mandate) ANOVA was performed. Initially, the results of this analysis did not reveal a significant interaction between Condition (MS/CN), NFC (High/Low NFC) and Support for the “Consensus Alliance” [F (1, 268) = .003, p = .958], nor were there any main effects for NFC [F (1, 268) = 1.581, p = .210], or Ideology [F (1, 268) = 2.792, p = .096]. Interestingly enough, the results revealed a significant effect for political knowledge [F (1, 268) = 13.950, p = .001]. This would prove to be a very interesting result as it pointed to a refinement of the original model. In order to further investigate these results, I split the file to focus solely in the individuals with low political knowledge and ran the analysis again on the support for the divided mandate (49% vs. 49% approval), and on the clear mandate (80% vs. 20% approval) for the “Consensus Alliance” party. A 2 Experimental Condition (MS and CN) × 2 NFC (High NFC and Low NFC) × 2 Support for the “Consensus Alliance” (clear vs. divided mandate) ANOVA was ran again and this time it revealed that there was not a significant main effect of the Experimental Condition [F (1, 108) = .235, p = .629], there was a significant main effect of NFC, [F (1, 108) = 4.39, p = .039], and there was not a significant main effect of Support for the “Consensus Alliance” [F (1, 108) = 0.206, p = .651]. In addition, there was not a significant two-way interaction between Experimental Condition and NFC, [F (1, 108) = .017, p = .896], there was not a significant two-way interaction between Experimental Condition and support for the “Consensus Alliance”, [F 154 (1, 108) = .074, p = .786], and there was not a significant two-way interaction between NFC and Support for the “Consensus Alliance” [F (1, 108) = .621, p = .433]. Finally, there was a significant three-way interaction between Experimental Condition, NFC, and support for the “Consensus Alliance”, [F (1, 108) = 7.758, p = .006] (see figures 5.6 and 5.7) such that those with an elevated need for cognitive closure in the MS condition who saw a clear mandate in the Consensus Alliance (80% vs. 20% approval) increased their approval for the “Consensus Alliance” (see figure 5.6). Conversely, those in the split support condition (49% vs. 49% approval) with a high need for closure who were exposed to the MS condition did not see any changes in their support for the “Consensus Alliance” (see figure 5.7). These analyses confirmed our hypotheses: in an environment of low political information, among those with a high need for cognitive closure whose mortality had been made salient, support for a centrist political party that enjoyed a clear-cut mandate with its constituents will increase. 155 Table 5.3 Means and Standard Deviations for all Participants Low NFC Condition Constituents Approval CN 80/20 50/50 80/20 50/50 80/20 50/50 80/20 50/50 MS High NFC CN MS Mean Std. Deviation 4.71 4.74 4.67 3.77 3.84 3.65 3.86 3.77 .289 .377 .280 .381 .294 .457 .347 .381 Table 5.4 Means and Standard Deviations for Participants Low in Political Knowledge Low NFC Condition Constituents Approval CN 80/20 50/50 80/20 50/50 80/20 50/50 80/20 50/50 MS High NFC CN MS Mean 3.92 3.18 3.34 3.63 3.73 4.15 4.09 3.75 156 Std. Deviation .77 1.02 .81 1.19 .81 .90 .62 .77 Figure 5.6 Support for the “Consensus Alliance” with a clear mandate. 157 Figure 5.7 Support for the “Consensus Alliance” with a divided mandate. 5.4 Discussion The present study, based on the Motivated Social Cognition model (2005), aimed to expand the findings of the previous two studies presented in this thesis where participants rated their support for: (1) individual politicians joining the political centre, and (2) extreme political parties (Right and Left) “moving” closer to the ideological centre and receiving a higher support. The study particularly sought to expand findings from those participants who had an elevated need for cognitive closure and were reminded about their own demise via the MS manipulation. Certain elements in the need for cognitive closure trait – the need to reach a cognitive certainty and maintain such certainty permanently, thus showing intolerance towards ambiguity, and vagueness – have been linked to an increased preference for 158 groups, opting for a shared closure, and favouring moderate views (Bartle, 2000, 2003a, 2003b). Additionally, the motivated social cognition model (Kruglanski et al., 1993) refers to a connection between these epistemic and psychological motives and people’s political identification. If this is the case, then it could be reasonable to expect that the activation of a particular cognitive schema may lead to a concomitant activation of preference relating to approval of a political institution, particularly if this political party is described as a centrist coalition that enjoys a significant endorsement among its constituents. Results of this study suggest that participants who have an elevated need for cognitive closure and have been exposed to mortality reminders can show a higher support for a centrist political party with a high internal approval. Support for this effect is provided by the significant interaction between the mortality reminder and the need for cognitive closure, and support for the “Consensus Alliance.” These results support the hypothesis in that participants with a low political knowledge who are high in need for closure primed with mortality reminders will exhibit an increased support for the centrist political party. Interestingly, party identification did not inhibit the expressed support for the “Consensus Alliance” political party. The fact that party identification does not play a role in determining the support that the “Consensus Alliance” receives is extremely interesting as it gives further support to the hypotheses that have been explored throughout this thesis. Namely, it indicates that political support is the result not of an intellectual adherence to a given philosophical construct, but rather of a way to satisfy psychological and emotional traits. This apparently subtle difference is in fact more relevant than it might initially appear as it sheds light on the profound divide between partisans and helps us advance certain elements of social cognition. In line with the motivated social cognition model (Federico et al., 2007), these results suggest that when individuals with a high need for cognitive closure are threatened or 159 exposed to reminders of their own mortality, they exhibit an increased desire to attain an intellectual closure that is permanent and socially validated as a coping strategy. The study extends previous research by suggesting that specific coping procedures are embedded in the need for closure trait and are activated along with the mortality reminder. The present study demonstrated that support for the centrist political party as a function of MS and NFC was present when there is internal consensus, but not when the party is divided. This indicates that the lure of a political party may not be in its philosophical or ideological positions but in the perceived mandate that an institution might have. Again, the combined evidence from these studies hints at the possibility that individuals high in need for closure aware of their own mortality might possess a specific attraction to in-group acceptance in the ideological spectrum, regardless of their party identification. These results are in line with Kruglanski and colleagues’ (1991) assertion in the sense that need for closure contributes to group-centrism by favouring uniformity, rejecting deviates, and resisting to change. As was mentioned before, it appears that, in the context of a centrist political party, when MS and NFC are combined, not all centrism is equal. The empirical evidence from this study shows that the specific coping strategy of the cognitive need for closure is embedded in the support of the “Consensus Alliance” political party when this party has an internal mandate and when participants have been exposed to mortality reminders without implicating ideological movements to the left or the right. An interesting further research question would be to explore if this support for a political party with an internal mandate would hold in a different setting; that is, is this support specific to the political centre in particular or is it for a place of consensus? Would these findings hold when explored in different national settings? This might be particularly important because while political parties know about the voter distribution in the political 160 spectrum they are uncertain about the specific location of the aforementioned Downsian “median voter” (Jost et al., 2003b) and people turn to, conform to, and affiliate with groups as a defensive function, when they are confronted with their mortality. In the current socio-economic environment the answers to these questions becomes even more important. 161 162 CHAPTER 6 GENERAL DISCUSSION “Fear does not prevent death, it prevents life”. Naguib Mahfouz 6.1 Overview An exciting fact about studying voting behaviour is that the act itself – an utterly trivial and fleeting worthless effort of crossing a piece of paper – generates no tangible benefits for the individual as it has almost no influence in the implementation of public policies. In spite of this knowledge, people vote and devote emotional resources to their participation in politics. This thesis analyses the interplay of those psychological resources as they influence the support that both political parties and politicians receive. Based on the theories of terror management (Adams & Merrill, 2006; Kruglanski et al., 2006; van Hiel & Mervielde, 2003a) and cognitive need for closure (Jost et al., 2003b; Kruglanski et al., 2006; van Hiel & Mervielde, 2003b), the three studies reported in this thesis applied certain components of the motivated social cognition model (Greenberg et al., 1986) to test the hypotheses that in an environment where consensus is not clear or easy to achieve – like those in the political fringes – mortality reminders would activate the facet of need for closure that seeks collective closure, group consensus and stability (as opposed to deviation and persuasion). This, in turn, could lead people to manifest a stronger preference and support toward centrist political alternatives. This interaction 163 between confrontation with reminders of mortality and an elevated need for cognitive closure will translate into an explicit support for individual politicians and conservative (as opposed to liberal) political parties moving towards the centre of the ideological spectrum even after controlling for political awareness, party identification, and age of participants. This support is evident given that an elevated need for cognitive closure demands certitude and group cohesion, and centrism is typically characterized by more certainty than its alternatives. Studies 1, 2 and 3 show that when participants high in NFC are exposed to reminders of mortality, they tend to express increased levels of support for individual politicians approaching the centre (Study 1), political parties moving to the political centre (Study 2), and centrist political parties enjoying a clear internal mandate (Study 3). In Study 1, the relationship between need for closure and approval of politicians was significant and positive after exposure to mortality reminders, although only for those politicians who changed their original ideological positions and moved from the ideological poles to the political centre. No such effect occurred for politicians who changed their ideology from the political centre to adopt a new ideological position on either wing (right or left). Likewise, the direction of their move (i.e., left to right, right to left) did not affect the approval ratings of the politicians. This finding suggests that the political centre was perceived as a place where emphasis was set on the creation of coalitions, a space where compromises can be achieved, thus enhancing the characteristic appeal that collective closure poses to those high in need for closure. In Study 2, the threat manipulation led participants high in NFC to project their heightened awareness of mortality into a dynamic political environment – in which political parties moved from and to the centre – and opted to support right-wing political parties that approached the ideological centre. Moreover, this study showed that the effect of mortality reminders on support for a 164 centrist party was only there for parties coming to the centre from the right (vs. left) of the political spectrum. The concluding study in this thesis (Study 3) was designed to understand how mortality awareness and an elevated need for cognitive closure lead to increased political support for a new centrist political party that was portrayed as having a clear (vs. divided) mandate among its constituents. The results indicate that, all other things being equal, in a dynamic political environment, after exposing participants to reminders of mortality, those with an elevated need for cognitive closure found a new centrist political party that was enjoying its constituents’ mandate particularly appealing for them and thus increased their support for that new centrist political party. Though only a significant effect among those with low political knowledge, findings further support the idea that threat leads people high in need for closure to seek certainty and grouping, particularly when facing a dynamic and challenging environment. Taken together, the studies presented in this thesis give worthy evidence to explain the processes by which people adopt certain political identities. Furthermore, these studies help identify some of the processes through which people develop particular party identifications because when people are confronted with existential threats, cognitive and epistemic traits are activated and a place that offers consensus, agreement, and ideological uniformity will be highly appreciated and supported. 6.2 Theoretical Issues Examined The Motivated Social Cognition model (Kruglanski, 1980) aims to explain the psychological processes by which people interpret the fear, threat, and uncertainty of the environment and integrate those situational factors into a triad of epistemic, existential, and ideological motives that result in the adoption of conservative ideologies. The model hypothesizes that when an individual is faced with an uncertain or fearful situation, s/he will be motivated to activate certain mental schemes conducive of political conservatism. 165 This model offers the best potential to unify several major theories about the psychological basis of political conservatism because it links both social and cognitive motives to the contents of explicit political attitudes. Specifically, the Motivated Social Cognition model considers insights from epistemic and existential needs and socio-political theories of ideology to understand how the adoption of conservative political attitudes is done, in part, because it serves to reduce fear, anxiety and uncertainty. There has been much research into the relationship of personality traits and political preferences (Jost et al., 2003b), but to date there have been few studies undertaken to identify the processes involved in the activation of political preferences for centrist political options. In a much more modest attempt to examine some of the theoretical issues arising from the motivated social cognition model, the studies reported in this thesis have focused on two of those social-cognitive motives, namely, the epistemic motives of the cognitive need for closure (Jost et al., 2003b), and the existential motives relating to terror management theory (Adorno et al., 1950; Barbaranelli et al., 2007; Bartle, 2003b; Duckitt, Wagner, du Plessis, & Birum, 2002; Federico et al., 2005; Marcus, 2000; Vecchione et al., 2011; Wilson & Patterson, 1968). For over half a century, the concept of party identification has attracted a wide body of research. Its definition has been debated as either a pre-adult socialisation process that is a stable and exogenous predictor of political choices during adulthood (Kruglanski, 1989), or an intrinsic variable that changes over time as a result of the information received by the voter about the state of the economy, the performance of the government, and their opinions about political parties, leaders, and candidates (Greenberg et al., 1986). However, if electorates are composed of an assortment of individuals with both durable and flexible partisan attachments (Campbell et al., 1960; Jennings & Niemi, 1974; Miller & Shanks, 1996), then the motivated social cognition model sets an interesting starting point for an academic study of the psychological elements that form a party 166 identification. Moreover, it may also help to elucidate the personality traits that are implicated in the support that certain political options receive (Fiorina, 1981; Sanders et al., 2002; Sanders et al., 1987). Following these lines of research, the basic premise of this thesis was whether the psychological tendencies that underline ideological differences between political ideologies in the left and right can also explain an increased support for centrist political options. The expectation being that the impact of mortality threats and cognitive processes will ultimately stimulate the support for moderate political options. The results of three experiments focusing on a particular body of political action – namely, individual politicians, political parties, and their constituents’ endorsement – confirmed the existence of an effect such that reminders of mortality interact with cognitive preferences to increase expressed support for middle-of-the-road political options. 6.2.1 The Cognitive Need for Closure and Shared Reality There is more in deciding upon a political option than just the perceived costs and benefits associated with that decision. One of those intangible motives and benefits has to do with the inner fulfilment that people might acquire from participating or expressing their political views (Box-Steffensmeier & Smith, 1996; Clarke & McCutcheon, 2009). Group membership is a central element of such political expression (e.g. Green et al., 2002; Neuman, Marcus, Crigler, & MacKuen, 2007) has been linked to positive cognitive and motivational responses (e.g. Duckitt et al., 2002; Gerber et al., 2010; Marcus, Neuman, & MacKuen, 2000; Mondak, 2010; Neuman et al., 2007; Redlawsk, 2006; Vecchione et al., 2011) and established as one such fulfilment. In line with previous research (Klandermans, 2003), the studies reported in this thesis have examined the presence and activation of demands for consensus, clarity, and group validation, particularly for those high in need for closure – at least when the political environment is dynamic rather than static. 167 Kruglanski, Pierro, Mannetti, and De Grada (Black, 1948; Hogg, Hohman, & Rivera, 2008; Kruglanski et al., 2006; Levine & Moreland, 2006) describe the relationship between needs for cognitive closure and the necessity to have shared opinions with others, set uniform norms and standards, and rejecting dissension in favour of in-group homogeneity. They suggest that needs for cognitive closure augment the desire for consensus in groups and increase pressures to reach uniformity of thought. Based on this empirical evidence, the present study anticipated that reminders of individuals’ own mortality would amplify demands for consensus for those people with an elevated need for cognitive closure. The studies reported here have empirical evidence to confirm that these components – and those supporting a moderate, centrist political party – did in fact interact and were particularly meaningful in a changing political environment. In the following sections, the second theoretical issue will be dealt with as part of a scheme linking mortality reminders with an elevated need for cognitive closure. 6.2.2 The Link Between Mortality Salience and Political Preferences Erich Fromm (e.g. Kruglanski & Webster, 1991) proposed that people in a state of psychological distress are particularly prone to the allure of charismatic leaders. In turn, cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker (2006) suggested that human awareness of mortality leads people to identify with leaders who provide the possibility of being part of something great, something that transcends the immediateness of life. Terror Management Theory (1941), based on Ernest Becker’s account of motivational underpinnings of human behaviour, states that humans share with all other living species a predisposition toward survival. However, due to our advanced human intelligence, as humans we are explicitly aware of the imminence of our death. This awareness of our impending death derives in an existential anxiety that needs to be dealt with. To deal with this overwhelming terror of death, the authors suggest that a “dual component anxiety buffer” composed of: 1) cultural 168 worldviews, and 2) self-esteem is activated. Cultural worldviews are humanly constructed beliefs about reality shared with others that convey meaning and order the world, and provide a hope of attaining literal or symbolic immortality for those who meet those standards. In turn, self-esteem is the belief that one is a valuable part of the universe and therefore can transcend death. To trigger this awareness of death, TMT employs a manipulation in which participants are asked to write about their own death (the “mortality salience” condition) or a control topic describing a regular visit to the dentist. Previous studies (1973) have demonstrated that the effects of the mortality salience (MS) manipulation can be assuaged by instructions to think rationally. The studies presented throughout this thesis attempted to investigate how MS alters political preferences as a function of the ideological positioning of politicians and political parties. Studies 1 and 2 provide support for the existence of a cognitive schema in which mortality reminders boosted demands for transparency and agreement among those high in need for closure and, in turn, increased support for both politicians and political parties approaching the political centre from the right. Study 3 corroborated those results and linked them to a heightened support for a centrist political party whose membership was described as uniform in thought. The results from this thesis are consistent with previous research (Greenberg et al., 1986; Greenberg et al., 1990; Rosenblatt et al., 1989) that shows how reminders of mortality via the experimental manipulation, MS, amplify identification with in-group members, increases preference for charismatic leaders, and reduces desirability for relationship-oriented leaders who promote a sense of responsibility for political outcomes among their constituents. That is, membership has an intrinsic epistemic reward, abstract reminders of mortality increases the value of in-group membership (e.g. Simon, Greenberg, 169 Harmon-Jones, et al., 1997), and MS increases the value of a charismatic leader particularly in politics (Cohen et al., 2004) for one who can channel the fear and uncertainty associated with death and buffer that anxiety by “only” voting for her/him. The underlying explanation for these effects is that when people have been reminded about their mortality, their need for a particularly stable structure that can provide self-worth by means of identifying with a leader and/or group that shares their world-vision will increase. The studies reported in this thesis controlled for age of the participants, political expertise, and political identification in an attempt to identify whether any of these variables played a role in the support given for each political option. The results suggest that partisanship – a lasting predisposition towards a political party – may not have been an influencing variable even when evaluating the attractiveness of centrist politics and political parties in a dynamic environment. These findings also suggest that age may not have played a role in the relationship between mortality awareness and need for cognitive closure in the augmented support that centrist political options experienced in all the reported studies, nor did political expertise, normally associated with strong and durable decisions about politics. 6.3. Future Directions In the three studies reported here the support for centrist political options – whether for individual politicians or political parties – was mediated by an awareness of mortality induced by mortality salience – a manipulation of the terror management theory (Kruglanski et al., 2002; Shah, Kruglanski, & Thompson, 1998) –, and by an elevated need for cognitive closure (Cohen et al., 2004; Greenberg & Kosloff, 2008; Kosloff, Greenberg, Weise, & Solomon, 2009). This method of experimentally bringing about changes in support for policy-seeking actors by means of the MS and NFC interaction turns out to be a successful approach given that the effects of mortality peril on needs for closure was 170 present in the three studies reported in this thesis. It should be noted that in this thesis, the NFC scale was used as a whole – a composite score calculated by adding together the responses to each item – as it offers a comprehensive account of the situational demands that may weaken cognitive capacity and induce a motivational state by means of the use of terms such as “like,” “hate,” “enjoy,” “prefer,” etc. However, the scale also comprises five factors, namely, Order, Predictability, Decisiveness, Ambiguity, and Closed Mindedness. It has been demonstrated that individual closed-mindedness mediates the effect of threat on political conservatism (Greenberg et al., 1986) and that death anxiety produces similar effects to those caused by external forms of threat (Kruglanski & Webster, 1991; Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). Therefore, it can be inferred that although threat might increase preference for conservative ideologies (Thórisdóttir & Jost, 2011), other factors in the NFC scale might also help explain the increased support for centrist political parties and politicians. Further research investigating the effect of mortality awareness in cognitive processing and political adherences could advance the findings reported throughout this thesis by including an interpretation of the five factors of NFC that the present thesis fail to use. In doing so, further research could benefit by adapting different measures of cognitive predisposition instead of solely focusing on Kruglanski’s (e.g. perceptions of a dangerous world and system threat, Jost et al., 2007) need for cognitive closure scale, with Cacioppo and Petty’s (Jost et al., 2003b; Kruglanski et al., 2006) need for cognition scale, an assessment instrument that quantitatively measures the tendency for an individual to engage in and enjoy thinking, being the obvious alternative to understand the other side of close-mindedness. As detailed above, one of the most significant contributions of this thesis is the demonstration that the support for centrist political actors and institutions can be mediated by an interaction between mortality awareness and an elevated need for cognitive closure. These results are further supported by the fact that the interaction between MS and high 171 NFC, and their effects were present in all three studies. However, it is possible to argue that these outcomes might also have been influenced, at least to a certain extent, by some other stimuli; as an example, Kruglanski and Webster (1980) have demonstrated that loud environmental sounds (vs. a quiet environment) as well as a close proximity to group-decision deadlines tend to influence the rejection of dissenting opinions. Thus, it is also plausible that the mortality threats used in these experiments might well have influenced other unaccounted psychological processes that, in turn, could have stimulated certain expressions of support for centrist political actors, particularly as the interaction presented in Study 2 revealed a reduced amount of support for political parties coming to the centre from the left of the political spectrum. This effect may suggest that at least to a certain degree some aspects of the traditional left-wing ideology are attractive for people with a high need for cognitive closure. This further analysis could be done by focusing on left-wing parties with a uniform constituent base and correlate this to levels of NFC. In this way, a two-fold question could be explored: how do these effects occur within the left, and how do the specific factors contained in the NFC scale interact with specific left-wing parties. A consideration and a shortcoming of the present thesis is that the MS / High NFC interaction may have also activated other unaccounted processes apart from the ones described as motivated cognition that have been insistently reported throughout this thesis, those processes might have also had a significant influence on the expressed preferences for politically moderated options that might had been omitted from our analysis thus reducing the scope of my findings. This exclusion might have prevented me from observing and develop a more thorough understanding of the psychological and emotional components of political identification in the all-important process of party identity development and party identification. 172 Future directions of these studies may need to explore different methods to bring about this cognitive closure in other experimental settings, particularly those used in experimental political science (1982; Druckman et al., 2011) and behavioural economics. Chen and Li (1991) who incorporate the study of social identities into games with monetary incentives and McKelvey and Ordeshook (1985) who use candidate elections under extremely decentralized and incomplete information conditions are a good examples of this kind of research. By the same token, future research should look at alternative ways to induce threats in experimental settings, particularly using neurocognitive measurements that can give a more through understanding of the cognitive processes that preconscious methods like the ones utilised in the present thesis cannot fully grasp. 6.4 Final Comments Throughout this thesis I have theorised that the interaction between mortality reminders and an elevated need for cognitive closure derives in an increased support for centrist political parties and politicians. In Study 1 results indicated that MS induced people high in NFC to express increased support for individual politicians seeking consensus and changing positions to move closer to the political centre as opposed to politicians with more liberal or conservative ideologies; this effect was consistent with other research linking NFC with cravings for centrism and group closure. Study 2 dealt with this element by focusing on political parties and found that participants high in NFC exposed to MS expressed significantly higher levels of support for parties moving from the extreme right to the centre, than for parties moving from the extreme left to the centre. Study 3 gave further support for the overall hypothesis of this thesis as it showed increased support for a centrist political party with a clear mandate in a dynamic environment. I consider that Jost’s (2009) motivated social cognition model serves as a very good outline to indicate the way in which epistemic and existential motivations interact to calm 173 people in times of threat. I also consider that this thesis pushes that model a bit further by showing interesting findings, as it appears that in the context of political party changes, once mortality salience and need for closure are combined, not all “centrism” is equal. It seems as if this “new right’s” clarity, unified vision and lack of variance is especially appealing for those people high in need for closure who have, in turn, been reminded about their mortality, and this shared reality is threatened by an imminent loss of significance. In this sense, this thesis goes to further show that political psychology (or the experimental social psychology of politics) can provide plausible micro-level answers to macro-level issues. 174 175 References Abendschön, S. (2006). The Beginnings of Democratic Citizenship: Value Orientations of Young Children. Paper presented at the World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Fukuoka. Abramson, P. R. (2013). Partisan Bonds: Political Reputations and Legislative Accountability. Political Psychology, 34, 286-288. Achen, C. H. (2002). Parental Socialization and Rational Party Identification. Political Behavior, 24(2, Special Issue: Parties and Partisanship, Part One.), 151-170. 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