Search results

AbstractWhen reflecting upon politics, people express judgements about the political influence exerted by different institutions. However, the nature of these judgements remains to be studied by scholars. The paper explores this with a focus on the United Kingdom. Online, participants recruited from the general population judged the political influence of a variety of institutions such as parties, media and economic powers. Political institutions (e.g., the Conservative Party) were attributed the highest influence, followed by economic powers (e.g., banks), the media (e.g., BBC) and by marginal groups (e.g., laypeople without political expertise). Variability in judgement was explained by two factors: one capturing a tension between marginal groups and economic powers and the second between the media and political institutions. Ideology modulated the latter factor, with participants opposing tradition in politics attributing higher influence to political institutions over the media. These observations shed light on an important, yet poorly known, aspect of political thinking, namely, the perception of political influence.

Research exploring the psychological differences between people supporting extreme versus moderate ideologies is growing. However, this research has rarely examined the domain of values. Here, we explore this domain by assessing the possibility that political extremists discriminate more among values compared to moderates, namely, that extremists exhibit strong commitment toward some values at the expense of other values, whereas moderates would acknowledge a multiplicity of values as equally important. First, we propose a model positing that a value discriminability parameter captures a general tendency to discriminate among values. Second, we test empirically the prediction that, compared to moderates, political extremists exhibit a higher discriminability parameter. This prediction is supported by four studies (including one based on the European Social Survey where representative samples from 29 European countries are examined) where participants reported their ideological orientation and rated the importance of basic human values (we focused on basic values because these transcend the political domain, thus highlighting general effects). Specifically, in all studies we observed a positive correlation between political extremism and residual variability in ratings, a hallmark of a higher discriminability parameter. These findings highlight the value domain as critical to understanding differences between political extremists and moderates.

Mathematical modelling is popular in cognitive psychology because it enables clear and formal descriptions of the processes at play; yet, this approach has rarely been applied to political psychology. Here we adopt mathematical modelling to develop a theory of political motivation, which is a central concept in political psychology. The theory assumes that, in certain contexts, individuals entertain a set of representations of society, for example of the past, present and future (but also of fictive societies such as utopias). To each representation of society, an incentive value is attached which is not absolute, but (following theories of motivation in cognitive psychology) reference-dependent; namely, dependent on the context, corresponding to the whole set of representations of society. In turn, the model proposes that these subjective values determine two central aspects: a motivation for performing an appropriate political action and the ensuing political mood. We discuss the model with respect to theoretical and empirical research (and we examine Marx and Engel's communist manifesto as an example of the latter). In short, we offer a new mathematical perspective on political motivation which emphasises the role of multiple representations of society in determining political motivation and the ensuing political mood.

Mathematical modelling is popular in cognitive psychology because it enables clear and formal descriptions of the processes at play; yet, this approach has rarely been applied to political psychology. Here we adopt mathematical modelling to develop a theory of political motivation, which is a central concept in political psychology. The theory assumes that, in certain contexts, individuals entertain a set of representations of society, for example of the past, present and future (but also of fictive societies such as utopias). To each representation of society, an incentive value is attached which is not absolute, but (following theories of motivation in cognitive psychology) reference-dependent; namely, dependent on the context, corresponding to the whole set of representations of society. In turn, the model proposes that these subjective values determine two central aspects: a motivation for performing an appropriate political action and the ensuing political mood. We discuss the model with respect to theoretical and empirical research (and we examine Marx and Engel's communist manifesto as an example of the latter). In short, we offer a new mathematical perspective on political motivation which emphasises the role of multiple representations of society in determining political motivation and the ensuing political mood. ; peerReviewed ; publishedVersion