ABSTRACT
Conventional psychological thinking about political ideology is heavily influenced by the “Rigidity of the Right” Model, according to which needs for security and certainty organically attract people to a broad-based right-wing, as opposed to left-wing, ideology. We argue that three recurring methodological shortcomings have considerable but often overlooked implications for this model. These are (a) content overlap between putatively pre-political measures and putatively political measures, (b) inadequate attention to the multidimensional structure—and, in particular, the central economic aspects—of political ideology, and (c) inadequate attention to variation in political discourse exposure. We show that widely cited evidence in support of the Rigidity of the Right Model is often characterized by one or more of these methodological shortcomings. We furthermore show that research that is relatively free of these shortcomings yields conclusions that depart from the conventional wisdom in important ways. We recommend greater attention to these issues in the design and interpretation of studies addressing the psychological origins of political ideology as well as the selection and operationalization of methodological moderators in meta-analyses of these studies.
