TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2017//
TI  - The politics of fear: is there an ideological asymmetry in existential motivation?
JO  - Social cognition
A1  - Jost, John T.
A1  - Stern, Chadly
A1  - Rule, Nicholas O.
A1  - Sterling, Joanna
SP  - 324
EP  - 353
VL  - 35
IS  - 4
N2  - A meta-analysis by Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003) suggested that existential needs to reduce threat were associated with political conservatism. Nevertheless, some maintain that fear plays as prevalent a role on the left as the right. In an attempt to resolve this issue, we reviewed evidence from 134 different samples (N = 369,525) and 16 countries--a database 16 times larger than those previously considered. Although the association between fear of death and conservatism was not reliable, there was a significant effect of mortality salience (r =.08-.13) and a significant association between subjective perceptions of threat and conservatism (r =.12-.31). Exposure to objectively threatening circumstances, such as terrorist attacks, was associated with a "conservative shift" at individual (r =.07-.14) and aggregate (r =.29-.66) levels of analysis. Psychological reactions to fear and threat thus convey a small-to-moderate political advantage for conservative leaders, parties, policies, and ideas.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0278-016X
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/soco.2017.35.4.324
ID  - ref1
ER  -