Department of Psychology, Yeshiva University.
Department of Psychology, Colby College.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2014 Jun;106(6):1031-51. doi: 10.1037/a0036170.
We examine whether individual differences in needs for security and certainty predict conservative (vs. liberal) position on both cultural and economic political issues and whether these effects are conditional on nation-level characteristics and individual-level political engagement. Analyses with cross-national data from 51 nations reveal that valuing conformity, security, and tradition over self-direction and stimulation (a) predicts ideological self-placement on the political right, but only among people high in political engagement and within relatively developed nations, ideologically constrained nations, and non-Eastern European nations, (b) reliably predicts right-wing cultural attitudes and does so more strongly within developed and ideologically constrained nations, and (c) on average predicts left-wing economic attitudes but does so more weakly among people high in political engagement, within ideologically constrained nations, and within non-Eastern European nations. These findings challenge the prevailing view that needs for security and certainty organically yield a broad right-wing ideology and that exposure to political discourse better equips people to select the broad ideology that is most need satisfying. Rather, these findings suggest that needs for security and certainty generally yield culturally conservative but economically left-wing preferences and that exposure to political discourse generally weakens the latter relation. We consider implications for the interactive influence of personality characteristics and social context on political attitudes and discuss the importance of assessing multiple attitude domains, assessing political engagement, and considering national characteristics when studying the psychological origins of political attitudes.
我们考察了个体对安全和确定性的需求差异是否可以预测其在文化和经济政治问题上的保守（相对于自由）立场，以及这些影响是否取决于国家层面的特征和个体层面的政治参与度。对来自 51 个国家的跨国数据的分析表明，与自我导向和刺激相比，重视一致性、安全性和传统（a）可以预测政治上的右派立场，但仅在政治参与度高的人群中，以及在相对发达的国家、意识形态受限的国家和非东欧国家中如此；（b）可靠地预测了右派的文化态度，在发达和意识形态受限的国家中表现更为强烈；（c）平均而言，预测了左派的经济态度，但在政治参与度高的人群中表现较弱，在意识形态受限的国家中表现较弱，在非东欧国家中表现较弱。这些发现挑战了普遍的观点，即安全和确定性的需求有机地产生广泛的右翼意识形态，而政治话语的接触更好地使人们能够选择最能满足需求的广泛意识形态。相反，这些发现表明，安全和确定性的需求通常产生文化保守但经济上左派的偏好，而政治话语的接触通常会削弱后者的关系。我们考虑了人格特征和社会环境对政治态度的相互影响的意义，并讨论了在研究政治态度的心理起源时评估多个态度领域、评估政治参与度以及考虑国家特征的重要性。
