Year: 2022
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Ideological beliefs are strongly held, prescriptive beliefs about how a society should function. Differences in ideological beliefs can be a cause of intergroup conflict and a driver of polarization. This thesis explores how individuals react when encountering people and groups whose ideological beliefs conflict with their own. I find that across a range of ideological beliefs that span the political spectrum, people report similar experiences of ideological threat and intergroup perceptions and intentions. In each chapter, I explore ideological disagreement through the lens of different psychological phenomena. In Chapter 2, I use data-driven methods to build an evidence-based description of the attitudes and characteristics of political moderates. I show that moderates have more diverse and less extreme views than partisans, and confirm existing literature showing they are less prone to negative views and dogmatic ideological beliefs. However, I also show how the American culture war polarizes moderates' attitudes towards certain issues such that they resemble partisans' attitudes in their consistency and extremity. In Chapter 3, I investigate the relationship between perceptions of ideological threat and moral conviction. I find that perceptions of a preferred ideological policy as being under threat is related to higher moral conviction towards that policy. In Chapter 4, I develop a measure of ideological prejudice that captures negative attitudes towards both ideological outgroup members and their beliefs. I find that negative attitudes towards ideological outgroups largely centre around generalized dislike towards outgroup members and condemnation of ideologies that would restrict others' freedom of expression. Finally, in Chapter 5, I identify psychological mechanisms related to cooperative intentions towards ideological outgroup members. I design and test a series of wise interventions leveraging each mechanism. While I do not identify an effective intervention in this chapter, I discuss insight gained from these tests and the identified correlates of cooperation. In this thesis, I seek insight into ideological disagreement through the lens and tools of social psychology. Overall, I find evidence that individual ideological beliefs have great power over perceptions of the social world and engagement with it.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Koyama, Jacklyn Mary Ruth
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7010394971