Think Less And Become More Conservative

Think less and become more conservative

The less time or mental effort a person puts into thinking about an
issue, the more likely they are to espouse a politically conservative
perspective. That's according to a new study by Scott Eidelman
and his team, who stress that their point is "not that conservatives
rely on low effort thought" but that "low effort thinking promotes
political conservatism".



Across four studies, the researchers examined the effects on political
attitudes of four different ways of reducing mental effort. This
included: surveying drinkers at varying degrees of intoxication at a
local bar; allocating some participants to a dual-task condition where
they had to keep track of auditory tones at the same time as registering
their political attitudes; allocating some participants to a
time-pressured situation, in which they had to rate their agreement with
different political statements at fast as possible; and finally, giving
some participants the simple instruction to respond to political
statements without thinking too hard.



The results were consistent across the studies - being more drunk, being
distracted by a secondary task, answering under time pressure and
answering without thinking, all led participants to agree more strongly
with politically conservative beliefs, such as "A first consideration of
any society is the protection of property rights" and "Production and
trade should be free of government interference." Agreement with liberal
beliefs were either reduced or unaffected by the measures. The
researchers checked and the effects they observed were not due to
differences in the complexity of the statements used to measure
political conservatism and liberalism, nor were they due to changes in
mood or frustration associated with the interventions.



The finding that reduced mental effort encourages more conservative
beliefs fits with prior research suggesting that attributions of
personal responsibility (versus recognizing the influence of situational
factors), acceptance of hierarchy and preference for the status quo -
all of which may be considered hallmarks of conservative belief - come
naturally and automatically to most people, at least in western
societies.



"Our findings suggest that conservative ways of thinking are basic,
normal, and perhaps natural," the researchers concluded. "Motivational
factors are crucial determinants of ideology, aiding or correcting
initial responses depending on one's goals, beliefs, and values. Our
perspective suggests that these initial and uncorrected responses lean
conservative."

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