Disagreements have paralyzed our politics and our collective ability to get things done. But where do these conflicts come from? Many might say the split between liberals and conservatives. But underlying that split is an even more fundamental crack in the way people see the world.
In politics, researchers usually define conservatism As a general tendency to resist change and tolerate social inequalities. liberalism The tendency to embrace change and reject inequality. Political parties evolve over time, but the Democrat he was the Conservative Party 150 years ago. It is the fault line where political cooperation most often breaks down.
Psychologists have long suspected that some fundamental differences in worldviews underlie the rift between conservatives and liberals. Four decades of research show that, on average, conservatives see the world as a more dangerous place than liberals. This one core belief seemed to help explain many policy disagreements, including conservative support for gun ownership, border security, and increased spending on police and the military.
But new research by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Nick Kelly and myself contradicts that long-standing theory. is. As our research shows, conservatives tend to hold stronger beliefs than liberals in a world with hierarchies, which is basically that the universe is about boundaries between categories and concepts. A clearer understanding of that difference could help societies better bridge political divides.
[Read more about what brain and behavioral science reveals about conservative and liberal thought]
We discovered this by chance. My team had an ambitious undertaking to map all of the most basic beliefs people hold about the world we share. We call these beliefs “primitive world beliefs” or “primitive” for short. Primal reflects what people think of the world as typical. For example, most things are beautiful, or life is usually pain and suffering. These beliefs are believed to have important implications for people’s mental health and well-being.
Our effort began with 10 projects to identify potential primals, including gathering data from over 80,000 tweets and 385 influential works, including the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita. . After several rounds of statistical analysis using data from over 2,000 people, we identified 26 primals and found that most beliefs clustered in his three domains. The world is generally dangerous or safe, dull or more attractive, alive or mechanical. We have created a free, scientifically-validated online survey. Useful if you want to know how your primitive animals compare to the average.
Most of our research asked people to share their party preferences and rate how liberal or conservative they considered themselves. In his early research focusing on wellbeing, he found a surprising relationship between people’s beliefs and how he answered these two questions. Dangerous world beliefs were not associated with political parties or ideologies, as past research (including our own) said they should be.
We ran nine more studies with about 5,500 participants, mostly Americans, to make sure they were right. These studies have pointed away from dangerous world beliefs as the core difference between liberals and conservatives, and toward another fundamental direction called hierarchical world beliefs. That primal, we found, was 20 times more strongly related to political ideology than to belief in a dangerous world.
People with high hierarchical world beliefs usually see the world as full of important differences because it reflects what is essential, real, and important. Such people often distinguish between high-value and low-value things. To them, one might imagine the world to appear full of big, thick black lines. For individuals with this perspective, the world is mostly dotted or shades of gray. (Again, primal concerns tendency that’s all. Even those who strongly believe in a hierarchical worldview consider some lines to be arbitrary. ) In our study, this primal was higher in conservatives and lower in liberals.
Most of the types of hierarchical thinking that have been studied, such as social dominance orientation, involve preferences for how humans should be organized. However, hierarchical worldviews are related to the way people perceive the world as it really is. Moreover, this primal is not only found in human groups, all the Including plants, other animals and inanimate objects. For people with this belief, space is like a place where lines matter.
One of the reasons our findings are exciting is that they suggest ways to navigate certain political impasses. For example, consider a debate on an LGBTQ+ topic. Conservatives may feel that the line separating men and women is natural and innate – a big, thick line – whereas liberals see the distinction more superficial and culturally based. Welfare payments and policies may also be viewed through a hierarchical lens. Or some assume that it often reflects meaningful differences in value to society.
The line associated with the abortion discussion is probably conception. Conservatives believe that this line marks the beginning of human life and is therefore of great importance. A non-hierarchical view is that life emerges gradually across many thresholds.
Immigration discussions often involve literal boundaries, such as the U.S.-Mexico border. If non-hierarchical worldviews shape liberal thinking, it should come as no surprise that liberals do not prioritize enforcing those boundaries.
It may be of practical value to know about the left-right division of belief in a hierarchical world. It’s a way of looking at it,” he wrote. I may not go that far, but Chesterton has a point. Whether you want to sympathize with the other side, beat them in an election, or convince them of a policy, understanding other people’s primaries is helpful. World beliefs are about world trends, but people also expect some exceptions.
For example, imagine trying to persuade conservatives to adopt more liberal policies regarding transgender rights. Assuming their beliefs are conveyed by fear of danger, transgender people may find themselves much more likely to be attacked than attacked themselves. This is a tactic to reduce fear. But another tactic is to blur the lines. Note that perhaps a small but constant number of babies are born with ambiguous genitalia and are arbitrarily assigned a gender at birth. This suggests that the line between men and women is not always sharp. , which may be less effective than explaining why a particular line is a bit arbitrary.
To build collaboration, even when disagreements are intense, you need to understand other points of view. Our research shows that conservatives and liberals disagree more about the meaning of the differences than about the prevalence of danger. That insight may seem small, but it’s a big step in the right direction.
Are you a scientist specializing in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology, and have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper you’d like to contribute to Mind Matters? Send your suggestions to Scientific Americanby Mind Matters Editor Daisy Juhas pitchmindmatters@gmail.com.
This is an opinion and analysis article and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily Scientific American.
