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"Social scientists have long known that political beliefs bias the way they think about, understand, and interpret the world around them. In this volume, scholars from social psychology and related fields explore the ways in which social scientists themselves have allowed their own political biases to influence their research. These biases may influence the development of research hypotheses, the design of studies and methods and materials chosen to test hypotheses, decisions to publish or not publish results based on their consistency with one's prior political beliefs, and how results are described and dissemination to the popular press. The fact that these processes occur within academic disciplines, such as social psychology, that strongly skew to the political left compounds the problem. Contributors to this volume not only identify and document the ways that social psychologists' political beliefs can and have influenced research, but also offer solutions towards a more depoliticized social psychology that can become a model for discourse across the social sciences."--Provided by publisher.

Accusations of hypocrisy have flown against both supporters and opponents of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and Tea Party movements. Integrating the ideologically objectionable premise model (IOPM), a newly devised model of political judgment, with political tolerance research, we find that how the political activities of OWS and Tea Party demonstrators are described determines whether or not biases against these groups emerge among people low and high in right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). Specifically, people low in RWA were more biased against the Tea Party than OWS regardless of whether the groups engaged in normatively threatening or reassuring political behavior, whereas people high in RWA were more biased against OWS than the Tea Party when the groups engaged in normatively threatening (and therefore objectionable), but not normatively reassuring (and therefore acceptable) behavior. These findings further support the IOPM's contention that premise objectionableness, not right-wing orientation, determines biases in political judgment. Adapted from the source document.

Despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary, a substantial number of Americans believed that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, even almost two years into his administration (CNN, 2010, July). Both anecdotal and polling evidence at the time suggested that Republicans and political conservatives were more likely to hold these inaccurate beliefs. This study demonstrated that across a variety of operationalizations of political orientation, both explicit and implicit beliefs that President Obama was foreign were related to political conservatism. Potential sources of these beliefs are considered.

Decades of scholarship have identified several determinants of political intolerance, including authoritarianism and normative threat. Previous attempts in the literature to associate other individual difference variables (i.e., social dominance orientation [SDO]) and situational variables (i.e., out-groups' gains in power and status) have been unsuccessful. Using a dual-process motivational (DPM) model framework, in Study 1 we found that SDO predicted political intolerance of groups with hierarchy-attenuating political objectives. This relationship was consistent over and above other well-known predictors of political intolerance, including right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). RWA predicted intolerance of groups with both hierarchy-attenuating and cohesion-reducing objectives. In Study 2, we manipulated whether an immigrant-rights group was described as presenting a normative threat or as gaining power and status. Consistent with extant findings, RWA moderated the effect of normative threat on political intolerance. More interestingly, SDO moderated the effect of gains in power and status on political intolerance. The implications of these findings are discussed. Adapted from the source document.

Research recently published in Political Psychology suggested that political intolerance is more strongly predicted by political conservatism than liberalism. Our findings challenge that conclusion. Participants provided intolerance judgments of several targets and the political objective of these targets (left-wing vs. right-wing) was varied between subjects. Across seven judgments, conservatism predicted intolerance of left-wing targets, while liberalism predicted intolerance of right-wing targets. These relationships were fully mediated by perceived threat from targets. Moreover, participants were biased against directly opposing political targets: conservatives were more intolerant of a left-wing target than the opposing right-wing target (e.g., pro-gay vs. anti-gay rights activists), while liberals were more intolerant of a right-wing target than the opposing left-wing target. These findings are discussed within the context of the existing political intolerance and motivated reasoning literatures. Adapted from the source document.

Research recently published in Political Psychology suggested that political intolerance is more strongly predicted by political conservatism than liberalism. Our findings challenge that conclusion. Participants provided intolerance judgments of several targets and the political objective of these targets (left‐wing vs. right‐wing) was varied between subjects. Across seven judgments, conservatism predicted intolerance of left‐wing targets, while liberalism predicted intolerance of right‐wing targets. These relationships were fully mediated by perceived threat from targets. Moreover, participants were biased against directly opposing political targets: conservatives were more intolerant of a left‐wing target than the opposing right‐wing target (e.g., pro‐gay vs. anti‐gay rights activists), while liberals were more intolerant of a right‐wing target than the opposing left‐wing target. These findings are discussed within the context of the existing political intolerance and motivated reasoning literatures.

Building on laboratory- and survey-based research probing the psychology of ideology and the experience of worldview conflict, we examined the association between worldview conflict and emotional reactions, psychological well-being, humanity esteem, and political ideology in everyday life using experience sampling. In three combined samples (total N = 328), experiencing disagreement compared to agreement was associated with experiencing more other-condemning emotions, less well-being, and less humanity esteem. There were no clear associations between experiencing disagreement and experiencing self-conscious emotions, positive emotions, and mental stress. None of the relationships were moderated by political ideology. These results both replicate and challenge findings from laboratory- and survey-based research, and we discuss possible reasons for the discrepancies. Experience sampling methods can help researchers get a glimpse into everyday worldview conflict. Keywords: worldview conflict, political ideology, well-being, experience sampling

On the eve of the 2012 U.S. Presidential election, we conducted an initial investigation into the determinants of people's attitudes toward the U.S. military's use of drone strikes in Pakistan. Drawing on existing research and theory in social and political psychology, we examined the effects of political ideology, framing effects (national security vs. human costs), value orientations, and the salience of Presidential candidate endorsement (Obama vs. Romney) on attitudes toward drone policy. The perceived relevance of security values and universalism values to judgments of drone policy mediated the relationship between ideology and drone policy attitudes. Additionally, a human costs frame increased the relevance of universalism values and decreased the relevance of security values to drone policy attitudes relative to a national security frame, and, through these values, decreased support for drone strikes. Neither of these effects was moderated by candidate salience. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, and identify several avenues for future research on this important and controversial policy. Adapted from the source document.

On the eve of the 2012 U.S. Presidential election, we conducted an initial investigation into the determinants of people's attitudes toward the U.S. military's use of drone strikes in Pakistan. Drawing on existing research and theory in social and political psychology, we examined the effects of political ideology, framing effects (national security vs. human costs), value orientations, and the salience of Presidential candidate endorsement (Obama vs. Romney) on attitudes toward drone policy. The perceived relevance of security values and universalism values to judgments of drone policy mediated the relationship between ideology and drone policy attitudes. Additionally, a human costs frame increased the relevance of universalism values and decreased the relevance of security values to drone policy attitudes relative to a national security frame, and, through these values, decreased support for drone strikes. Neither of these effects was moderated by candidate salience. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, and identify several avenues for future research on this important and controversial policy.

This research demonstrated that human nature (HN) and human uniqueness (HU) traits capture the content of Americans' stereotypes about liberals and conservatives, respectively. Consistent with expectations derived from dehumanization theory, people more strongly associated HN traits with liberals than with conservatives, and more strongly associated HU traits with conservatives than with liberals. A trait × target ideology × perceiver ideology × trait valence interaction suggested that both liberals and conservatives more strongly associated their ingroup with stereotype-consistent positive traits, and their outgroup with stereotype-consistent negative traits. Mediation analyses revealed that outgroup antipathy, but not ingroup liking, explained the relationship between ideology and political outgroup dehumanization. Finally, humanness traits captured subtle differences in political stereotype content not captured with the warmth and competence dimensions derived from the stereotype content model. Together, these results indicate that differential attributions of HN and HU traits capture political stereotype content and function to subtly dehumanize one's political opponents. ; peerReviewed ; publishedVersion