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Motiv Emot (2012) 36:5564 DOI 10.1007/s11031-011-9260-7
ORIGINAL PAPER
Political ideology as motivated social cognition: Behavioral and neuroscientic evidence
John T. Jost David M. Amodio
Published online: 13 November 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract Ideology is a potent motivational force; human beings are capable of committing atrocities (as well as acts of generosity and courage) and sacricing even their own lives for the sake of abstract belief systems. In this article, we summarize the major tenets of a model of political ideology as motivated social cognition (Jost et al. in Psychol Bull 129:339375, 2003a, Psychol Bull 129:389393, 2003b, Person Soc Psychol Bull 33:9891007, 2007), focusing on epistemic, existential, and relational motives and their implications for left-right (or liberal-conservative) political orientation. We review behavioral evidence indicating that chronically and temporarily activated needs to reduce uncertainty, ambiguity, threat, and disgust are positively associated with conservatism (or negatively associated with liberalism). Studies from neuroscience and genetics suggest that right- (vs. left-) wing orientation is associated with greater neural sensitivity to threat and larger amygdala volume, as well as less sensitivity to response conict and smaller anterior cingulate volume. These ndings and others provide converging evidence for Jost and colleagues model of ideology as motivated social cognition and, more broadly, reect the utility of an integrative political neuroscience approach to understanding the basic cognitive, neural, and motivational processes that give rise to ideological activity.
Keywords Political Ideology Neuroscience Brain
Motivation Social cognition Conict Genetics ERP
Introduction
Evan a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selsh motives play a quite insignicant part in the human tragedy, compared to the numbers massacred in unselsh loyalty to ones tribe, nation, dynasty, church, or political ideology.(Arthur Koestler 1978, p. 14)
From a psychological point of view, the pervasiveness and potency of political and religious belief systems, or ideologies, highlights a fundamental conundrum about human motivation: How is it that individuals and groups can be so strongly inspired by an abstract conguration of ideas that they are willing to sacrice even their own lives so that the ideas themselves can live on? As Koestler (1978) observed, people can be moved to commit atrocities (and also, presumably, remarkable feats of courage and generosity) because of socially shared beliefs,...