1. Is Political Ideology Hardwired?
Nirav Patel, Robert G. Morrison 1, Richard Matland 2, Dane Wendell2
Dept. of Psychology 1, Dept. of Political Science 2 , Loyola University Chicago
. Bedrock political ideology scale designed to tap into baseline
1 Introduction values and preferences instead of specific public policy attitudes
. Four question Viewpoint scale offers attitudes on competition,
income inequality, public ownership, and private responsibility
. New research in political psychology increasingly
suggests that political orientation may have a
. Seven item question set to measure BIS, from Carver and White,
psychological and biological component
and three small sets of questions to measure three different
dimensions of BAS (BAS-reward responsiveness, BAS-drive, BAS-
. We seek to examine how self regulation and behavioral
fun-seeking).
motivation mediate political ideology formation
. 1144 emails to non-student adults employed by Loyola University
. Two systems of behavioral motivation: Gray’s
Chicago (Lake Shore and Water Tower campuses)
Behavioral Inhibition System (stopping) and Behavioral
Approach System (going)
. 303 completed surveys (26% response rate).
. BAS facilitates approach towards a reward (going
toward), but also facilitates active avoidance away from a Figure 2: Political Ideology (low-liberal, high-conservative)
punishment (going away) and BIS
. BIS represents behavioral inhibition (halting behavior)
and does not represent behavioral avoidance
(withdrawing or avoiding) thus conservatives’ sensitivity
to avoidance-based motivations will not be reflected in
4 Conclusion
BIS scoring
. We find modest results for a negative correlation between
. Research suggests liberals have a more cognitively
self-reported BIS (Figure2), as hypothesis 1 predicted, and
flexible style, allowing them to respond quicker to new
we find no correlation between self-reported BAS and
information and halt ongoing behavior
political ideology
. Conservatives are expected to have more structured and
. Our project is still largely in the development stage, and we
persistent cognitive styles, which makes them react slower
think interesting findings lie buried in the brain, which will
to new information in order to change behavior
be tested in the second stage of our study.
. Previous studies find BIS self report measures associated
. We correlated the various measures of political
with feelings of anxiety, frustration, and fear in response
ideology/orientation/attitudes and found a positive
to cues
correlation between the measures. The correlations are all
statistically significant and are larger than 0.50 (Figure 1).
. High BIS is associated with enhanced attention, arousal,
vigilance, and anxiety
3 Results
. BAS self report measures are associated with feelings of
joy, aggression, optimism, and anger
5 Future Work
Hypothesis 1: Liberals will have higher self- reported BIS.
Conservatives will have lower self- reported BIS.
Hypothesis 2: No clear predictions on political ideology In the second stage of our project we will use the
and BAS Go/No-Go task to measure self-regulation in the anterior
cingulate cortex, which has been directly correlated with BIS
measures. Second, we can use cortical hemispheric
asymmetry: greater left-sided baseline activity has been
2 Methods
correlated with higher measures of BAS.
. Survey on political attitudes and personality
6 Acknowledgements
. Standard seven point ideology scale Figure 1: Correlations of Political Ideology Measures
*vp = View Point *br = Bed rock *wp = Wilson-Patterson . Thanks to Dr. Morrison and Dane for mentoring me and
. Twenty question Wilson-Patterson scale of political guiding me along the way
ideology, asks respondents for their opinion on a variety
. Thanks to the Loyola Undergraduate Research
of public policy topics
Opportunities Program