John T. Jost & Margarita Krochik - Ideological Differences in Epistemic Motivation - Implications For Attitude Structure...

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From Jost, J. T., & Krochik, M. (2014). Ideological Differences in Epistemic
Motivation: Implications for Attitude Structure, Depth of Information Processing,
Susceptibility to Persuasion, and Stereotyping. In Advances in Motivation Science
(pp. 181231).
ISBN: 9780128005125
Copyright 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
Academic Press

CHAPTER FIVE
Ideological Differences in
Epistemic Motivation:
Implications for Attitude
Structure, Depth of Information
Processing, Susceptibility to
Persuasion, and Stereotyping
John T. Jost1 and Margarita Krochika
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
1
Corresponding author: Email: john.jost@nyu.edu
Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
Introduction
Ideological Symmetries and Asymmetries in Motivated Reasoning
A Theory of Political Ideology as Motivated Social Cognition
Are There Ideological Asymmetries in Attitude Structure?
4.1 A Large-Scale Internet Study
4.2 Indirect Measure of Attitude Strength: Correspondence between Gut and
Actual Reactions
4.3 Metacognitive Indices of Attitude Strength
182
185
188
192
193
194
194
4.3.1 Ideological Differences in Attitudinal Certainty, Stability, Elaboration,

Ambivalence, and Dimensional Polarity
200
4.3.2 Self-Deception and Other Mediators of the Relationship between Conservatism
and Metacognitive Attitude Strength
201
4.4 Ideological Asymmetries in Implicit-Explicit Attitude Correspondence
204
Margarita Krochik was a doctoral student at NYU who died of a rare form of stomach cancer on
February 14, 2013 at the age of 29. She was fascinated by cognitive and motivational similarities and
dissimilarities between liberals and conservatives and had hoped to develop social interventions to
increase cooperation and civility across ideological boundaries (see also Krochik & Jost, 2011). This
chapter describes studies that she conducted along with her primary research advisor, John T. Jost.
Part of this work was conducted in collaboration with Brian Nosek, and other parts were conducted
with the assistance of two exemplary honors students, Andrea Miller and Tina Schweizer. Statistical
advice was provided by Patrick Shrout, and moral support was provided by Michael W. Morris and
Zhana Vrangalova, among many others. Thanks also to Andrew Elliot, Curtis D. Hardin, and Gy
orgy
Hunyady for helpful comments on earlier version of this manuscript.
Advances in Motivation Science, Volume 1

ISSN: 2215-0919
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/bs.adms.2014.08.005
2014 Elsevier Inc.

All rights reserved.
Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231
181

182
John T. Jost and Margarita Krochik
5. Are There Ideological Asymmetries in Susceptibility and Resistance to Different

Types of Persuasive Inuence?
5.1 Ideological Differences in Heuristic versus Systematic Processing
5.2 Ideological Differences in Susceptibility to Implicit vs. Explicit Forms of Attitude
Change
6. Are There Ideological Asymmetries in Reliance on Stereotypical Cues?
7. Concluding Remarks
References
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207
212
216
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224
Abstract
In an extended elaboration of the theory of political ideology as motivated social cognition, we describe ideological differences in epistemic motivation and their consequences for attitude structure, depth of information processing, susceptibility to
persuasion, and stereotyping. Liberals score higher than conservatives on need for
cognition and open-mindedness, whereas conservatives score higher than liberals
on intuitive thinking and self-deception. These differences help to explain greater attitudinal certainty and stability among conservatives, greater ambivalence and more selfreported thinking among liberals, and stronger correspondence between gut and
actual feelings as well as implicit and explicit attitudes among conservatives. Liberals
are more likely to process information systematically, recognize differences in argument
quality, and to be persuaded explicitly by scientic evidence, whereas conservatives are
more likely to process information heuristically, attend to message-irrelevant cues such
as source similarity, and to be persuaded implicitly through evaluative conditioning.
Conservatives are also more likely than liberals to rely on stereotypical cues and assume
consensus with like-minded others.
I dont trust books. Theyre all fact, no heart. And thats exactly whats pulling our country apart today. Because face it, folks, we are a divided nation.
Not between Democrats or Republicans, or conservatives and liberals, or
tops and bottoms. No, we are divided by those who think with their
head, and those who know with their heart.
Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, October 17, 2005
1. INTRODUCTION
The study of motivated reasoningdthat is, the ways in which individuals, because of psychological needs, goals, and desires that shape information processing, reach conclusions that they (on some level) wish to reach
rather than ones demanded by adherence to logic or evidencedmay have
originated with Sigmund Freud, but it has become something of a cottage

Ideological Differences in Epistemic Motivation
183
industry in psychology. Several decades of research in experimental psychology and, more recently, political science demonstrate that people frequently
process information selectively to reach desired conclusions while avoiding
information that, objectively speaking, would lend credence to alternative
points of view (e.g., Ditto & Lopez, 1992; Dunning, 1999; Frey, 1986;
Gilovich, 1991; Kruglanski, 1996; Kunda, 1990; Lau & Redlawsk, 2006;
Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979; Munro et al., 2002; Mutz, 2006; Nyhan &
Reier, 2010; Pyszczynski & Greenberg, 1987; Sears & Freedman, 1967;
Taber & Lodge, 2006). This body of work highlights one very important
way in which motivational processes can bias information processing:
when people care too much about an issue or outcome, they are prone
to reach specic (directional) conclusions without adequately taking
into account the quality of evidence for or against those conclusions.
At the same time, some deciencies in human reasoning and judgment
are attributable to relatively supercial or heuristic types of information
processing, which are especially common when people are lacking in certain
kinds of epistemic motivation. Dual process models of social cognition and
persuasion suggest that individuals are less attentive to the quality of argumentation (1) when the issue in question is low in personal self-relevance
(Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989; Mackie, Worth, & Asuncion, 1990)
and (2) when the individuals are low in accuracy motivation (Chen,
Shechter, & Chaiken, 1996; Thompson, Roman, Moskowitz, Chaiken, &
Bargh, 1994) and/or the need for cognition (Caccioppo, Petty, & Morris,
1983; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) or (3) high in epistemic needs for order,
structure, and closure (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983; Klein & Webster,
2000; Kruglanski, Webster, & Klem, 1993; Neuberg & Newsom, 1993;
Schaller, Boyd, Yohannes, & OBrien, 1995). In other words, motivational
processes can also shape information processing in a nondirectional
manner: when people care too little about something in particular (or
about the truth in general), they are prone to commit errors in reasoning
and to be unduly swayed by irrelevant (peripheral or heuristic) factors
such as emotions, intuitions, and loose associations. According to Kahneman
(2013), many errors in judgment are due to System 1 processing, which is
associated with rapid, automatic, emotional, stereotypical, subconscious
forms of thinking.
In response to the sprawling, voluminous research literature on social,
cognitive, and motivational biases in judgment and decision-making, authors routinely issue scathing indictments of the human capacity for objectivity, especially when it comes to matters of social, moral, or political

184
signicance. Shermer (2011), for instance, writes that human beings simply
sort through the facts and select those that conrm what we already believe
and ignore or rationalize away those that contradict our beliefs (p. 36).
Haidt (2012) likewise declares that: Conscious reasoning functions like a
press secretary who automatically justies any position taken by the president. With the help of our press secretary, we are able to lie and cheat often,
and then cover it up so effectively that we even fool ourselves. Reasoning
can take us to almost any conclusion we want to reach (p. 91). These
are strong, virtually solipsistic claims that deny the very existence of
epistemic virtues associated with the pursuit of accurate knowledge and
the human capacity for systematic, deliberative processing of information
(what Kahneman and others refer to as System 2 thinking) and the incorporation of logic and empirical evidence.
The problem, scientically speaking, is that such a dire image of human
cognition is contradicted by evidence suggesting that when people possess
mental and physical resources and are sufciently motivated to achieve accuracy and to process information systematically rather than heuristically,
they are able to engage in relatively careful, complex forms of reasoning
and to distinguish between strong and weak arguments (e.g., Chen et al.,
1996; Kruglanski & Freund, 1983; Kunda, 1990; Petty & Cacioppo,
1986; Thompson et al., 1994). There are, furthermore, studies documenting
individual and group differences in epistemic motivation, depth of information processing, and rational reection (e.g., Frederick, 2005; Kemmelmeier, 2010; Kruglanski et al., 1993; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Stanovich,
West, & Toplak, 2011) as well as other relevant variables such as selfdeception and susceptibility to positive illusions (Paulhus & Reid, 1991;
Robins & Beer, 2001; von Hippel, Lakin, & Shakarchi, 2005). So it not
need be the case that everyone is prone at all times to decient forms of
reasoning, let alone equally so, even when it comes to the consideration
of social, moral, and political issues. As Stephen Colbert put it, there may
be important differences between those who think with their head, and
those who know with their heart. We acknowledge that there are important points to be made about motivated reasoning in general and hypothesisconrming biases in particular, but, as Jost (2011) put it, the psychological
evidence hardly warrants unmitigated nihilism about the epistemic value of
the mental activity of an entire speciesdeven ours. Self-deception may be
common, but it is partial rather than absolute, and it is a variable, not a constant (p. 1222). Etzioni (2014) made a very similar point in the context of

185
research on behavioral economics when he noted that rationality is a

continuous variable.
2. IDEOLOGICAL SYMMETRIES AND ASYMMETRIES

IN MOTIVATED REASONING
Norms of politeness and/or political correctnessdand perhaps the system-justifying desire to believe that members of all major parties in the democratic systems on which we depend are more or less equally (in)capable of
objectivitydmay inhibit social and behavioral scientists from the hearty
exploration of leftright ideological differences in motivated reasoning.
Nevertheless, there is evidence suggesting that adherents of some ideologies
may be more likely than others to process complex information in a deep, systematic, or objective manner. This, essentially, is the thesis of the journalist
Mooneys (2012) controversial but well-researched book, The Republican
Brain, which notes that, despite having been exposed to evidence of the contrary, a majority of US conservatives continue to hold false, often illogical beliefs in a number of important political domains. Examples include the beliefs
that President Obama is a Muslim (as well as a socialist), the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 represents a government takeover of
health care, abortion increases a womans risk of breast cancer (and mental
illness), weapons of mass destruction were eventually found in Iraq after the
US invasion in 2003, tax cuts increase government revenue, and there is no
scientic consensus about the occurrence of human evolution and anthropogenic climate change (Mooney, 2012, pp. 57).
Of course, it is possible to nd examples of people on the left engaging in
motivated reasoning and resisting or denying evidence that they nd to be
inconvenient or incompatible with other cherished beliefs (e.g., Bartels,
2002; Kahan, 2013; Nisbet, Cooper, & Garrett, in press). Nevertheless, it
is rare to nd established, well-respected liberals in the United States and
elsewhere whodlike President George W. Bush and other conservatives
parodied by Stephen Colbertdproudly tout the superiority of gut-level,
emotional intuitions (or what one might want to believe) over the systematic
processing of evidence, especially when it comes to issues of major signicance, such as climate change, economic policy, and the use of military
force. A reviewer of Bushs (2010) memoir Decision Points wrote that:
Bush tends to make up his mind early, with only limited deliberation, usually based on instinct, and the hard work of the bureaucracies, the national

186
discourse, the international consultations, was about selling and rationalizing

what the president had already decided (Telhami, 2011).
The right not only comes off as extremely suspicious of scientic experts
(e.g., MacCoun & Paletz, 2009; Mooney, 2012), but also surprisingly forthright about embracing intuitive strategies of motivated reasoning. For
instance, Republican Senator James Inhofe, a prominent skeptic of global
warming and author of The Greatest Hoax, told MSNBC talk show host
Rachel Maddow that, with respect to climate change, I was actually on
your side of this issue when I was chairing that committee and I rst heard
about this. I thought it must be true until I found out what it cost. In other
words, Inhofe admitted that his skepticism about climate change was motivated, at least in part, by the impression that doing something about it would
be too expensive. At a 2014 conference on climate change at the New
School University, Former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis similarly
explained conservative opposition to environmental regulations (like cap
and trade) as follows: When youre confronted with a solution that
doesnt t your values, what do you do? You go back and doubt whether
theres a problem. He went on to compare the situation to one in which
a patient, after hearing from his doctor about the severity of a possible
cure, simply decides that he is no longer ailing (http://new.livestream.
com/TheNewSchool/climate-change-demands-we-change).
Public opinion data from the Gallup organization suggest that the failure
to adequately consider evidence that contradicts their point of view may be
harming perceptions of the Republican Party (Saad, 2013). When American
adults were asked to name one or two things they disliked most about each
of the major political parties, 21% stated that the Republican Party was too
inexible or unwilling to compromise; this was the most common
complaint, and it was shared by Democratic, Independent, and Republican
perceivers alike (Only 8% said that Democrats were inexible or unwilling
to compromise). Work in social, personality, and political psychology, much
of which was reviewed by Mooney (2012), suggests that stereotypes of conservatives as relatively stubborn and closed-minded may possess at least a
kernel of truth.
We hasten to point out that a number of studies suggest a symmetrical
pattern of motivated reasoning and biased information processing on the
left and the right (e.g., Kahan, 2013; Knoblach-Westerwick & Meng,
2009; Nisbet et al., in press). Nevertheless, more than a few studies clearly
point to the existence of ideological asymmetriesdand in virtually every
one of these cases the results suggest that liberals are less likely than

187
conservatives to process information in a selective or distorted manner (for a

partial review, see Jost, Hennes, & Lavine, 2013, pp. 865867). For
example, liberals are more likely than conservatives to seek out and expose
themselves to a wide range of opinions, including contrary opinions
(Garrett, 2009; Iyengar & Hahn, 2009; Iyengar, Hahn, Krosnick, & Walker,
2008; Sears & Freedman, 1967), and less likely to engage in one-sided
political conversations (Mutz, 2006). Nam, Jost, and Van Bavel (2013)
observed a general unwillingness on the part of conservative participants
(which was unrivaled by their liberal counterparts) to write a counterattitudinal essay (in this case in favor of Democratic presidents), suggesting
that conservatives were more highly motivated than liberals to avoid a situation that might arouse cognitive dissonance.
Some studies involving small samples of college students suggest that the
policy preferences of Democrats and Republicans are strongly (and more or
less equivalently) inuenced by cues indicating political partisanship (Cohen,
2003). At the same time, the results of two experiments involving large
samples of adult partisans revealed that Republicans were more sensitive
than Democrats to partisan cues, whereas Democrats were more attentive
than Republicans to information about policy content (Bullock, 2011).
Interestingly, the differences between Democrats and Republicans were
enhanced by epistemic motivation, so that Democrats who scored higher
on the need for cognition were more focused on policy content, whereas
Republicans who scored higher on the need for cognition were less focused
on policy content. In reecting on these results, Bullock (2011) noted that,
Political scientists know much about attitude differences between members
of different parties, but partisans thinking about politics may differ in more
basic respects, and this possibility has received little attention.
Nyhan and Reier (2010) explored the backre effect, which occurs
when individuals express more rather than less certainty about a false belief
once it has been debunked. Specically, they instructed research participants to read a news article concerning the putative existence of weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq and later presented half of the participants with a
correction to the original news article. For conservatives (but not for liberals), exposure to the correction strengthened misperceptions produced
by the initial article (see also Karasawa, 1998, for a similar effect involving
social stereotypes). Mooney and Young (described in Mooney, 2012,
Chapter 13) found that social and economic conservatives were less open
to counterattitudinal information and more likely than liberals to engage
in motivated reasoning not only with respect to global warming, but

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even on a topic like nuclear power, for which one might expect strong liberal opposition. The researchers also observed that conservatives spent less
time reading the information presented before rendering an opinion.
Taken as a whole, then, the research literature on motivated reasoning
has yielded robust evidence of asymmetricaldas well as symmetricald
effects of political ideology.
In this chapter, we probe more deeply the possibility that there are
indeed meaningful ideological asymmetries in epistemic motivation and
preferred thinking or reasoning styles. We propose that there may be ideological differences in motivational priority when it comes to intuitive, heuristic, or gut-level processes (as opposed to more deliberative, systematic,
or evidence-based processes) involved in judgment and decision-making.
Presumably, these differences have implications not only for the ways in
which liberals and conservatives process information (at implicit as well as
explicit levels of awareness), but also for the kinds of arguments and social
inuence tactics that are likely to be persuasive to them. Some have suggested that differences between liberals and conservatives in terms of
thinking style may be attributable to disparities in terms of cognitive abilities.
In fact, there is evidence suggesting that liberals score higher than conservatives on tests of general intelligence (e.g., Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik,
Levinson, & Sanford, 1950; Deary, Batty, & Gale, 2008; Heaven, Ciarrochi,
& Leeson, 2011; Hodson & Busseri, 2012; Stankov, 2009). Independent of
any differences in cognitive ability, our approach highlights motivational
factorsdsuch as openness, need for cognition, and self-deception as well
as needs for order, structure, and closuredthat could contribute to differences in attitude strength and conviction, heuristic versus systematic forms
of information processing, susceptibility, and resistance to different types
of social inuence attempts, and stereotyping behavior. Our springboard is
a theory of political ideology as motivated social cognition, which was
initially proposed by Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003a,
2003b) and has been further rened and developed in a number of publications over the last decade.
3. A THEORY OF POLITICAL IDEOLOGY

AS MOTIVATED SOCIAL COGNITION
In an ambitious effort to integrate 50 years of theory and research on
the psychological bases of leftright (or liberalconservative) differences, Jost
et al. (2003a) focused on situational and dispositional variability in epistemic

189
motives to reduce uncertainty and achieve a sense of order and closure, and
existential motives to reduce anxiety and achieve a sense of safety and security. The basic argument was that these motives would foster an ideological
preparedness for traditionalism (or resistance to change) and the acceptance
and justication of hierarchy or inequality. Consistent with this perspective,
a meta-analytic review of 88 studies conducted in 12 countries over a 44-year
period involving over 22,000 individual participants or cases conrmed that
(1) epistemic motives associated with intolerance of ambiguity, dogmatism,
avoidance of uncertainty, cognitive simplicity, and personal needs for order,
structure, and closure, as well as (2) existential motives associated with death
anxiety and system-level threats were positively related to (3) the endorsement of conservative or right-wing positions, parties, and leaders.
Probably because the subject matter is inherently controversial subject
matter, the article by Jost et al. (2003a) was criticized bitterly in some
segments of the mass media (e.g., see Dean, 2006; Mooney, 2012; for summaries) and in popularized treatments of political psychology (e.g., Haidt,
2012; Shermer, 2011). Nevertheless, the basic ndings and conclusions of
the article have been replicated and extended in a variety of important,
useful, and creative ways (e.g., see Block & Block, 2006; Everett, 2013;
Federico, Ergun, & Hunt, 2014; Fraley, Grifn, Belsky, & Roisman,
2012; Jost et al., 2007, 2008; Kandler, Bleidorn, & Riemann, 2012;
Matthews, Levin, & Sidanius, 2009; Young, 2009). Our purpose here is
not to review that literature in detail, especially given that comprehensive
reviews are already available (e.g., Hibbing, Smith, & Alford, 2014; Jost &
Amodio, 2012; Mooney, 2012). Instead, we stress four points that are
especially germane to the focus of the present article, namely ideological
differences in epistemic motivation.
First, a number of recent studies have provided even stronger evidence
that personal needs for order, structure, and cognitive closure are positively
and consistently associated with resistance to change, acceptance of
inequality, political conservatism, and right-wing orientation (e.g.,
Chirumbolo, Areni, & Sensales, 2004; Critcher, Huber, Ho, & Koleva,
2009; Federico et al., 2014; Federico & Goren, 2009; Golec de Zavala &
Van Bergh, 2007; Jost et al., 2007, 2008; Keller, 2005; Kemmelmeier,
2007; van Hiel, Pandelaere, & Duriez, 2004). The relationship between
epistemic motivation and political ideology has been explored in studies of
nonverbal behavioral and neurocognitive functioning as well. For instance,
Shook and Fazio (2009) exposed research participants to stimuli that varied
in terms of their shape and value (i.e., potential gains vs. losses) in the context

190
of an experimental game. To learn which stimuli were associated with better

payoffs, participants would have been well-advised to pursue an initial strategy of exploration that was fairly risky in the short run but benecial in the
long run. The researchers observed that liberals outperformed conservatives
in this particular game, insofar as they were more likely to take an open,
exploratory approach to learning about environmental contingencies.
Amodio, Jost, Master, and Yee (2007) similarly observed that liberals
outperformed conservatives on a computerized Go/No Go task in
which participants were required to respond exibly by withholding a prepotent, habitual (or dominant) response on a minority of stimulus trials. Of
even greater interest, perhaps, was the discovery that on critical No Go
trials (which required exible response inhibition), liberals exhibited stronger activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (or ACC), a region of the brain
that is implicated in conict monitoring (i.e., sensitivity to potential discrepancies between gut-level behavioral tendencies and more deliberative,
higher order cognitive processes). Subsequent work by Kanai, Feilden, Firth,
and Rees (2011) suggested that there may be ideological differences in
neurological structure (as well as function); in two samples they observed
that gray matter volume in the ACC (i.e., regional brain size) was greater
for liberals than for conservatives.
A second, potentially related conclusion that follows from recent
research on political ideology as motivated social cognition is that the temporary, situational activation of epistemic needs to reduce uncertainty or to
achieve cognitive closuredwhich can be induced through laboratory or
real-world manipulations of cognitive load, distraction, time pressure, threat,
or alcohol intoxicationdtends to increase ones afnity for conservative,
right-wing opinions and labels (e.g., Eidelman, Crandall, Goodman, &
Blanchar, 2012; Jost, Krochik, Gaucher & Hennes, 2009b; Lammers &
Proulx, 2013; Rock & Janoff-Bulman, 2010; Rutjens & Loseman, 2010;
Thorisdottir & Jost, 2011). These studies are especially valuable because
they identify a causal relationship that exists between epistemic motivation
and political ideology. At the same time, it is useful to keep in mind that the
theoretical model proposed by Jost et al. (2003a, 2003b) implies that both
directions of causality are possible. In other words, the argument is really
that an elective afnity exists (Jost, Federico, & Napier, 2009a), so that
the endorsement of conservative ideology, which is relatively simple, direct,
and familiar, both reects and contributes to a psychological state that is concerned with, among other things, the reduction of uncertainty and ambiguity. Conversely, the endorsement of liberal ideology, which is more

191
complex anddbecause it tends to be more critical of the status quodmore

socially controversial, both reects and contributes to a psychological state
that is more tolerant of uncertainty and ambiguity.
A third conclusion may be derived from the plethora of studies conducted over the past decade on the distinctive personality traits of liberals and
conservatives. Most of these studies have made use of the popular Big
Five taxonomy. Results reveal quite consistently that openness is positively
associated with a liberal, left-wing orientation, whereas Conscientiousness
(especially the Need for Order facet) is positively associated with conservative, right-wing orientation (e.g., Carney, Jost, Gosling, & Potter, 2008;
Gerber, Huber, Doherty, & Dowling, 2010; Hirsh, DeYoung, Xu, &
Peterson, 2010; Jost, West, & Gosling, 2009c; Mondak, 2010; Mooney,
2012; Rentfrow, Jost, Gosling, & Potter, 2009). Follow-up research by
Xu, Mar, and Peterson (2013) suggests that the relationship between openness and liberalism may be mediated by cultural exposure, insofar as individuals who are relatively high in openness are more likely to read books,
articles, and newspapers and to see a greater number and variety of lms
and videos, and these indicators of cultural exposure are, in turn, associated
with a more liberal political orientation.
A fourth and nal conclusion suggested by recent work is that ideological
differences in epistemic motivation may be even broader and more extensive
than the review by Jost et al. (2003a, 2003b) indicated. To begin with,
several studies show that liberals score higher than conservatives on the
need for cognition (Carraro, Castelli, & Macchiella, 2011; Hennes, Nam,
Stern, & Jost, 2012; Sargent, 2004; Stern, West, Jost, & Rule, 2013), which
captures the individuals chronic tendency to enjoy and engage in relatively
effortful forms of thinking (see Cacioppo, Petty, & Kao, 1984). Although
this nding may not be too surprising, given that scores on the need for
cognition are negatively correlated with scores on the need for cognitive
closure (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994), it is potentially important because,
as we have already noted, individuals who score higher on the need for
cognition are more likely to engage in systematic processing, whereas those
who score lower are more likely to engage in heuristic processing (e.g., Petty
& Cacioppo, 1986). Another link between political ideology and System 1
versus System 2 thinking was suggested by Kemmelmeier (2010), who
demonstrated that right-wing authoritarianism was associated with an
intuitive thinking style and with heuristic processing of information. Ottati,
Price, Wilson, and Kim (2014) observed that liberals scored signicantly
higher than conservatives on all three of the (content-free) scales that they

192
Figure 1 Monotonic relationship between political ideology and individual differences

in self-deception and impression management. Note: This gure is adapted from Jost
et al. (2010). Data are based on more than 8600 online respondents who completed
a single ideological self-placement item along with Paulhus (1984) measure of socially
desirable responding, which includes subscales gauging self-deceptive enhancement
(r (8629) 0.12, p <0.0001) and impression management (r (8747) 0.07, p <0.0001).
developed and validated to measure open-minded cognition with respect

to general issues, politics, and religion. Finally, the results of an online survey
involving over 8600 respondents indicated that a positive, monotonic relationship exists between conservative political orientation and two indicators
of socially desirable responding, namely self-deception and impression management (Jost et al., 2010; see Figure 1).
4. ARE THERE IDEOLOGICAL ASYMMETRIES

IN ATTITUDE STRUCTURE?
In this chapter, then, we are guided by the theoretical notion that political ideology predicts not only what people think but also how they
thinkdthat is, the ways in which people generate, understand, and organize
their belief systems (see also Jost, 2006). If there are indeed ideological differences in epistemic motivation, as we have suggested, then one would
hypothesize that political conservatism would be associated with a greater
subjective sense of certainty or conviction, whereas liberalism would be
associated with greater attitudinal conict or ambivalence. On the assumption that ideological differences would affect cognitive-motivational
processes in both political and nonpolitical domains, Krochik, Jost, and

193
Nosek (2007) investigated attitude structure and metacognitive judgments

involving an extremely wide range of political and nonpolitical topics.
We compared the correspondence between gut and actual feelings as
well as attitudinal certainty, stability, elaboration, ambivalence, and dimensional polarity of self-identied liberals and conservativesdadjusting for
quadratic (i.e., symmetrical) effects of ideological extremismdand investigated the role of individual differences in motivational processes, such as
openness, need for cognition, and self-deception.
4.1 A Large-Scale Internet Study

Research participants were Internet users who voluntarily accessed the Project Implicit research and demonstration site. To ensure some level of familiarity with the attitude objects presented in the study (many of which were
culture-specic), we included only individuals who were either citizens or
residents of the United States in our analyses. Many additional respondents
were excluded on the basis of incomplete data. The resulting sample size was
approximately N 85,000 (85,415 participants completed explicit measures, 83,847 completed implicit measures and had valid IAT scores, and
77,923 completed both implicit and explicit measures). Participants were
randomly assigned to one of 95 attitude topics or studies according to a
complex planned missing design (see Graham, Taylor, Olchowski, &
Cumsille, 2006); the number of participants assigned to each topic ranged
from 630 to 1341. Participants could participate in more than one study session, but they could only be assigned to a given topic once. The average
number of sessions completed was 1.8, with 65% of participants completing
just one. Each session took 12 min to complete.
During an online registration phase, participants placed themselves on a
political orientation scale ranging from 3 (strongly liberal) to 3 (strongly
conservative). The sample was liberally skewed to some extent, but there
were 2459 individuals who identied themselves as strongly conservative.
To estimate symmetrical (i.e., nondirectional) effects of ideological extremity,
we squared each participants response (see also Jost et al., 2007), so that the
maximum score (9) was ascribed to strongly liberal and strongly conservative
individuals alike and lower scores were ascribed to moderate (0), slightly liberal/conservative (1), and somewhat liberal/conservative (4) participants.
We investigated attitudes pertaining to 95 different political and nonpolitical topics, including: education vs. national defense, love vs. money,
Yankees vs. Red Sox, management vs. organized labor, cats vs. dogs, Apple
vs. Microsoft, freedom vs. security, skirts vs. pants, social programs vs. tax

194
reductions, thin people vs. fat people, creationism vs. evolution, and Northerners vs. Southerners. To obtain an explicit attitude measure, we simply
asked participants, Which do you prefer, X or Y? (1 strongly prefer
X; 7 strongly prefer Y). We also assessed liking (1 strongly dislike;
10 strongly like) and warmth (1 cold; 10 warm) toward each attitude
object independently.
4.2 Indirect Measure of Attitude Strength: Correspondence

between Gut and Actual Reactions
To begin with, we investigated the effect of political ideology on attitude
structure as reected in the correspondence between participants selfreported gut reactions to a topic and their actual feelings toward the
same topic after having had time to think about it. Gut and actual feelings
were reported with respect to each of the items within the 95 attitude object
pairs on 10-point scales ranging from 1 (strongly negative) to 10 (strongly
positive). We used the difference in gut feelings toward attitude objects
within each pair as a predictor of the corresponding difference in actual feelings, so that positive numbers indicated a relative preference for one object
(e.g., X) and negative numbers indicated a relative preference for the other
(e.g., Y). Hypotheses were assessed using multilevel modeling.
We observed that (aggregating across the 95 different attitude topics) the
correlation between gut and actual feelings was stronger for conservative vs. liberal participants. This was indicated by a signicant interaction effect between ideology and gut feelings on actual feelings (see Table 1). The
interaction remained signicant even after adjusting for the main effect of
ideological extremity and the interaction between extremity and gut feelings, as well as random variation in the moderating effect of ideology on
gut-actual correspondence. These results are consistent with the notion
that liberals are less likely than conservatives to go with their gut in
rendering deliberative judgments (see also Stern et al., 2013).
4.3 Metacognitive Indices of Attitude Strength

Krochik et al. (2007) explored the link between political ideology and attitude structure using several meta-cognitive (or subjective) and operative
(or indirect) indices of attitude strength. Subjective attitudinal stability was
assessed by asking how much participants expected their feelings toward
each of the objects in the pair to change over time (1 not at all,
6 very much). Subjective certainty was estimated by asking participants
how certain they were about each object (1 not at all certain;
Correspondence between gut and

actual feelings (objective
indicator)
Attitudinal certainty (subjective selfreport)
Aggregating across 95 different

attitude objects, the
correspondence between gut
and actual feelings was stronger
for conservative vs. liberal
participants, even after adjusting
for many other factors.

attitude objects, conservatives (and
ideological extremists in general)
reported being more certain than
liberals (and moderates).
195
Interaction effect between ideology

and gut feelings on actual feelings,
B 0.018, SE 0.003,
t (94) 8.61, p <0.0001 (and
improvement in t when the
interaction was introduced, c2D
[1] 79.4, p <0.001). The effect
remained signicant after adjusting
for main and interaction effects
of ideological extremity, as well as
random variation in the
moderating effect of ideology on
gut-actual correspondence across
topics.
Main effect of ideology, B 0.044,
SE 0.004, t (34,000) 11.80,
p <0.001 (and improvement in t
compared to baseline model, c2D
(1) 3734.2, p <0.001, and a
model that included extremity as
the only ideological predictor,
c2D (1) 177.2, p <0.001). The
effect of conservatism remained
signicant, B 0.058,
SE 0.004, t (34,000) 13.67,
Table 1 Ideological differences in attitude structure and metacognitive attitude strength: A summary of major results
Substantive
Outcome variable
Statistical results
interpretation
(Continued)

attitude objects, conservatives (and
extremists) expected their attitudes
to change less over time, in
comparison with liberals (and
moderates).
Attitudinal stability (subjective selfreport)
p <0.001, after adjusting for

extremity. Extremity was also
associated with greater certainty,
B 0.015, SE 0.002,
t (34,000) 6.93, p <0.001.
Main effect of ideology,
B 0.009, SE 0.004,
t (34,000) 2.49, p <0.02 (and
improvement in t compared to
baseline model, c2D(1) 3729,
p <0.001). The effect remained
signicant and increased in
magnitude after adjusting for
ideological extremity,
B 0.036, SE 0.004,
t (34,000) 8.64, p <0.0001.
The effect of extremity was
also signicant, B 0.031,
SE 0.002, t (34,000) 14.06,
p <0.0001.
196
Table 1 Ideological differences in attitude structure and metacognitive attitude strength: A summary of major resultsdcont'd
Substantive
Outcome variable
Statistical results
interpretation
Attitudinal ambivalence (objective

indicator)
Dimensional polarity (subjective selfreport)

attitude objects, liberals (and
extremists) reported thinking
more about their attitudes (i.e.,
higher frequencies of thoughts)
than conservatives (and
moderates).

attitude objects, liberals (and
extremists) exhibited more
ambivalence (positive and
negative feelings) than
conservatives (and moderates) did.

attitude objects, extremists were
more likely than moderates to
regard the attitude object pairs as
opposed. No difference between
liberals and conservatives.
(Continued)
197
Main effects of ideology,

B 0.042, SE 0.004,
t (34,000) 10.60, p <0.0001,
and extremity, B 0.014,
SE 0.002, t (34,000) 5.73,
p <0.0001. The effect of ideology
for extremity, B 0.031,
SE 0.004, t (34,000) 6.76,
p <0.0001.
Main effect of ideology,
B 0.027, SE 0.006,
t (34,000) 4.87, p <0.001 (and
improvement in t compared to
baseline model, c2D (1) 4057.2,
p <0.001). Main effect of
extremity, B 0.013,
SE 0.006, t (34,000) 5.73,
p <0.001. The effect of ideology
for extremity, B 0.031,
SE 0.005, t (34,000) 6.76,
p <0.001.
No main effect of ideology,
B 0.005, SE 0.004,
t (34,000) 1.08, p 0.28.
Main effect of extremity,
B 0.013, SE 0.003,
t (34,000) 5.45, p <0.001.
Attitude elaboration (subjective selfreport)
There was signicant variability in

impliciteexplicit correspondence
across the 95 different attitude
topics, B 0.417, SE 0.063,
Z 6.63, p <0.0001. Interaction
effect between ideology and
implicit attitudes on explicit
attitudes, B 0.056, SE 0.018,
t (94) 3.12, p 0.002 (and
improvement in t when the
interaction was introduced, c2D
(1) 30.6, p <0.001). The effect
for main and interaction effects of
extremity, B 0 0.03,
SE 0.004, t (75,000) 7.58,
and random variability in the
moderating effect of ideology on
impliciteexplicit correspondence
across topics, B 0.025,
SE 0.004, Z 6.02, p <0.0001.

attitude objects, the
correspondence between implicit
and explicit preferences was
stronger for conservative vs. liberal
participants, even after adjusting
for many other factors (see
Figure 4).
Impliciteexplicit attitude
correspondence (objective
indicator)
198
Table 1 Ideological differences in attitude structure and metacognitive attitude strength: A summary of major resultsdcont'd
Substantive
Outcome variable
Statistical results
interpretation

199
6 very certain). Elaboration or self-reported thought frequency was

measured by asking how much participants thought about each of the objects (1 not at all; 6 a lot).
Turning now to operative or indirect measures of attitude strength, we
conceptualized ambivalence as the simultaneous holding of positive and negative evaluations of the same object that are fairly similar in magnitude and at
least moderate in intensitydso as to distinguish ambivalence from indifference. Following Thompson, Zanna, and Grifn (1995), we obtained positivity and negativity scores for each of the objects in the pair by asking,
Considering only the positive (negative) things about X (Y) and ignoring
the negative (positive) things, how positive (negative) are those things?
We computed an ambivalence score for each object in the pair by (1) taking
the sum of the negativity and positivity items for an index of intensity, (2)
taking the absolute difference of the negativity and positivity items for an index of similarity, and (3) subtracting the similarity score from the intensity
score. We then averaged the two ambivalence scores for each pair.
Dimensional polarity refers to the level of complexity in the structure of
the attitude concept (Nosek, 2005). A relatively simple, bipolar structure is
implied by conicting evaluations toward attitude concepts within a given
pair/topic (e.g., being strongly in favor of social programs and against tax reductions, or being strongly in favor of thin people and against fat people). By
contrast, a more complex, multidimensional structure emerges when evaluations of the two concepts are unrelated (e.g., being strongly in favor of
freedom and security or cats and dogs). Insofar as they simplify and organize
attitudinal information in an efcient way, bipolar attitudes tend to be more
stable and easily recalled (Judd & Kulik, 1980; Nosek, 2005). To assess
dimensional polarity, we computed the mean of two items (1 strongly
disagree; 6 strongly agree): Having positive attitudes toward object
X (Y) implies having negative attitudes toward object Y (X).
Krochik et al. (2007) hypothesized thatdaggregating across all 95 attitudinal domainsdconservatives would express more subjective certainty and
attitudinal stability than liberals, whereas liberals would report more
attitudinal elaboration than conservatives. In addition, we hypothesized
that conservatives would favor a simpler, more unidimensional attitude
structure, whereas liberals would express more attitudinal ambivalence in
general. These hypotheses were tested in the context of a multilevel model
with random intercepts, so that a separate intercept or average was estimated
for each attitude topic (Nosek, 2005; Snijders & Bosker, 1999). This enabled

200
us to account for the fact that participants (and questionnaire items) were
nested within attitude topics.
4.3.1 Ideological Differences in Attitudinal Certainty, Stability,
Elaboration, Ambivalence, and Dimensional Polarity
With respect to attitudinal certainty, a main effect of political ideology was
observed, such that conservatives reported being more certain than liberals,
as hypothesized. Including ideology in the model signicantly improved its
t, in comparison with the empty (baseline) model, as well as a model that
included extremity as the only ideological predictor (see Table 1). The effect
of conservatism remained signicant after adjusting for ideological extremity. Compared to participants who described themselves as very liberal,
people who identied as very conservative placed themselves on average
one-third of a point higher on the 6-point subjective certainty scale. Ideological extremity was also associated with greater certainty. Less than 5% of
the variance in certainty was attributable to the attitude topic.
With regard to subjective attitudinal stability, we observed that conservatives did indeed expect their attitudes to change less over time, in comparison with liberals, as indicated by a signicant main effect of political
ideology; the model including the linear effect of ideology provided a better
t to the data than the baseline (random intercepts) model (see Table 1). The
linear effect remained signicant and even increased in magnitude after
adjusting for extremity. The effect of extremity was also highly signicant.
Thus, more conservative and more politically extreme participants expected
their attitudes to change less over time than did their more liberal and moderate counterparts.
With respect to attitude elaboration, we observed a signicant main effect of political ideology, revealing that liberals reported thinking more
about their attitudes than conservatives, as hypothesized. In addition, participants who were ideologically extreme reported thinking about their attitudes more than those in the middle did. The linear effect of ideology
remained signicant after adjusting for the quadratic effect of extremity
(see Table 1). Thus, liberals and extremists reported a higher frequency of
thoughts with respect to all 95 attitude objects.
With regard to attitudinal ambivalence, we observed that liberals
expressed more ambivalence than conservatives did, as hypothesized. Adding ideology to the baseline (random intercepts) model improved t (see
Table 1). Ideological extremity was associated with greater ambivalence as

201
well. The relationship between liberalism and ambivalence remained significant even after taking extremity into account.
Unlike other aspects of attitude structure, political ideology was unrelated to dimensional polarity. Ideological extremity, however, was associated with greater polarity. In other words, extreme participants were
more likely than moderates to regard the attitude object pairs as opposed,
but there was no tendency for conservatives (vs. liberals) to do so, at least
with regard to this particular operationalization of attitude dimensionality
(see Table 1).
To summarize the results of our investigation so far, conservatives were
more subjectively certain of their attitudes than liberals, expected their attitudes to change less over time, were less ambivalent, and reported thinking
less about their attitudes, in comparison with liberals. These ndings are highly consistent with the model of political ideology as motivated social cognition (Jost et al., 2003a, 2003b, 2007, 2008). Ideological differences were
remarkably robust and domain-general, insofar as they emerged from statistical analyses that aggregated across responses to 95 different attitude topics
that were presented to large, almost entirely nonoverlapping samples of liberals, moderates, and conservatives. In addition, we observed that ideological
extremists (on the left and the right) exhibited more attitudinal certainty,
stability, and dimensional polarity, in comparison with moderates, but also
(perhaps surprisingly) more attitude elaboration and more ambivalence.
4.3.2 Self-Deception and Other Mediators of the Relationship
between Conservatism and Metacognitive Attitude Strength
To further elucidate the motivational bases of these ideological differences in
metacognitive attitude strength, Krochik et al. (2007) conducted additional
analyses in which individual differences in openness, need for cognition, and
self-deception were treated as possible mediators of the effects of ideology
and extremity on certainty, stability, elaboration, ambivalence, and dimensional polarity. These analyses were somewhat exploratory, given that it was
impossible to test multiple mediators in the same model due to the planned
missing design, whereby each participant completed a different (random)
subset of items. Nevertheless, the results are potentially revealing insofar as
they highlight a number of ideological differences in epistemic motivation;
we mention only the statistically signicant results in what follows.
With respect to attitudinal certainty, stability, and ambivalence, there
was evidence that self-deceptive enhancementdwhich was measured using
items such as My rst impressions of people usually turn out to be right,

202
Figure 2 Self-deception mediates the effects of political ideology on attitudinal certainty (top), stability (middle), and ambivalence (bottom). Note: Sobel Z tests for mediation were statistically signicant in all three cases: 4.08 (p <0.001), 3.95 (p <0.001), and
2.27 (p <0.05), respectively from top to bottom.
I am a completely rational person, and I dont always know the reasons

why I do the things I do (reverse-scored; see Paulhus, 1984)dstatistically
mediated the effect of conservatism (but not extremism). That is, conservatives scored higher on self-deception (replicating a nding reported by
Jost et al., 2010), and self-deception, in turn, was positively associated

203
Figure 3 Openness suppresses the effect of political conservatism on attitudinal

certainty (top) and mediates the effect of extremity on dimensional polarity (bottom).
Note: Sobel Z tests for mediation were statistically signicant in both cases (p <0.05).
with self-reported certainty and expectations of stability and negatively associated with attitudinal ambivalence, aggregating across all 95 attitude objects
(see Figure 2). In all three cases, the tests for mediation were statistically
signicant.
Openness, which was measured using the Big Five Inventory described
by John and Srivastava (1999), mediated the effects of political ideology and
extremity on attitude strength, but in a somewhat complicated, surprising
manner. Liberalism and extremity were both associated with increased
openness, and increased openness was positively associated with selfreported certainty. These results suggest that increased openness may help
to explain why extremists were more certain than moderatesand that conservatives would have been even more certain, relative to liberals, were it
not for the latters greater openness (see top of Figure 3). Openness also
mediated the effect of extremity on dimensional polarity. As noted above,
extremists scored higher on openness than did moderates, consistent with
Sidanius (1985) context theory of ideological extremism, and openness

204
was negatively associated with the tendency to regard attitude pairs as opposites (see bottom of Figure 3).
Like openness, the need for cognition played a subtle role. Replicating prior research (e.g., Carraro et al., 2011; Hennes et al., 2012; Sargent, 2004; Stern et al., 2013), we observed that conservatives scored
signicantly lower on need for cognition, measured with the use of items
developed by Cacioppo et al. (1984). Need for cognition, in turn, was
positively associated with attitudinal stability. This may seem like a counterintuitive result, but it is consistent with the observation that people who
have engaged in more cognitive elaboration with respect to their attitudes
are less likely to change them later (e.g., Petty, Haugtvedt, & Smith, 1995).
Our nding suggests that conservatives would have exhibited even more
attitudinal stability, relative to liberals, were it not for the latters greater
need for cognition.
4.4 Ideological Asymmetries in Implicit-Explicit Attitude

Correspondence
In psychology, it has become customary to consider two related but
distinct types of attitudes, namely implicit and explicit attitudes (e.g.,
Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Implicit attitudes, which are often based on
mental associations, are activated quickly and spontaneously, and they
may or may not be detected by standard self-report measures, whereas
explicit attitudes, which are typically more propositional in nature, are
characterized by greater elaboration and intention (Gawronski, LeBel, &
Peters, 2007). The nature of the relationship (or correspondence) between
implicit and explicit attitudes at the level of the individual is an important
one, especially insofar as it sheds light on the relationship between intuitive
and deliberative processes (e.g., Pelham, Koole, Hardin, Hetts, Seah, &
DeHart, 2005), as well as a number of other psychological outcomes,
including attitude strength, ideological structure, and behavioral commitment (e.g., Nosek, 2007).
Krochik, Jost, Miller, Schweizer, and Nosek (2010) assessed the relationship between political ideology and correspondence between implicit
and explicit attitudes, aggregating across the same 95 attitude objects
described above. To measure implicit attitudes, we used a 7-block Implicit
Association Test (IAT) to assess preferences for one object over another
within each (randomly assigned) object pair. The IAT measures the
strength of association between concepts and evaluative attributes
(Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) in terms of the relative speed

205
Very Liberal
Moderate
Very Conservative
Figure 4 Linear and quadratic effects of political ideology on implicitexplicit attitude

correspondence. Note: This gure illustrates the pattern of correlations between
implicit and explicit attitudes (aggregating across 95 different attitude topics) at
each point on a 7-point ideological self-placement scale. Data were presented by
Krochik et al. (2010).
with which each concept within a pair is categorized with positive vs.
negative attributes.
Participants rst practiced categorizing pictures or words representing
each of the paired concepts (e.g., books, television) to the left or right
sides of the computer screen (Block 1), then similarly categorized evaluative attributes (e.g., pleasant, unpleasant) to the left and right (Block 2).
The critical trials combined concept categories with evaluative attributes,
such that participants were instructed to use one key to categorize
books and positive attributes on the left and another key to categorize
television and negative attributes on the right (Blocks 3 and 4). Participants practiced categorizing the same concept pair from Block 1 using the
opposite keys (Block 5), and then used one key to categorize television
and pleasant words on the left and another for books and unpleasant
words on the right (Blocks 6 and 7). Association strength was calculated as
the difference in average response latency when categorizing, for example,
television and pleasant words together (and books and unpleasant words
together) compared to the opposite combination. We divided this difference
by a person-specic standard deviation of response time (averaged across all
four test blocks) so as to remove variability due to individual differences in
speed of responding and followed other processing recommendations made
by Greenwald, Nosek, and Banaji (2003).
A series of multilevel models was used to examine the role of political
ideology as a moderator of implicitexplicit attitude correspondence. We

206
treated implicit attitudes (IAT scores) as predictors of explicit (self-reported)

preferences, with both variables coded so that positive scores indicated a
preference for the object that was preferred (on average) by the sample as
a whole. Consistent with prior work by Nosek (2007), we observed significant variability in implicitexplicit correspondence across the 95 different
attitude topics. More importantly, political ideology moderated the relationship between implicit and explicit attitudes, as indicated by a signicant
interaction effect. There was a signicant improvement in model t when
the interaction term was introduced (see Table 1). The interaction remained
signicant after adjusting for the quadratic effect of ideological extremity and
its interaction with implicit attitudes, as well as random variability in the
moderating effect of ideology on implicitexplicit correspondence across
topics. As illustrated in Figure 4, the correspondence between implicit and
explicit preferences increased with greater conservatism, consistent with
the notion that conservatives are more likely than liberals to base their
explicit judgments on implicit associations (or vice versa). Whereas very
liberal participants exhibited a correlation of 0.4 between implicit and
explicit preferences (on average), very conservative participants exhibited
a notably stronger correlation of approximately 0.55.
5. ARE THERE IDEOLOGICAL ASYMMETRIES IN

SUSCEPTIBILITY AND RESISTANCE TO DIFFERENT
TYPES OF PERSUASIVE INFLUENCE?
Decades of research on social inuence have emphasized two distinct
routes to persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route.
According to the Elaboration Likelihood Model, the central route involves
inuence that takes place as a result of relatively deep processing of information that is high in message relevance, whereas the peripheral route involves
inuence that takes place as a result of relatively supercial processing of information that is low in message relevance (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). When
the message recipient cares strongly about the issue at hand and is able to
marshal the cognitive resources that are necessary to think about it at length
(or is dispositionally high in need for cognition), the central route should be
relatively more effective than the peripheral route in producing attitude
change. Conversely, when the issue is low in terms of personal relevance,
or when the cognitive resources of the message recipient are limited (or
she/he is low in need for cognition), the peripheral route should produce

207
greater attitude change (e.g., Cacioppo, Petty, Kao & Rodriguez, 1986;
DeBono & Snyder, 1992).
Chaiken (1980) similarly emphasized the role of information processing
in persuasion, distinguishing between systematic and heuristic processing. Systematic processing involves effortful engagement with the content of
a message and careful evaluation of the merit or validity of an argument. For
example, an individual might analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a message before deciding whether or not it is valid. The central route to persuasion is most effective when the individual processes the content of the
message systematically, which requires cognitive resources and high levels
of motivation (Chaiken & Maheswaran, 1994). Heuristic processing, on
the other hand, involves the use of mental shortcuts to arrive at a conclusion
quickly and easily, i.e., without having to engage in effortful, in-depth processing of the message itself. For example, the receiver might infer that a
message is validdand update his or her attitudes accordinglydwhen the
message is delivered by an expert source. The length of a message may
also serve as a heuristic cue, providing the message recipient with a way
to reach a conclusion without having to evaluate the quality of the message
itself (Chaiken, 1980). Thus, the peripheral route to persuasion is most successful when the recipient of the message engages in heuristic processing,
that is, when he or she attends to message-irrelevant cues in order to arrive
at a conclusion more rapidly.
5.1 Ideological Differences in Heuristic versus Systematic

Processing
Insofar as liberals tend to score more highly than conservatives on the
need for cognition scale (e.g., Carraro et al., 2011; Hennes et al., 2012;
Krochik et al., 2007; Sargent, 2004; Stern et al., 2013), we hypothesized
that they would also be more likely to process persuasive messages systematically and to be inuenced be central (rather than peripheral) cues, such as
argument quality (cf. Chaiken & Maheswaran, 1994). Similarly, given that
conservatives score higher than liberals on the need for cognitive closure
scale (e.g., Federico & Goren, 2009; Jost et al., 2003a, 2003b; Kemmelmeier, 1997, 2010), we hypothesized that they would be more likely to process
persuasive messages heuristically and to be inuenced by peripheral (rather
than central) cues, such as source similarity. These possibilities were investigated in a series of experiments conducted by Miller, Krochik, and Jost
(2009) and Schweizer, Krochik, and Jost (2011).

208
Using a Facebook advertisement, Miller et al. (2009) recruited 108

young adults from around the United States to participate in an online study.
Of the total sample, 56 were undergraduates at the time, 24 had recently
earned their bachelors degrees, and 22 were graduate students. These participants were exposed to either strong or weak arguments in favor of unpopular (i.e., counter-attitudinal) conclusions, namely the implementation
of (1) mandatory comprehensive examinations for college seniors (Petty &
Cacioppo, 1986), and (2) tuition increases in universities (Darke & Chaiken,
2005). More specically, they read and evaluated ve arguments that had
been classied on the basis of previous research as either strong (e.g., universities require additional revenue to upgrade classroom technology and
improve computer labs) or weak (e.g., universities require additional revenue to beautify their campuses). Participants rated the strength and persuasiveness of each argument (as well as the set of arguments as a whole) using
6-point scales ranging from 1 (Not at all) to 6 (Very). At the end of the
experiment, participants completed demographic information, including
items concerning their own political orientation. Because we observed
more variability in economic (as compared with general or social) attitudes
(and a less skewed ideological distribution overall), we focused on economic
liberalismconservatism, comparing the responses of the 54 most economically liberal participants to those of the 54 most economically conservative
participants.
To investigate the hypothesis that liberals would engage in systematic
processing to a greater extent than conservatives, we conducted an Analysis
of Variance (ANOVA) in which participant ideology (economic liberal vs.
economic conservative) was crossed with argument quality (strong vs.
weak), and message topic (comprehensive exams vs. tuition increase).1
The analysis yielded a signicant main effect of argument quality on participants ratings of argument strength and, more importantly, a signicant
interaction between argument quality and participant ideology. To interpret
the interaction, we conducted Tukey HSD post hoc tests, combining responses to the two discussion topics. As illustrated in Figure 5 (top), economic liberals were attentive to argument quality, whereas economic
conservatives were not. More specically, liberals rated the arguments that
Exploratory analyses suggested that, prior to being exposed to any of the persuasive arguments,
liberals were slightly more opposed to comprehensive exams, whereas conservatives were slightly
more opposed to tuition increases. Thus, it is noteworthy that we obtained parallel results for the two
issue topics.

209
Ratings of Argument Strength
Strength (1-6)
3.5
3
Strong
Weak
2.5
**
2
Liberal
Conservative
Ratings of Argument Persuasiveness
Persuasiveness (1-6)
3.5
3
Strong
Weak
2.5
2
Liberal
Conservative
Figure 5 Mean ratings of argument strength and persuasiveness as a function of participant ideology and argument strength. Note: This gure is adapted from Miller et al.
(2009), Study 1. Analysis of variance yielded a signicant main effect of argument quality on participants ratings of argument strength, F (1, 104) 10.47, p 0.002, and a
signicant interaction between argument quality and participant ideology, F
(1, 104) 4.793, p 0.03. Tukey HSD post hoc tests (combining responses to the
two discussion topics) revealed that liberals distinguished between strong
(M 3.21, SD 1.03) and weak arguments (M 2.27, SD 0.78), p 0.001, whereas
conservatives did not. Similarly, liberals perceived the stronger arguments to be
(marginally) more persuasive (M 2.82, SD 1.06) than the weaker arguments
(M 2.19, SD 0.85), p 0.06, whereas conservatives did not.
had been classied on the basis of prior research as strong as signicantly

stronger, in comparison with arguments that had been classied as weak.
By contrast, conservatives did not distinguish between strong and weak
arguments. A similar pattern was observed with respect to ratings of persuasiveness. As illustrated in Figure 5 (bottom), economic liberals perceived the

210
stronger arguments to be marginally more persuasive than the weaker arguments. At the same time, economic conservatives did not differentiate
between strong and weak arguments in terms of persuasiveness. Given
past research on the elaboration likelihood and heuristic-systematic models
of persuasion, these results suggest that liberals engaged in systematic processing and attended to central message cues, whereas conservatives did not.
To investigate the possibility that liberals and conservatives would differ
in the extent to which they processed information heuristically (as well as
systematically) by attending to peripheral (as well as central) cues when
processing persuasive communications, Miller et al. (2009) conducted a
follow-up experiment involving 64 students enrolled in an Introductory Psychology course at NYU. In an effort to obtain an ideologically diverse (and
divergent) sample, we specically recruited students who scored in the top
and bottom quartiles with respect to economic liberalismconservatism
(and excluded from analysis participants who scored in the middle range).
We manipulated a peripheral cue that we anticipated on the basis of prior
work would be inuential to those who are especially motivated to attain certainty and closure, namely source similarity (see Kruglanski, Pierro, Mannetti, &
De Grada, 2006; Lun, Sinclair, Whitchurch, & Glenn, 2007). In our experiment, each participant was led to believe that he or she would interact with
another NYU student who in the similarity condition was represented as
sharing a birthday and home state with him or her. (We obtained information
about students birthdays and home states surreptitiously in a mass-testing session held at least 4 weeks prior to the experimental session). In the control
condition, students were provided generic information about their interaction partners birthday and home state. This manipulation was chosen because
sharing a birthday has been found to induce strong feelings of similarity in the
absence of providing information about shared beliefs, values, or interests
(Miller, Downs, & Prentice, 1998). A manipulation check conrmed that
participants in the high-similarity condition did, in fact, feel more similar
to their interaction partner than those in the low-similarity condition.
To measure attitude change, we solicited participants opinions about a
number of issuesdincluding the question of whether tuition should be
raised at NYUdat the beginning of the experimental session and again at
the end of the session (using an 8-point scale ranging from strongly oppose
to strongly support). Between these two time points, students watched a
short video of the person whom they believed would be their interaction
partner (but who was, in reality, one of two student actors hired to be experimental confederates). The person in the video delivered either four strong

211
Persuasion as a Function of Participant Ideology,

Argument Strength, and Similarity Cue
Persuasion (T2-T1)
2.5
Strong
Weak
Similar
Non-Similar
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
Liberal
Conservative
Figure 6 Mean persuasion (attitude change) in favor of increasing tuition at NYU as a

function of participant ideology, argument strength, and source similarity. Note: This
gure is adapted from Miller et al. (2009), Study 2. A manipulation check conrmed
that participants in the similarity condition did feel more similar to their interaction
partner (M 5.24, SD 1.29) than those in the nonsimilarity condition (M 4.26,
SD 1.39), t (62) 3.54, p <0.01. Analysis of variance yielded a signicant interaction
between ideology and source similarity, F (1, 48) 5.12, p <0.03. Conservatives in the
similarity condition exhibited more attitude change in favor of the message (M 1.67,
SD 1.67) than conservatives in the nonsimilarity condition (M 0.09, SD 1.64),
F (1,27) 5.20, p <0.04. Conservatives were no more likely to be persuaded by strong
(M 1.00, SD 2.06) than weak arguments (M 0.78, SD 1.39), F (1, 21) 0.08,
p 0.78. Liberals were marginally more persuaded by strong (M 1.36, SD 1.22)
than weak arguments (M 0.67, SD 0.82), F (1, 27) 3.27, p 0.08, but they
were unaffected by the source similarity cue.
or four weak arguments in favor of increasing tuition at NYU (i.e., a subset

of arguments used in the preceding study, which were modied slightly to
convey a natural speaking style).
We hypothesized that conservatives would shift their attitudes more in
the direction of a persuasive communication when a similarity cue about
the source was present vs. absent. Given the results of our previous experiment, we did not expect conservatives to change their attitudes as a function
of argument strength. At the same time, we hypothesized that liberals would
shift their attitudes more when the quality of argumentation was strong,
rather than weak. We did not expect liberals to change their attitudes
more as a function of perceived similarity.
To investigate these hypotheses, we conducted an ANOVA in which
participant ideology (economic liberal vs. economic conservative) was
crossed with argument quality (strong vs. weak) and source similarity

212
(high vs. low). The dependent variable was attitude change, that is, the degree of support for a tuition increase at time 2 minus time 1. The analysis
yielded a signicant interaction between political ideology and source similarity. As illustrated in Figure 6, economic conservatives who were led to
believe that their interaction partner shared a birthday and/or home state
exhibited more attitude change in favor of the message than did economic
conservatives who were assigned to the low-similarity condition. Conservatives were no more likely to be persuaded by strong than weak arguments.
Economic liberals, by contrast, were marginally more persuaded by strong
(vs. weak) arguments, but they were unaffected by the similarity cue.
These two experiments by Miller et al. (2009) suggested that liberals
were more likely than conservatives to process persuasive information systematically and to be sensitive to central cues such as argument strength.
By the same token, conservatives were more likely than liberals to process
information heuristically and to respond to peripheral cues such as source
similarity. To our knowledge, these are the rst studies to directly investigate
ideological asymmetries in susceptibility to persuasion through the central
vs. peripheral route. These asymmetries, it should be noted, are highly
consistent with ideological differences in specic types of epistemic motivation documented in previous research, such as need for cognition and need
for cognitive closure (e.g., see Jost et al., 2003a, 2003b, 2007, 2009a, 2009b).
Finally, it is worth emphasizing that liberals and conservatives appeared to
process information quite differently, despite the fact that the message topic
itself was not overtly political.
5.2 Ideological Differences in Susceptibility to Implicit vs.

Explicit Forms of Attitude Change
We have suggested throughout this article that rational vs. intuitive appeals
may be differentially effective for individuals who vary in the extent to
which they are motivated to scrutinize information systematicallydas
opposed to processing it heuristically and trusting in gut reactions.
An especially pertinent distinction was proposed by Gawronski and
Bodenhausen (2006), who contrasted attitude change processes that are
quick and intuitive (and operate through implicit, associative processes)
with those that are deliberate and effortful (and operate through explicit,
propositional processes). Importantly, these authors stressed that implicit
and explicit attitude processes can inuence one another under certain circumstances. Implicit associations, in this view, are akin to heuristic cues or
gut feelings (Gawronski et al., 2007), which may be weighted more or

213
less heavily when it comes to constructing and expressing explicit attitudes,

depending upon a number of factors, including the ability and motivation to
consider and incorporate multiple, potentially conicting pieces of information (Chaiken, Wood, & Eagly, 1996; Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006).
Given ideological differences in epistemic motivation such as need for
cognition and need for cognitive closure, we hypothesized that conservatives would be more likely than liberals to rely on implicit, heuristic cues
to inform their explicit evaluations of (nonpolitical) attitude objects. More
specically, we predicted that an attempt to change attitudes at an implicit
level (with the use of an evaluative conditioning procedure) would be
more likely to produce explicit attitude change for conservatives than liberals. On the other hand, we expected that explicit attitude change attempts
(e.g., the presentation of strong arguments in favor of a given position)
would be more successful with liberals than conservatives.
To investigate these ideas, Schweizer et al. (2011) conducted a study of
ideological differences in susceptibility to different types of social inuence
strategiesdnamely the presentation of rational, explicitly presented arguments, as compared with a more surreptitious attempt to manipulate implicit
associations. Participants were 63 NYU students who were paid $10 to
participate. They were recruited through yers, listserv announcements,
and face-to-face solicitations on campus. Upon arrival at the laboratory, participants were informed that the purpose of the study was to assess their
thoughts and preferences toward a variety of food and beverage items.
They rst answered a series of questions on the computer that assessed,
among other things, their explicit attitudes toward coffee and tea; the
same items were administered again at the end of the experiment, so that
we could measure attitude change. Participants also completed a short
IAT adapted from research by Gregg, Seibt, and Banaji (2006) in which
they were shown images related to coffee and tea and asked to categorize
these while also categorizing words that were either healthy or unhealthy
(e.g., robust, hardy, illness, and diseased).
Next, participants were exposed to either an implicit or explicit social inuence attempt. The former made use of a modied evaluative conditioning
technique that aimed to manipulate implicit preferences for coffee vs. tea (cf.
Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005; Rydell, McConnell, Mackie, &
Strain, 2006). More specically, affectively laden primes were used to
strengthen positive associations with coffee (or tea) and negative associations
with tea (or coffee, counterbalanced). For instance, a participant might be
exposed to positive healthy images (e.g., a man running on a beach)

214
Figure 7 Attitude change in liking for coffee (top) and tea (bottom) as a function of political ideology and implicit versus explicit persuasion type for participants assigned to
the coffee-positive, tea-negative conditions and tea-positive, coffee-negative conditions, respectively. Note: This gure is adapted from Schweizer et al. (2011). For participants who were exposed to pro-coffee/anti-tea messages, analysis of variance yielded
an interaction effect, F (1, 25) 4.61, p 0.04, such that conservatives exhibited
(marginally) greater liking for coffee following exposure to implicit (vs. explicit) persuasion, t(17) 1.48, p 0.08, whereas liberals exhibited greater liking for coffee following

215
immediately followed by images of coffee beans as well as negative unhealthy images (e.g., an old man in a hospital bed) followed by images of
teabags. In the explicit inuence condition, participants instead read a report
attributed to the Food and Drug Administration; it included strong arguments (based on scientic research) for the health benets of drinking coffee
as opposed to tea (or vice versa).
For participants who were exposed to pro-coffee/anti-tea messages, an
ANOVA in which participant ideology (economic liberal vs. economic conservative) was crossed with type of inuence attempt (implicit vs. explicit)
yielded the hypothesized interaction effect on attitude change with respect
to coffee. As illustrated in the top of Figure 7, economic conservatives
exhibited (marginally) greater liking for coffee following exposure to implicit (vs. explicit) persuasion, whereas economic liberals exhibited greater
liking for coffee following exposure to explicit (vs. implicit) persuasion. In
the implicit persuasion condition, conservatives exhibited more pro-coffee
attitude change than did liberals. In the explicit persuasion condition, there
was a trend for liberals to exhibit more attitude change than conservatives,
but this difference was nonsignicant.
For participants who were exposed to pro-tea/anti-coffee messages, the
trends with respect to change in attitudes toward tea were consistent with
our expectations, but the interaction between political ideology and persuasion type did not quite attain signicance. Conservatives exhibited a stronger
increase in liking for tea following an implicit (vs. explicit) persuasion
attempt, whereas liberals exhibited a (nonsignicantly) stronger increase in
liking for tea following an explicit (vs. implicit) persuasion attempt. The
pattern of means is illustrated in the bottom of Figure 7.
In summary, when we exposed participants to messages suggesting that
the health benets of coffee were superior to those of tea, conservatives
resisted persuasion when the information was presented explicitly but not
=
exposure to explicit (vs. implicit) persuasion, t (11) 1.80, p 0.05. In the implicit
persuasion condition, conservatives exhibited more pro-coffee attitude change than
did liberals, t (14) 1.97, p 0.04. In the explicit persuasion condition, there was a
nonsignicant trend for liberals to exhibit more attitude change than conservatives.
For participants who were exposed to pro-tea/anti-coffee messages, the interaction between ideology and persuasion type did not attain signicance, F (1, 25) 2.73,
p 0.11. Nevertheless, conservatives did exhibit a stronger increase in liking for tea
following an implicit (vs. explicit) persuasion attempt, t (12) 1.73, p 0.05, whereas
liberals exhibited a (nonsignicantly) stronger increase in liking for tea following an
explicit (vs. implicit) persuasion attempt.

216
when it was presented implicitly. On the other hand, liberals were susceptible to explicit persuasion but not implicit persuasion. Furthermore, conservatives showed greater attitude change than liberals following exposure to an
implicit persuasion attempt, whereas liberals showed greater attitude change
than conservatives following exposure to an explicit persuasion attempt. In
general, ndings from this experiment suggested that differences in the
epistemic motives of liberals and conservatives have implications for susceptibility to implicit vs. explicit forms of persuasion.
These results are consistent with the notion that conservatives, who are
more strongly motivated than liberals by epistemic needs for certainty, order,
structure, and closure, may have used their (experimentally manipulated)
implicit attitudesdor gut feelingsdas heuristic cues to inform their
explicit attitudes. This pattern of implicit-to-explicit processing may also
help to explain why, as we showed earlier, conservatives exhibit stronger
implicitexplicit attitude consistency than liberals (see Figure 4). By contrast,
liberals may be less inclined to go with their gut in rendering explicit judgments (see also Stern et al., 2013).
In the experiment by Schweizer et al. (2011), liberals were more likely to
change their attitudes following explicit exposure to strong persuasive arguments about the alleged health benets of coffee (vs. tea). This change
could be understood in terms of liberals greater openness to scientic
evidencedeven if that evidence contradicts previously held attitudes
(cf. Mooney, 2012)das well as a stronger motivation to process information
systematically and to engage in integrative complexity (Jost et al., 2003a,
2003b). The fact that liberals explicit attitudes were unmoved by exposure
to evaluative conditioning suggests that they may place less weight on
implicit, gut-level attitudes as valid sources of information when formulating
explicit evaluations. This, in turn, would also contribute to lower levels of
implicitexplicit attitude consistency (Krochik et al., 2010).
6. ARE THERE IDEOLOGICAL ASYMMETRIES

IN RELIANCE ON STEREOTYPICAL CUES?
Stern et al. (2013) theorized that ideological differences in epistemic
motivation, such as the need for cognition, could lead conservatives to
rely more on stereotypical cues, in comparison with liberals, especially
when making judgments about perceptually ambiguous social groups
(such as gay men). In an initial study, the researchers demonstrated that

217
conservatives were indeed more likely than liberals to use gender-inversion

cues to categorize male faces as gay vs. straight under typical (i.e., unconstrained) circumstances. In other words, liberals were less likely than conservatives to assume that men with stereotypically feminine facial
featuresdsuch as long eyelashes, high cheekbones, and slender facesdwere
gay. Measures of reaction time suggested that liberals took longer to classify
targets as gay or straight, suggesting that they may have been thinking more
deeply about their judgments, in comparison with conservatives.
Given prior work suggesting that liberals may be more likely than conservatives to engage in a secondary process of stereotype correction
(Skitka et al., 2002; see also Gilbert & Osborne, 1989), we hypothesized
that a cognitive load manipulation would eliminate ideological differences
in reliance on stereotypical cues. That is, the effect of ideology should
disappear when effortful processing was disrupted, because liberals under
cognitive load would be unable to engage in a secondary process of stereotype correction. This is indeed what we found. In the control condition,
conservatives were again more likely to classify a male target as gay to the
extent that he possessed feminine features, whereas liberals were not. Under
conditions of cognitive load (or cognitive busyness), however, liberals
apparently failed to adjust their intuitive or spontaneous reactions and,
like conservatives, relied upon gender-inversion cues to make sexual orientation judgments.
A third and nal study conducted by Stern et al. (2013) addressed the
question of why liberals would be more likely than conservatives to engage
in a secondary process of stereotype correction when making sexual orientation judgments. The results of their investigation suggested that neither the
holding of prejudicial attitudes toward gay men nor the extent of social contact with gay men mediated the effect of political ideology on the belief that
gender-inversion cues are valid indicators of sexual orientationdalthough
liberals (as anticipated) reported more positivity about and more extensive
social contact with gay men, in comparison with conservatives. What did
mediate the effect of ideology on the endorsement of physical appearance
stereotypes about gay men was the need for cognition. More specically, liberals were less likely than conservatives to believe that gender-inversion stereotypes were valid cues about sexual orientation, and this difference in
stereotyping was partially mediated (or explained) by liberals greater need
for cognition (see Figure 8). Taken as a whole, the results of this research
program suggest that (1) at a heuristic (or automatic) level, liberals and conservatives share many of the same stereotypical associations that link feminine

218
Figure 8 Need for cognition mediated the effect of political ideology on the endorsement of stereotypes concerning gay men. Note: This gure is adapted from Stern et al.
(2013), Study 3. Values reported are standardized coefcients based on a statistical
model in which attitudes toward gay men and social contact with gay men are included
as covariates. Values in parentheses represent direct relationships; values without parentheses represent relationships once all variables are included in the model.
*p <0.05, **p <0.01, ***p <0.001.
facial features to gay men, insofar as their judgments are indistinguishable under cognitive load, but (2) when cognitive resources are available, liberals are
more likely than conservatives to engage in a deliberate, effortful process of
stereotype correction and to discount gender inversion cues when rendering
sexual orientation judgments, and (3) liberals are more likely than conservatives to engage in stereotype correction and to discount stereotypical cues at
least in part because of ideological differences in epistemic motivation, in this
case, their greater need for cognition.
Krosch, Berntsen, Amodio, Jost, and Van Bavel (2013) observed yet
another ideological asymmetry, in this case, one that pertains to reliance
on the principle of hypodescent in racial categorization, which implies
that multiracial individuals are categorized according to their most socially
subordinated group membership. Specically, we observed that conservatives exhibited a lower threshold for classifying ambiguous (i.e., mixed
race) faces as black, in comparison with liberals. In the case of racial categorization, however, the effect of political orientation on stereotyping was
not mediated by epistemic motivation (measured in this instance in terms
of individual differences in the personal need for structure). Instead, it was
mediated by more explicitly ideological motives, such as opposition to
equality and system justication (e.g., see Jost & Thompson, 2000). There
are a number of methodological differences between the studies carried
out by Stern et al. (2013) and Krosch et al. (2013), and so direct comparisons
between the two research programs are impossible. Nevertheless, their
juxtaposition suggests a nonobvious hypothesis to be considered in future

219
research, namely that liberalconservative differences in racial attitudes may

be more ideologically laden (at this point in time) than attitudes concerning
sexual orientation, which may be more linked to epistemic (than ideological) forms of motivation.
Returning to the context of stereotypes about sexual orientation, Stern,
West, Jost, and Rule (2014a) pointed out that not only do conservatives express stronger epistemic motives to achieve order, stability, certainty, and
closure (e.g., Jost et al., 2003a, 2003b), but they also express stronger relational motives to achieve loyalty, conformity, and group cohesion (e.g.,
Feldman, 2003), in comparison with liberals. Drawing on shared reality theory, which suggests that epistemic and relational motives are sharply intertwined (Hardin & Higgins, 1996), Stern and colleagues hypothesized that
conservatives would possess a stronger desire than liberals to share reality
with like-minded others and would therefore perceive more in-group
consensus with respect to political and nonpolitical judgments. To investigate these possibilities, we presented liberal and conservative research participants with a series of faces and asked them to make judgments about the
sexual orientation and birth month of each target person; afterward, we
asked them to estimate the percent of participants who share your political
beliefs [who] made similar judgments as you did.
Consistent with Stern et al.s (2013) observation that conservatives were
more likely than liberals to rely on gender-inversion cues when making sexual orientation judgments, we found that conservatives did indeed exhibit
more consensus than liberals when rendering judgments of sexual
orientationdbut not birth month (or, in a subsequent study, food preferences). Regardless of whether consensus actually existed, conservatives
tended to perceive greater consensus among in-group members (i.e., fellow
conservatives) than did liberals, although they did not perceive greater
consensus among out-group members or among participants overall. Importantly, the desire to share realitydmeasured with the use of questionnaire
items such as How important is it that you see the world in a similar
way as people who generally share your beliefs do?dpartially mediated
the effect of political ideology on perceptions of consensus within the group.
In a follow-up experiment, Stern, West, Jost et al. (2014a) demonstrated
that by either attenuating conservatives motivation or strengthening liberals motivation to share reality, it was possible to reduce ideological differences in perceptions of in-group consensus. This study also highlighted one
potential benet of conservatives greater tendency to assume consensus
within their ranks (or a potential disadvantage of liberals greater tendency

220
to assume uniqueness, see also Stern, West, & Schmitt, 2014b). Specically,
we observed that individuals who perceived more in-group consensus also
regarded their political party as being more efcacious (i.e., capable of
achieving collective goals), and this, in turn, was positively associated with
behavioral intentions to vote during the next election cycle. In other words,
there may well be concrete political advantages associated with even exaggerated perceptions of group consensus when it comes to stereotypes and
other social judgments.
7. CONCLUDING REMARKS
For several decades, psychologists and political scientists have bombarded one another with evidence of bias, error, ignorance, irrationality,
and motivated reasoning on the part of ordinary individuals (e.g., see Ditto
& Lopez, 1992; Gilovich, 1991; Kahneman, 2013; Lau & Redlawsk, 2006;
Nisbett & Ross, 1980; Taber & Lodge, 2006). More than one author has
taken it as axiomatic that people are poorly informed democratic citizens
and masters of self-deception who are constitutionally incapable of objectivity, especially when it comes to matters of social, moral, or political controversy (e.g., Haidt, 2012; Shermer, 2011). Very few other than Gigerenzer
(2008) have taken it upon themselves to defend the epistemic virtues of the
mass public.
When it comes to political psychology, there is plenty of reason to think
that partisanship leads most people astraydat least some of the time (e.g.,
Bartels, 2002; Bullock, 2011; Cohen, 2003; Jost et al., 2013; Knowles &
Ditto, 2012). Nevertheless, there is mounting evidence that some people
are better than others (for situational as well as dispositional reasons) when
it comes to seeking out, processing, and weighing potentially conicting
pieces of evidence to draw conclusions that are reasonably accurate, even
if they may be closer to satisfactory than optimal from the standpoint of rationality (e.g., Chen et al., 1996; Etzioni, 2014; Gigerenzer, 2008; Klein &
Webster, 2000; Mooney, 2012; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Stanovich et al.,
2011). When ideology comes into play, the suspicion is rampantdperhaps
understandably sodthat bias and motivated reasoning are afoot (e.g., Kahan,
2013). Nevertheless, the research literature as a whole provides considerable
food for thought to anyone who assumes that information processing deciencies are distributed in a perfectly even fashion across the political spectrum (Mooney, 2012). Put another way, there seem to be leftright (or

221
liberalconservative) ideological asymmetriesdas well as symmetriesdwhen

it comes to motivated reasoning processes and the endorsement of false
beliefs (Jost et al., 2013).
In this article, we have described a number of ideological asymmetries
and sought to connect them to a theory of political ideology as motivated
social cognition (Jost et al., 2003a, 2003b) as well as dual process models of
persuasion and information processing (e.g., Chaiken et al., 1996;
Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006; Kahneman, 2013; Kemmelmeier,
2010; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Our focus has been on the delineation of
liberalconservative differences with respect to various types of epistemic
motivation and their myriad consequences for, among other things, attitude
structure, depth of information processing, susceptibility to persuasion, and
stereotyping behavior. We have summarized the methods and results of a
number of independent but conceptually related research programs. Indeed,
we plead guiltydwith an explanationdof having bombarded readers with
an abundance of evidence, including previously unpublished evidence, for
our point of view. The explanation comes in two parts.
First, we assume that most readers come to our piece with strong assumptions about human nature (in general) and the power of situational
pressures (in particular) to shape motivation and cognition (as well as motivated cognition). Thus, in line with studies by Lord et al. (1979), Ditto and
Lopez (1992), Cohen (2003), and Kahan (2013), among many others, we
expect that the current consensus in social psychology favors the hypothesis
that there are ideological symmetries in bias and self-deception over the hypothesis that there are ideological asymmetries. However, there is really no
reason to pit these hypotheses against each other, insofar as they could both
be valid (see also Jost et al., 2013). Just as there are linear effects of political
conservatism and quadratic effects of ideological extremism present in combination when it comes to cognitive rigidity (Jost et al., 2003b) and implicit
explicit attitude correspondence (see Figure 4 above), there are probably
ways in which liberals and conservatives are equally prone to deciencies
in reasoning and other ways in which conservatives may be more prone
to intuitive, heuristic-driven approaches thatdin some cases at leastdmay
lead them astray.
The second reason for bombarding readers with data is more personal. It
is that the second author of this piece had planned to write a dissertation and
to publish several research articles on this general topic. Unfortunately, cancer intervened. By dint of circumstance, this article represents the most

222
denitive statement of the perspective we sought to develop together as well

as a summary, in some sense, of her lifes work in this area.
So, what, exactly, did we nd? In one line of work, we discovered that
political ideology was related to metacognitive attitude strengthdthat is,
subjective attitudinal certainty, stability, ambivalence, and elaborationd
with respect to 95 different topics in both political and nonpolitical domains.
That is, conservatives reported greater certainty and more stability over
time with regard to their attitudes in general, whereas liberals reported
greater ambivalence and more time thinking about their attitudes (Krochik
et al., 2007).
Ideology was also related to attitude structure. Conservatives exhibited
stronger consistency or correspondence between their gut feelings and
actual feelings as well as between implicit and explicit attitudes, in comparison with liberals (Krochik, Jost, Miller, Schweizer, & Nosek, 2010).
These ndings, at least, suggest that differences between liberals and conservatives may extend well beyond self-perceptions (or political selfstereotypes), insofar as participants could not have known how much
gutactual or implicitexplicit attitude correspondence would be
expressed or exhibited by their fellow ideologues or their ideological
adversaries.
We have also found that, in addition to previously noted differences pertaining to needs for order, structure, and closure, liberals score higher than
conservatives on need for cognition and open-mindedness, whereas conservatives score higher than liberals on intuitive thinking and self-deception.
These differences helped to explain why conservatives reported greater certainty and stability in general and why liberals reported greater ambivalence
and more self-reported thinking (Krochik et al., 2007).
We have summarized studies indicating that liberals were more likely to
process information systematically and attend to differences in argument
quality, whereas conservatives were more likely to process information heuristically and attend to peripheral (message-irrelevant) cues such as source
similarity (Miller et al., 2009). In another program of research, we demonstrated that conservatives were more susceptible than liberals to an implicit
persuasion attempt involving an evaluative conditioning procedure, whereas
liberals were more susceptible than conservatives to explicit persuasion attempts involving rational appeals to scientic evidence (Schweizer et al.,
2011).
Finally, we have shown that ideological differences in epistemic motivationdsuch as the need for cognition and the need to share realitydcan help

223
to explain differences in stereotyping and group behavior. More specically,

we nd that liberals greater need for cognition leads them to rely less on
physical appearance cues in the context of rendering judgments about sexual
orientationdunless they are under cognitive load and therefore, unable to
engage in an effortful process of stereotype correction (Stern et al., 2013).
Conservatives greater need to share reality with like-minded others leads
them to perceive more consensus within their group, to feel a stronger sense
of collective efcacy, and to be more committed to the attainment of group
goals (Stern et al., 2014a).
It seems to us that there is by now a long list of psychological differences between liberals and conservatives to be reckoned with (see also
Hibbing et al., 2014; Jost & Amodio, 2012; Jost et al., 2003a, 2003b,
2007, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c; Kandler et al., 2012; Mooney, 2012; Young,
2009). The only question about which we must remain silent, for the time
being at least, is how longstanding these differences are. It is conceivable
that ideological differences in openness, self-deception, and other forms
of epistemic motivation are to a large extent historically constituted (Gergen, 1973), in the sense that they may reect the current state of Western
politics and leftright positioning in the early twenty-rst century.
Another possibility, which is by no means wholly incompatible with the
historical perspective, is that there are elective afnities between certain
types of social and psychological needs, interests, values, and motivations,
one hand, and specic ideological forms or manifestations, on the other
(Jost et al., 2009a). The latter perspective would suggest that, all other
things being equal, social and political history would have a tendency to
repeat itself. It may be especially useful for understanding why, for instance,
Adorno et al.s (1950) analysis of the relationship between conservatism
and authoritarianism (including their discussion of right-wing radio personalities) remains shockingly insightful and relevant nearly 70 years later
(see also Dean, 2006; Hennes et al., 2012; Jost, 2006).
In any case, these myriad differences in epistemic motivation (and their
behavioral consequences) may help to explain why liberals and conservatives
in politics so often fail to agree even on what the problem is, let alone what
the solution should be. When there are conicts of personality, cognitive
style, and motivational priority, these can only exacerbate disagreements
over policy outcomes (see also Krochik & Jost, 2011). Future research would
do well to investigate more directly the role of psychological factors in
causing or perpetuating ideological conict, polarization, and gridlock
when it comes to addressing complex social problems associated with

224
economic inequality, climate change, and foreign policy. Indeed, a sophisticated understanding of these psychological factors is a prerequisite to
designing and implementing interventions that would minimize taskirrelevant conict, so that politicians can focus more squarely on addressing
and, one can only hope, overcoming task-relevant conict to arrive at lasting
and meaningful solutions to the very real problems we face.
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4.3.1 Ideological Differences in Attitudinal Certainty, Stability, Elaboration,

4.4 Ideological Asymmetries in Implicit-Explicit Attitude Correspondence

Advances in Motivation Science, Volume 1

2014 Elsevier Inc.

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

John T. Jost and Margarita Krochik

5. Are There Ideological Asymmetries in Susceptibility and Resistance to Different

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

John T. Jost and Margarita Krochik

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

research on behavioral economics when he noted that rationality is a

2. IDEOLOGICAL SYMMETRIES AND ASYMMETRIES

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

John T. Jost and Margarita Krochik

discourse, the international consultations, was about selling and rationalizing

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

conservatives to process information in a selective or distorted manner (for a

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

John T. Jost and Margarita Krochik

3. A THEORY OF POLITICAL IDEOLOGY

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

John T. Jost and Margarita Krochik

of an experimental game. To learn which stimuli were associated with better

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

complex anddbecause it tends to be more critical of the status quodmore

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

John T. Jost and Margarita Krochik

Figure 1 Monotonic relationship between political ideology and individual differences

developed and validated to measure open-minded cognition with respect

4. ARE THERE IDEOLOGICAL ASYMMETRIES

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

Nosek (2007) investigated attitude structure and metacognitive judgments

4.1 A Large-Scale Internet Study

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

John T. Jost and Margarita Krochik

4.2 Indirect Measure of Attitude Strength: Correspondence

4.3 Metacognitive Indices of Attitude Strength

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Author's personal copy

Advances in Motivation Science, First Edition, 2014, 181231

Correspondence between gut and

Attitudinal certainty (subjective selfreport)

Aggregating across 95 different

Aggregating across 95 different