The Psychological Spectrum: Political Orientation and its Origins in Perception and Culture

Abstract

'Rightists need difference,' 'Leftists, similarity;' 'But both need culture.' In this paper I employ a simple methodological innovation to test the relationships between political orientation, perception and culture. Previous studies have indicated that right-wing policy stances are related to the wish to sustain order and hierarchy and to disgust sensitivity, and that left-wing policy stances reflect a need for novelty, equality and autonomy. This relationship is not universally constant, however, but varies between cultural environments. Previous literature is limited by its reliance on Western convenience samples, a bias against scrutiny of the political left, and a lack of cross-cultural and cross-situational comparisons. Use of representative survey data for this purpose has been hindered by the lack of psychological variables. I overcome this difficulty by producing a new psychometric measure, an average measure of the extent to which individuals provide polarised responses to Likert scales. Using this variable in an analysis of Wave 6 of the World Values Survey, I find evidence to support the claim that political opinions are intimately linked with classification of similarity and difference, and with cultural context.

Keywords

• ideology
• perception
• politics
• opinion
• psychology
• culture