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Contents
- Abstract
- RRH
- What Is “The Right”?
- What Is “Rigidity”?
- Rigid Thinking Styles
- Motivational Rigidity
- Cognitive Inflexibility
- Dogmatism
- Circular Measurement: Some Measures of Conservatism Directly Measure Rigidity
- Beside the Point Estimate: The Central Role of Heterogeneity
- The Present Review
- Method
- Transparency and Openness
- Literature Search
- Data Coding
- Domain of Political Ideology
- Domain of Rigidity
- Content Overlap
- Sample Characteristics
- WEIRDness
- Measure of Political Ideology
- Self-Report Versus Performance-Based Measures
- Statistical Analyses
- The Three-Level Model
- Heterogeneity
- Meta-Analytic Models
- Publication Bias
- Results
- Model 1: Global Result
- Model 2: The Multidimensionality of Political Ideology
- Model 3: Rigidity Domains
- The Full Model
- Moderators
- Nationality
- Sample Type
- Self-Report Versus Performance-Based Rigidity Measures
- WEIRDness
- Content Overlap and Political Measures
- Publication Bias
- Discussion
- The “When”: Main Effects, Heterogeneity, and Boundary Conditions
- Putting It All Together: Social Versus Economic Ideology
- The “Why?”: Theoretical Implications for the Psychological Underpinnings of Ideology
- Limitations
- Causality
- Conceptual and Methodological Scope
- Measurement and Construct Validity
- The Pitfalls of Meta-Regression
- Conclusion
Figures and Tables
Abstract
The rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis (RRH), which posits that cognitive, motivational, and ideological rigidity resonate with political conservatism, is an influential but controversial psychological account of political ideology. Here, we leverage several methodological and theoretical sources of this controversy to conduct an extensive quantitative review with the dual aims of probing the RRH’s basic assumptions and parsing the RRH literature’s heterogeneity. Using multilevel meta-analyses of relations between varieties of rigidity and ideology measures alongside a bevy of potential moderators (s = 329, k = 708, N = 187,612), we find that associations between conservatism and rigidity are tremendously heterogeneous, suggesting a complex—yet conceptually fertile—network of relations between these constructs. Most notably, whereas social conservatism was robustly associated with rigidity, associations between economic conservatism and rigidity indicators were inconsistent, small, and not statistically significant outside of the United States. Moderator analyses revealed that nonrepresentative sampling, criterion contamination, and disproportionate use of American samples have yielded overestimates of associations between rigidity-related constructs and conservatism in past research. We resolve that drilling into this complexity, thereby moving beyond the question of if conservatives are essentially rigid to when and why they might or might not be, will help provide a more...





