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Fault lines in our cognition are frequently tied to major societal issues, from belief in misinformation to intergroup conflict. However, we lack a unified formal framework that lets us understand the political animal's varied beliefs and behaviors. Political cognition can be succinctly characterized using the computational framework of reinforcement learning (RL), which describes the algorithms we use to acquire, process, and act upon information. Political differences may arise from divergent conceptions of the world, diverse and imperfect algorithms for learning and decision-making, or experience that leads agents astray. RL offers a unifying computational language to investigate the roots and remedies of political dysfunction. Politics can seem home to the most calculating and yet least rational elements of humanity. How might we systematically characterize this spectrum of political cognition? Here, we propose reinforcement learning (RL) as a unified framework to dissect the political mind. RL describes how agents algorithmically navigate complex and uncertain domains like politics. Through this computational lens, we outline three routes to political differences, stemming from variability in agents' conceptions of a problem, the cognitive operations applied to solve the problem, or the backdrop of information available from the environment. A computational vantage on maladies of the political mind offers enhanced precision in assessing their causes, consequences, and cures. Politics can seem home to the most calculating and yet least rational elements of humanity. How might we systematically characterize this spectrum of political cognition? Here, we propose reinforcement learning (RL) as a unified framework to dissect the political mind. RL describes how agents algorithmically navigate complex and uncertain domains like politics. Through this computational lens we outline three routes to political differences, stemming from variability in agents' conceptions of a problem, the cognitive operations applied to solve the problem, or the backdrop of information available from the environment. A computational vantage on maladies of the political mind offers enhanced precision in assessing their causes, consequences, and cures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional left–right spectrum oversimplifies political preferences, limiting our understanding of the intricate connections between psychology and politics. Like other individual differences, political beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors are high-dimensional, vary within persons and between cultures, and are contextually shaped and activated. Embracing heterogeneity and using bottom-up, data-driven methods may unlock a vault of explanatory power currently lost to imprecision and an overreliance on the left–right spectrum. A unified, atheoretical model in political psychology, similar to Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) in psychiatry, could help resolve issues stemming from the heterogeneity of political-psychological phenomena. A deeply heterogeneous set of ideological cohorts have shaped the course of history. From anarchists and authoritarians to Zionists and Zapatistas, the expansive alphabet of politics demands an equally expansive psychological vocabulary to describe political belief systems. We propose that constructing such a vocabulary is best facilitated by decentering familiar models that emphasize psychological differences between leftists and rightists. Synthesizing recent developments in the fields of personality, political science, and psychopathology, we characterize individual variation in politics as high-dimensional, heterarchical, intrapersonally eclectic, and contextually shaped and activated. Developing a data-driven taxonomic model of political-psychological phenomena will help create a foundational base of knowledge within political psychology that is more rigorous, more replicable, and certainly richer to investigate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embracing intellectual humility has been touted as a potential key factor in improving relationships among people with different perspectives. Surprisingly, little research has been conducted on how individuals perceive those who express their views with intellectual humility, and no research, to our knowledge, examined perceptions of intellectual humility in political leaders specifically. This study aimed to examine to what extent perceivers value intellectual humility in the face of a polarizing topic (abortion) and when it is expressed by political leaders (hypothetical presidential candidates) sharing or opposing one's view. We predicted that individuals would like the same-view leader more than the opposing-view leader; however, they would also prefer leaders expressing intellectual humility overall. Importantly, we also explored whether individuals would be more tolerant of intellectual arrogance when arrogance came from a leader who shared (vs. opposed) their ideology. A pilot study (N = 94) confirmed all these predictions. A preregistered study with a larger sample (N = 927) replicated these patterns and showed that positive evaluations of leaders' intellectual humility were also contingent on their views and the ways they expressed intellectual humility (openness to alternative views or fallibility of their own view). While perceivers evaluated both the same and opposing-view leaders' openness to alternative views positively, they evaluated the same-view (but not the opposing-view) leaders' expression of fallibility negatively. Our findings shed light on the boundary conditions of valuing intellectual humility while offering insights on when and why people may refrain from expressing humility themselves and knowingly or unknowingly contribute to polarizing discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has explored the links between personality and political news consumption, resulting in mixed results that vary across platforms. One potential reason for these inconclusive patterns might be that previous work has exclusively relied on self-reported measures of political news consumption. Considering that personality has been linked to biased response behavior in the past, we investigate to what extent the relationship is affected by potential measurement errors associated with different capturing methods. To do so, we introduce an innovative measurement technique capturing actual internet use through webtracking. While we do not find strong evidence that personality is systematically related to over- or underestimating one's political news consumption, the comparison between the behavioral webtracking measure and self-reported news consumption nevertheless reveals significant differences: notably, openness is positively associated with self-reported online news consumption, but this relationship does not hold in the webtracking data. Instead, when using behavioral measures, neuroticism is a better predictor of political news consumption – an association not observed in the self-reported data. Our insights refine our understanding of the interplay between personality and online political news consumption and enhance the broader discourse on survey response behaviors linked to personality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We propose a novel framework, cognitive political networks(CPNs), to study polarization using survey studies. • CPNs is suitable to study mass polarization in multiparty systems. • We compare CPNs with the commonly used Left-Right political ideology distance scale. • We show that CPNs is a flexible and a direct alternative for measuring perceived party polarization in multiparty contexts. While there is a well-established literature on measuring political polarization in two-party systems, relational approaches to polarization in multiparty systems are still very limited. In this paper we develop a network-based approach for measuring perceived party polarization in survey studies that is suitable for multiparty systems. Our approach is based on cognitive social structures design. We generate a cognitive political network for each respondent in a nationally representative survey in Turkey by asking respondents their perceived ties among all possible dyadic relations among major political parties. From these networks we calculate multiple whole network measures that may be reasonable proxies for perceived party polarization. We compare our approach with the Left-Right political ideology distance scale commonly used in survey studies. Our analyses show that the association between our measure and the Left-Right ideological distance is limited. The cognitive political network approach may be a flexible and a direct alternative for measuring political phenomena in survey studies such as perceived party polarization in multiparty contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People vary widely in their attitudes towards how much their government should redistribute wealth. Evolutionary theory may shed light on why this variation occurs. Numerous studies have established an association between upper body strength and attitudes towards equality and wealth redistribution in males, showing that physically stronger men are more likely to hold self-serving beliefs on these issues. This effect is typically weaker or absent in women. A question that has received little attention is whether there are similar associations between other aspects of formidability and attitudes towards wealth redistribution. One such aspect is height. I tested this prediction using data from the European Social Survey, in a sample of 27031 people from 20 European countries. Results show that taller people are more likely to have self-serving attitudes towards government redistribution of wealth. The result was robust to numerous control variables and alternative model specifications, but the direct effects of height were small. Taller individuals were less supportive of government wealth redistribution overall, but were especially averse if they were also wealthier. Post-hoc analyses suggested that for lower income deciles, the association was reversed. For these people, there was a positive association between height and support for wealth redistribution. However, effects were equally strong in males and females, and so are not fully consistent with current evolutionary psychological theories of resource distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

L'analyse des discours est encore peu développée en Psychologie. Elle offre pourtant à la fois un cadre théorique précis et des méthodes d'analyses variées, qui permettent de traiter de problématiques au cœur de la psychologie et des missions des psychologues. Tout discours est le fruit d'une co-construction, il intègre les perceptions croisées et les dynamiques relationnelles, interindividuelles et intergroupes. Il n'y a pas de frontière entre celui qui le produit et celui qui le reçoit, l'un est dans l'autre et l'autre dans l'un. Cette conception est particulièrement pertinente lorsqu'il s'agit d'analyser ce qui se déroule au cœur des rapports sociaux, quel que soit le domaine d'intervention, la santé, la formation, le travail et de manière plus large encore, le débat politique et sociétal. Ce numéro spécial ne vise pas l'exhaustivité mais présente différentes applications possibles de l'analyse des discours, afin de donner au lecteur des grilles de lecture et des outils qui éclairent la pratique et alimentent la théorie. Discourse analysis is still underdeveloped in Psychology. However, it offers both a precise theoretical framework and various methods of analysis, which make it possible to deal with issues at the heart of psychology and the missions of the practicing psychologists. All discourse is the result of a join construction; it integrates cross-perceptions as well as inter-individual and inter-group relational dynamics. There is no border between the individual who produced the discourse, and the individual who receives it. One is in the other and the other is in one. This conception is particularly relevant when it comes to analyzing what takes place at the heart of social relations, whatever the field of intervention: health, training, work and even more broadly the political and societal debate. This special issue does not aim to be exhaustive but presents different possible applications of discourse analysis, in order to provide the reader, reading grids and tools, which inform practice and nourish theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Climate change and climate change policies are highly partisan in the U.S. • The effect of expressive partisanship on climate change attitudes is unknown. • Identity-based vs. instrumental accounts of partisan identity. • Results are consistent with an identity-based perspective on partisanship. The partisan divide on climate policy in the United States is well-documented. Decarbonizing the energy system is key to addressing climate change, and social support for many energy policies is not as starkly partisan as the question of the existence of climate change. In this analysis, we blend insights from social psychology and political science that suggest that partisanship is a social identity with varying salience across individuals. We integrate the concept of expressive partisanship with research on social support for energy policy by arguing that there are potentially two types of expressive partisans—ideological and identitarian expressive. Using data from the Climate Change in the American Mind study, our results imply that partisan polarization on energy and climate policy is driven by identitarian expressiveness, rather than deep ideological differences between liberals and conservative, or Democrats and Republicans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The epidemic of political disinformation in social media has in part triggered the transition to the post-truth era in which emotional and ideological appeals are more influential in shaping public opinion than objective facts. In this study we examined the cognitive and affective responses that political disinformation prompted in Facebook, as the most popular social media platform. Through text analysis of user comments corpora on nearly 2,100 political posts from popular sources in Facebook, we found that compared to true news, political disinformation received significantly less analytic responses from Facebook followers. While the results indicated greater anxiety in responses to true news, responses to political disinformation were filled with greater anger and incivility. We also found similar (low) levels of cognitive thinking in responses to extreme conservative and extreme liberal disinformation. Contrary to prior research findings, our results indicated that responses to extreme liberal disinformation in Facebook were filled with greater anger and incivility. This suggests that the incivility and outrage in online political discourses should not be attributed to a specific political party without considering the concurrent political events. • Compared to true news, political disinformation received less analytic responses. • Responses to political disinformation were filled with anger and incivility. • There was greater anxiety in user responses to true news than to disinformation. • Responses to conservative and liberal disinformation were similarly less analytic. • Incivility and anger were most prevalent in responses to liberal disinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are artificial intelligence's complimenting and displacing labor market effects corresponding with similar polarization in socio-political beliefs? This study answers this question by analyzing survey data of 26,311 Americans, collected from the American National Election Survey. Data is deployed alongside 22-category Manyika et al. (2017) 'automation potential' estimates (proxying for 'displacement due to AI') and Michael Webb (2019) 'AI-exposure' estimates (proxying for labor complimented by AI). The study summarizes the demographic characteristics and socio-political views of the highly AI-exposed and automation-susceptible groups. It deploys a year and region fixed effects OLS model, with standard error clustered at the occupation level. This study then finds that automation-susceptible 'losers' of AI are more likely to be culturally conservative and economically left-leaning. Those complimented by AI are more likely to hold socially liberal and fiscally conservative views. The results suggest AI's labor market polarization may accompany radicalization and socio-political divergence, with implications for vote capture and representation of working-class interests in government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the link between personality and attitudes towards good citizenship and civic duty. To do so we recruited 371 eligible Canadian voters from a national panel, asking a variety of questions regarding their level of political participation and attitudinal questions regarding the importance of a number of behaviors typically associated with good citizenship (i.e., voting, paying taxes, staying informed, etc.). Importantly, we included two batteries of personality items: the HEXACO, which covers general personality (Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience), and the Dark Triad (psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism). The analysis reveals a consistent and important explanatory role for personality, even after controlling for standard explanatory factors such as age, gender, income, education, political interest, knowledge, efficacy, and placement on the left-right scale. Among other findings, we document a positive relationship between the endorsement of good citizenship and narcissism, and a negative relationship for psychopathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Prior research showed that women are generally more supportive than men of censoring hate speech and this sex difference remained significant after such variables as authoritarianism and political conservatism were controlled for. However, an explanation of that sex difference is lacking. A recent theory distinguishes between pathogen-, sexual, and moral disgust, and we hypothesize that pathogen- and sexual disgust sensitivity will mediate the sex difference in support of censoring hate speech. This is because 1) women typically show stronger pathogen- and sexual disgust sensitivity and 2) people higher in pathogen- and sexual disgust sensitivity are more repulsed by stimuli related to infection (e.g., blood) and sexual assaults. Hate speech can produce both types of stimuli by instigating violence. Indeed, two studies (N = 250 and 289) show a robust indirect effect through sexual disgust sensitivity that explains over 50% of the total effect of sex on censorship support and renders the direct effect of sex non-significant. The indirect effect through pathogen disgust sensitivity is also significant but the direct effect of sex remains significant. These findings extend censorship-attitude research, inform the explanation of a similar sex difference in political intolerance, and further suggest that sexual disgust sensitivity shapes political psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent political events around the world, including the apparently sudden rise of populism and decline of democratic zeal, have surprised many of us and offered a window onto how people form beliefs and attitudes about the wider world. Cognitive scientists have tended to view belief and attitude formation from one of three perspectives: as a process of deliberative reasoning, as a gut reaction modulated by feelings, or as a cultural phenomenon grounded in partisan relationships. This special issue on the cognitive science of political thought brings a variety of voices to bear on the issue. The upshot is that each perspective captures part of the dynamics of opinion change, but the underlying processes operate in an integrated way. Individuals' affective reactions are conditioned by the social world, and therefore reflect their community norms. They often precede processes of reasoning, but not always. In turn, reasoning is generally motivated in the service of transmitting beliefs acquired from citizens' communities of belief. Cognition is largely a filter for attending to and sharing community norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An emerging literature in psychology and political science has identified political identity as an important driver of political decisions. However, less is known about how a person's political identity is incorporated into their broader self-concept and why it influences some people more than others. We examined the role of political identity in representations of the self-concept as one determinant of people's political behaviors. We tested the predictions of a recent theoretical account of self-concept representation that, inspired by work on conceptual representation, emphasizes the role of causal beliefs. This account predicts that people who believe that their political identity is causally central (linked to many other features of the self-concept) will be more likely to engage in behaviors consistent with their political identity than those who believe that the same aspect is causally peripheral (linked to fewer other features). Consistent with these predictions, in a study run when political identity was particularly salient-during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election-we found that U.S. voters who believed their political party identity was more causally central (vs. those who believe it was causally peripheral) were more likely to vote for their political party's candidate. Further, in two studies, we found that U.K. residents who believed that their English or British national identity was more causally central were more likely to support the U.K. leaving the European Union (Brexit) than those who believed the same identities were more causally peripheral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Actively open-minded thinking (AOT) is measured by questionnaire items that tap the willingness to consider alternative opinions, the sensitivity to evidence contradictory to current beliefs, the willingness to postpone closure, and reflective thought. AOT has been found to be a strong predictor of performance on heuristics and biases tasks and of the avoidance of reasoning traps such as superstitious thinking and belief in conspiracy theories. Recently, several studies that have employed short forms of the AOT scale have shown startlingly high negative correlations with religiosity (in the range of -0.50 to -0.70). In a re-analysis of a large dataset, we demonstrate that it was a particular type of AOT item (termed a belief revision item, BR) that accounts for these large correlations. To our consternation, we realized that it was our research team that had introduced these items into the literature two decades ago, but we had heretofore never realized the potential for these items to skew correlations. In a new experiment, we demonstrate how BR items of this type disadvantage religious-minded subjects, and we show that it is possible to construct BR items with parallel content that are not so demographically biased. We also show that unbiased BR items do not sacrifice the predictive power that has previously been shown by AOT scales. We believe this lesson in item construction resulted from the lack of intellectual diversity in our own laboratory (specifically, the overwhelmingly secular composition of our lab personnel). We believe this case study shows the importance of intellectual diversity in psychology, especially when studying such topics as religiosity and political attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, we investigated voters' mathematical processing of election-related information before and after the 2012 and 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections. We presented voters with mental math problems based on fictional polling results, and asked participants who they intended to vote for and who they expected to win. We found that committed voters (in both 2012 and 2016) demonstrated wishful thinking, with inflated expectations that their preferred candidate would win. When performing mathematical operations on polling information, voters in 2012 and 2016 deflated support for the opponent. Underestimation of the opponent was found to be absent among the participants who did not expect their preferred candidate to win. Identical experiments conducted after the elections revealed that partisan mathematical biases largely disappeared in favor of estimates in alignment with reality. Results indicate that mathematical processing of political polling data is biased by people's voting intentions and wishful thinking, and, crucially, by their expectations about the likely or actual state of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The low supply of organs is a global concern. It is crucial to recognize the barriers, whether cognitive or emotional, that influence individuals' willingness to sign up onto organ donation registries. In the current investigation, we hypothesize that a politically-conservative ideology reduces people's organ donation intentions. This is likely since individuals with a conservative ideology care more about the integrity of the human body, are more disgusted by the very act of organ donations, and believe that signing onto such registries would be tempting fate. We test and confirm this possibility in a study with 148 Australians. The findings indicate that political ideology can be a predictor of individuals' likelihood of becoming organ donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, advances in technology and connectivity have led to the boom of Internet-based and mobile applications (Apps) which have rendered access to information easier and faster and have changed our daily lives. With 60 million people living with diabetes (PWD) in Europe and 32 million more at risk, diabetes has been a major target for software companies, with the aim to help people manage their chronic condition, and to prevent diabetes in people at risk. IDF Europe is the voice of 70 national associations, representing PWD and health professionals in 47 European countries, and a strong supporter of innovation in healthcare. Witnessing the emergence of Apps in the field of diabetes, given the general uptake of a connected lifestyle, and recognising the potential in the ability of these Apps to make an impact on the lives of PWD, IDF Europe reflected on Mobile Applications in Diabetes, examining Diabetes and new technology through psychology, motivation and behavioral change in diabetes management; the healthcare professional perspective; potential roles of diabetes-related Apps, pointing to existing evidence and important ethical issues; and finally offering recommendations on four levels: individual, healthcare professional, political and App developers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Existing evidence shows that media exposure is associated with increased political popularity, but we know less about how the electoral effects of media coverage may vary with the content of the coverage. By collecting hundreds of thousands of media articles, which we then sort by content using automatic topic modelling, we build a unique dataset of political candidates, their popularity, and the quantity and type of media exposure that candidates receive. Analysing this dataset, we find that media attention is, indeed, an electoral asset. Further, and crucially, we find that voters reward politicians for politically relevant exposure, while non-political exposure is ignored, or even penalised. Consequently, this is good news for how democracies work; voters hold politicians accountable based on relevant information. The findings are of relevance to students of media, political behaviour, parties and political competition, as well as normative democratic theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) has shown inconsistent results as a predictor of beliefs in conspiracy theories (CTs). The present investigation attempted to clarify these results by separating anti-establishment CTs, which challenge the existing social order, from pro-establishment CTs, which seek to justify and reinforce it against external threats. In two MTurk samples (N = 294, 200), RWA correlated strongly with pro-establishment CTs but weakly with anti-establishment CTs. Regression analyses suggest that after controlling for exposure to the CTs, this gap in the predictive power of RWA can be explained by differences in attitudes toward their alleged perpetrators, highlighting the importance of intergroup attitudes as an important driver of CT endorsement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Genopolitics is an approach to studying political phenomena that combines biology with political science. • An analysis of genopolitics shows that it assumes methodological reductionism but rejects ontological and epistemological reductionism. • Key consequences of the findings are the irreducibility of political science to biology and the complementarity of genopolitical explanations and political science explanations based on culturalism. The past two decades have seen an increase in the use of theories, data, assumptions and methods of the biological sciences in studying political phenomena. One of the approaches that combine biology with political science is genopolitics. The goal of the study was to analyse the basic ontological, methodological and epistemological assumptions for the reductionism of genopolitics. The results show that genopolitics assumes methodological reductionism but rejects ontological and epistemological reductionism. The key consequences of the findings are the irreducibility of political science to biology and the complementarity of genopolitical explanations and political science explanations based on culturalism. If my findings prove to be correct, they give rise to the formation of a hypothesis regarding the anti-reductionist orientation of the contemporary links between political science and biology. An important step towards confirming or falsifying such a hypothesis will be exploring the reductionism of contemporary biopolitical approaches such as neuropolitics or evolutionary political psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Although the benefits of vaccines are widely recognized by medical experts, public opinion about vaccination policies is mixed. We analyze public opinion about vaccination policies to assess whether Dunning-Kruger effects can help to explain anti-vaccination policy attitudes. Rationale People low in autism awareness – that is, the knowledge of basic facts and dismissal of misinformation about autism – should be the most likely to think that they are better informed than medical experts about the causes of autism (a Dunning-Kruger effect). This “overconfidence” should be associated with decreased support for mandatory vaccination policies and skepticism about the role that medical professionals play in the policymaking process. Method In an original survey of U.S. adults ( N  = 1310), we modeled self-reported overconfidence as a function of responses to a knowledge test about the causes of autism, and the endorsement of misinformation about a link between vaccines and autism. We then modeled anti-vaccination policy support and attitudes toward the role that experts play in the policymaking process as a function of overconfidence and the autism awareness indicators while controlling for potential confounding factors. Results More than a third of respondents in our sample thought that they knew as much or more than doctors (36%) and scientists (34%) about the causes of autism. Our analysis indicates that this overconfidence is highest among those with low levels of knowledge about the causes of autism and those with high levels of misinformation endorsement. Further, our results suggest that this overconfidence is associated with opposition to mandatory vaccination policy. Overconfidence is also associated with increased support for the role that non-experts (e.g., celebrities) play in the policymaking process. Conclusion Dunning-Kruger effects can help to explain public opposition to vaccination policies and should be carefully considered in future research on anti-vaccine policy attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Donald Trump's ascension to the Republican Party nomination and election as President of the United States in 2016 was a surprise to many political analysts. This article examines the notion that personal values played an important role in support for Trump. Using data from the Trump Similarity Values Test ( N  = 1825), a web based personality test that provides users with feedback on their similarity to Donald Trump, this article shows that personal values played a role in support for Donald Trump. First, people who supported Trump were more likely have a value profile characterized by low Altruism and high Power, Commerce, and Tradition. Second, people with a values profile similar to Trump's (presumed) values profile were more likely to support Trump. These results held even after controlling for party affiliation and political ideology, indicating that personal values were an even stronger predictor of support for Trump than traditional political attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the factors that affect the relationship between cross-cutting exposure and political participation. It was found that cross-cutting exposure to politically disagreeable news on Facebook, overall, was associated with increased political participation both online and offline. The association was stronger when the cross-cutting exposure came from weak ties, or acquaintances and strangers, and when the individuals were highly engaged with the cross-cutting news. Cross-cutting exposure from strong ties showed no significant relationship with political participation. It is suggested that cross-cutting exposure and political participation in the age of social media are different from those of the offline world, because they are supported by the norm of individual self-expression and take place in more anonymous and comfortable settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay brings together intersectionality and institutional approaches to health inequalities, suggesting an integrative analytical framework that accounts for the complexity of the intertwined influence of both individual social positioning and institutional stratification on health. This essay therefore advances the emerging scholarship on the relevance of intersectionality to health inequalities research. We argue that intersectionality provides a strong analytical tool for an integrated understanding of health inequalities beyond the purely socioeconomic by addressing the multiple layers of privilege and disadvantage, including race, migration and ethnicity, gender and sexuality. We further demonstrate how integrating intersectionality with institutional approaches allows for the study of institutions as heterogeneous entities that impact on the production of social privilege and disadvantage beyond just socioeconomic (re)distribution. This leads to an understanding of the interaction of the macro and the micro facets of the politics of health. Finally, we set out a research agenda considering the interplay/intersections between individuals and institutions and involving a series of methodological implications for research - arguing that quantitative designs can incorporate an intersectional institutional approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals participate in politics to influence the politicians that prescribe the policies and programs that distribute the public goods and services that shape the social determinants of health. But the opportunity to participate in politics is conditional on survival, and in the U.S., the haves enjoy a significant survival advantage over the have-nots. This process can be detected looking at the relationship between age and participation: It is inflated by the fact that, as time progresses, a higher proportion of low-SES, low-level participation individuals die and are therefore excluded from the available pool of participants faster than high-SES, high-level participation individuals. We analyze this mechanism applying propensity scores matching and multivariate regressions on data from MIDUS I ( Midlife in the United States: A National Study of Health and Well-being ) and its 10-year mortality follow-up. Results show that health differences between 10-year survivors and non-survivors explain 56% of their differences in socio-political participation. Survivors participate at higher levels than non-survivors across all age groups and SES levels; without detrimental differences in health, individuals would participate 28% more as they age. The same disadvantaged individuals whose increased participation would pressure for redistributive policies are those who die off from the available pool of participants at much higher rates than socioeconomically advantaged individuals. The proposed conceptual model helps to explain how, through the early disappearance of the poor, continuing socio-political participation of high-SES survivors helps to perpetuate inequality in the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European colonial powers invaded and then dominated a large part of the African continent from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. The influence of colonialism did not cease after independence as it still impregnates the cultures and identities of both formerly colonising and formerly colonised peoples. The question of how inhabitants of formerly colonised and formerly colonising countries represent the colonial past is a key issue in understanding this lasting influence. Social representations of European colonial action were investigated among young people ( N = 1134) in three European countries and six African countries. Social representations of the colonial past were structured around two main dimensions across African and European samples: Exploitation and Development. Social representations of colonialism denoted by Exploitation were more strongly endorsed by the European compared to the African subsample, whereas those denoted by Development were more strongly endorsed by the African compared to the European subsample. However, while African participants considered colonialism less negatively than Europeans, they also had higher expectations concerning Europeans’ collective guilt feeling and willingness to offer reparations. By contrast, European participants’ social representations of colonialism were more negative but they were less likely to believe that present-day European peoples and governments are accountable for the misdeeds of colonialism in the past. Finally, national identification mediated the association between the Exploitation dimension of colonialism and both group-based emotions and support for reparation in the African, but not the European, subsample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research predicting political attitudes from belief systems has predominantly focused on general ideologies that neglect the specific socio-historical contexts in which these attitudes develop. We address this limitation by proposing that bicultural-related political attitudes in post-colonial nations are best predicted by ideologies specific to the post-colonial context. Two post-colonial ideologies previously demonstrated to predict political attitudes are the belief (a) that colonial history is irrelevant to contemporary inequalities (Historical Negation) and (b) that Indigenous cultures are irrelevant to national identity (Symbolic Exclusion). As hypothesized, results from a national probability sample of adult Pākehā (i.e., New Zealand Europeans; N = 15,607) showed that Historical Negation and Symbolic Exclusion uniquely predicted opposition to four resource-based bicultural policies after adjusting for a range of general ideologies and demographic characteristics. These findings demonstrate the need to examine ideologies that develop within a particular socio-historical context when predicting political attitudes in post-colonial nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2016 presidential election was one of the most politically charged and volatile elections in recent history. The election also saw its first female candidate, Hillary Clinton, represent a major political party. Prior research is inconclusive on how biases can affect political outcomes, with some research showing that racism has affected presidential elections, while others have shown that sexism does not affect elections. However, agentic women often face discrimination and backlash when seeking positions of power. The current study sought to extend past work by examining the potential role of sexism in the 2016 election. After controlling for participant sex, time of participation, and political party identification, it was found that individual differences in hostile sexism and traditional attitudes toward women significantly predicted voting for Donald Trump. These results suggest that voter attitudes toward women may have played a role in the election outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low-information rationality theory expects voters with low political knowledge to make more use of the partisan heuristic than those with high knowledge. However, empirical studies on decision making in direct democracy observe a positive correlation between political knowledge and the use of party cues. We resolve this tension between theory and empirical evidence by demonstrating that the relationship between political knowledge and the use of party cues is conditional on the information environment. We provide evidence for this hypothesis by exploiting a natural experiment in Switzerland and analyze a large variety of direct democratic votes. The results show that voters with lower levels of political knowledge tend to align less with their preferred party because they often have a wrong perception of their preferred party's vote recommendation. However, if information on parties' position is easily available, their vote choice is at least as much in line with their preferred party as among those with high knowledge. This suggests that in such an information environment voters with low political knowledge strongly rely on the partisan heuristic. Our research note supports the low-information rationality theory and this way contributes to the literature on the quality of political opinion formation and the political psychology of reasoning and decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Citizens’ aspirations are increasingly recognized as an important dimension of their well-being. Those with high aspirations set ambitious goals for themselves, and those with low aspirations may fall prey to a poverty trap. Do natural disasters negatively impact aspirations? If so, can governments blunt these effects? We consider Pakistan’s devastating 2010 floods—and the government’s uneven relief efforts—to analyze these questions. We first show that the extreme rainfall generating this disaster significantly reduced aspirations, even when current levels of household expenditure, wealth, and education are taken into account. Individuals experiencing 2010 monsoon season rainfall that was one standard deviation higher than average had aspiration levels 1.5 years later that were 0.15 standard deviations lower than those of similar individuals experiencing just average levels of rainfall. This is the same negative shock to aspirations that one would experience as a result of a 50% reduction in household expenditures. Moreover, the negative effect of natural disasters on aspirations is especially strong among the poor, and among those who are most vulnerable to weather shocks. However, exploiting exogenous variation in flood relief access, we show that government social protection can attenuate these negative impacts. Individuals in villages that received Citizens Damage Compensation (Watan Card) Program flood relief—providing cash equivalent to 9.4% of annual household expenditures in each of the three years following the disaster—saw significantly lower declines in aspirations than did those in similarly affected villages without this relief. This offers a new understanding of social protection; it not only restores livelihoods and replaces damaged assets, but also has an enduring effect by easing mental burdens, and thus raising aspirations for the future. The negative effects of natural disasters and the efficacy of government relief programs may thus be underestimated if aspirations are ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two central debates within Moral Foundations Theory concern (1) which moral foundations are core and (2) how conflict between ideological camps stemming from valuing different moral foundations can be resolved. Previous studies have attempted to answer the first question by imposing cognitive load on participants to direct them toward intuitive and automatic thought. However, this method has limitations and has produced mixed findings. In the present research, in two experiments, instead of directing participants toward intuitive thought, we tested the effects of activating high-effort, analytic thought on participants' moral foundations. In both experiments, analytic thought activation caused participants to value individualizing foundations greater than the control condition. This effect was not qualified by participants' political orientation. No effect was observed on binding foundations. The results are consistent with the idea that upholding individualizing foundations requires mental effort and may provide the basis for reconciliation between different ideological camps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses the Big Five framework to investigate personality differences between politicians and the general public and between politicians themselves based on ideology and party identification. A 50-item Big Five questionnaire was taken by 2586 respondents at the Open Psychology data website and 278 American state legislators. The author finds that politicians are more Extraverted, Agreeable, Emotionally Stable, and Conscientious than the general public. At the same time, they are slightly lower on Intellect/Imagination. All results are statistically significant for all traits and both sexes, except with regards to females and Intellect. When comparing politicians to one another and controlling for demographic variables, Republicans score higher on Conscientiousness and lower on Intellect and Agreeableness. These findings hold for a smaller sample when ideology is the dependent variable, although only Intellect/Imagination reaches statistical significance. Conservative ideology is also associated with Emotional Stability. The results show important differences between politicians and the public, and reveal personality differences among elites that are in some ways analogous to the results we find in more representative samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective obesity prevention requires a synergistic mix of population-level interventions including a strong role for government and the regulation of the marketing, labelling, content and pricing of energy-dense foods and beverages. In this paper we adopt the agenda of the Australian Federal Government (AFG) as a case study to understand the factors generating or hindering political priority for such ‘regulatory interventions’ between 1990 and 2011. Using a theoretically-guided process tracing method we undertook documentary analysis and conducted 27 interviews with a diversity of actors involved in obesity politics. The analysis was structured by a theoretical framework comprising four dimensions: the power of actors involved; the ideas the actors deploy to interpret and portray the issue; the institutional and political context; and issue characteristics. Despite two periods of sustained political attention, political priority for regulatory interventions did not emerge and was hindered by factors from all four dimensions. Within the public health community, limited cohesion among experts and advocacy groups hampered technical responses and collective action efforts. An initial focus on children (child obesity), framing the determinants of obesity as ‘obesogenic environments’, and the deployment of ‘protecting kids’, ‘industry demonization’ and ‘economic costs’ frames generated political attention. Institutional norms within government effectively selected out regulatory interventions from consideration. The ‘productive power’ and activities of the food and advertising industries presented formidable barriers, buttressed by a libertarian/neolibertarian rhetoric emphasizing individual responsibility, a negative view of freedom (as free from ‘nanny-state’ intervention) and the idea that regulation imposes an unacceptable cost on business. Issue complexity, the absence of a supportive evidence base and a strict ‘evidence-based’ policy-making approach were used as rationales to defer political priority. Overcoming these challenges may be important to future collective action efforts attempting to generate and sustain political priority for regulatory interventions targeting obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This meta-analysis of 20 studies (including a total of 26,302 children) examined effects of political violence exposure for Jewish Israeli, Arab Israeli and Palestinian youth from 12 years of research in the Middle East conflict. The meta-analysis found a small relation between exposure and all symptoms examined, namely posttraumatic, behavioral and emotional symptoms, among all children. The relation between exposure and posttraumatic or emotional symptoms was significantly higher than that between exposure and behavioral symptoms. The relation between proximity to exposure and symptoms was significantly stronger than that for direct exposure, which was significantly stronger than that for media exposure. Implications of these findings extend beyond the geographic borders of this particular conflict. Millions of children worldwide are affected by armed conflict, war and terrorism and understanding the toll on children is of theoretical, clinical and practical import. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using nationally representative survey data from the United States, we explored how social media use influences the formation of attitudes toward political compromise. We also analyzed the moderating effects of the Big Five personality traits and individual preference for living in a homogeneous or heterogeneous community on the relationship between social media use and political compromise. The results revealed that a preference for living in a heterogeneous community, where most residents have different opinions on politics, related positively to favorable attitudes toward political compromise. Moreover, two of the Big Five personality traits, agreeableness and conscientiousness, moderated the influence of social media use on attitudes toward political compromise. These findings suggest that social media use has differential effects on the formation of attitudes toward political compromise, depending on personality traits, rather than having a uniform influence. The results and corresponding implications are discussed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With Donald Trump the Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee for the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, speculations of why Trump resonates with many Americans are widespread - as are suppositions of whether, independent of party identification, people might vote for Hillary Clinton. The present study, using a sample of American adults (n = 406), investigated whether two ideological beliefs, namely, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) uniquely predicted Trump support and voting intentions for Clinton. Cognitive ability as a predictor of RWA and SDO was also tested. Path analyses, controlling for political party identification, revealed that higher RWA and SDO uniquely predicted more favorable attitudes of Trump, greater intentions to vote for Trump, and lower intentions to vote for Clinton. Lower cognitive ability predicted greater RWA and SDO and indirectly predicted more favorable Trump attitudes, greater intentions to vote for Trump and lower intentions to vote for Clinton. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social cohesion issues, such as xenophobia and racism, are major societal challenges for South Africa. What can be put forward to address these challenges? By drawing together separate threads of literature from Pan-Africanism and common ingroup identities, the study puts forward the Pan-African Solidarity thesis: low levels of supranational identification with Africa undermines social cohesion in South Africa and low supranational identifications are caused by local ideational/socio-psychological factors as well as cluing from political elites. This thesis is unique, mass identifications with Africa are understudied and little is known about how people in the country identify with the continent. In order to validate this Pan-African Solidarity thesis, the article will answer three important questions: (i) are mass identifications with Africa in South Africa low?; (ii) are attachment to an African identity associated with anti-minority views?; and (iii) what is driving mass identifications with Africa? An IPSOS funded attitudinal dataset fielded in four of the country's nine provinces was used to answer these questions. Results provide empirical support for the Pan-African Solidarity thesis and found that a continental identity was related to intolerance of different outgroups (e.g., racial minorities, refugees and cross-border migrants). This is consistent with the expectations of the Common Ingroup Identity Model. But the study also makes original contributions to the literature, finding that the formation of continental identifications is informed by South Africa's history of white settler colonialism. Cross-border contact, retrospective sociotropic evaluations, pro-black sentiment and trust in national elites were identified as determinants of citizens' identification with Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the conditions under which voters in emerging democracies support non-viable candidates. We argue that cognitive biases and the geographic clustering of minor-party supporters in ethno-political enclaves lead to misperceptions about the electoral prospects of minor-party candidates, weakening strategic defections both among co-ethnic and non-co-ethnic supporters. We explore these arguments using original survey data from Kenya's 2007 presidential election, a contest that featured a minor-party candidate, Kalonzo Musyoka, who stood little chance of electoral victory. Despite this, results show that most of his supporters chose to vote for the candidate, failing to perceive that he was not a viable contender. The findings suggest that theories of political behavior in multi-ethnic settings can be enriched by drawing upon insights from the political psychology literature on belief formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polarization is one of the biggest societal challenges of our time, yet its drivers are poorly understood. Here we propose a novel approach – computational political psychology – which uses behavioral tasks in combination with formal computational models to identify candidate cognitive processes underpinning susceptibility to polarized beliefs about political and societal issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a moral logic to reasoning about political violence. People will often fight not for individual or collective material gain, but because of their commitment to abstract moral and sacred ideas. Moreover, decisions to support or oppose war are descriptively deontological and are relatively insensitive to material costs or benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political party gatekeepers of candidate lists fear that voters stereotype Muslim politicians as homophobic. But do voters really do this? Building on the literatures on political psychology, political inclusion, homonationalism and populism, I juxtapose stereotyping and projection as two distinct mechanisms that shape voter expectations. I asked 3056 respondents in France, Germany, and the Netherlands what they expect of Muslim and non-religious politicians through conjoint experiments. I found that voters with lukewarm attitudes towards homosexuality tend to stereotype Muslim politicians as homophobic, while voters with strong positive or negative attitudes towards homosexuality tend to project their own opinions onto politicians, be they Muslim or non-religious. Voters who are the most in favor of same-sex adoption also feel the most similar to Muslims and their perceived similarity predicts expectations of Muslim politicians. These findings cast doubt on the dilemmas party gatekeepers struggle with to include Muslim politicians on electoral lists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is the lack of consensus about the effect of corruption on healthcare satisfaction in transitional countries. Interpreting the burgeoning literature on this topic has proven difficult due to reverse causality and omitted variable bias. In this study, the effect of corruption on healthcare satisfaction is investigated in a set of 12 Post-Socialist countries using instrumental variable regression on the sample of 2010 Life in Transition survey (N = 8655). The results indicate that experiencing corruption significantly reduces healthcare satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationships between social value orientation, socio-political attitudes and prejudice was investigated in three studies (total N = 1069). Participants filled in questionnaires containing measures of social value orientation, left–right political orientation, social worldviews (i.e. dangerous world and competitive jungle), right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO) and prejudice towards immigrants. Study 1 showed that a proself orientation was associated to right-wing political orientation through the mediation of RWA and SDO. Study 2 revealed that social worldviews mediated the relationships of a proself orientation with RWA and SDO. Finally, Study 3 indicated that a proself orientation was related to prejudice through the intervention of social worldviews, RWA and SDO. Overall, these findings provided robust evidence about the elevant role of interpersonal orientation underpinning socio-political attitudes and prejudice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compulsory voting is assumed to have both primary and secondary effects on citizens' political behaviour. While compulsion increases voter turnout, its effects on political engagement, democratic satisfaction, and electoral advantage are still debated. This study hypothesises that compulsory voting increases citizens’ political knowledge, either because voters choose to become informed given the requirement to vote, or because the process of voting itself imparts incidental knowledge. It also hypothesises that knowledge is distributed more evenly in compulsory systems. Multivariate analysis of data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (Modules 1 to 4) finds some support for the first hypothesis, and stronger evidence in support of the second hypothesis. These findings inform normative debates on the merits of compulsory voting rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In explaining individual behavior in politics, economists should rely on the same motivational assumptions they use to explain behavior in the market: that is what Political Economy, understood as the application of economics to the study of political processes, is all about. In its standard variant, individuals who play the game of politics should also be considered rational and self-interested, unlike the benevolent despot of traditional welfare economics. History repeats itself with the rise of behavioral economics: Assuming cognitive biases to be present in the market, but not in politics, behavioral economists often call for government to intervene in a “benevolent” way. Recently, however, political economists have started to apply behavioral economics insights to the study of political processes, thereby re-establishing a unified methodology. This paper surveys the current state of the emerging field of “behavioral political economy” and considers the scope for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse a psychologically-based model of voter turnout in an election with common value and uncertainty about who the best candidate is. Potential voters' behaviour is based on anticipated regret, where voters will experience regret if they fail to vote or vote for the wrong candidate. Furthermore, such regret is stronger when the margin of victory is smaller. We characterize mixed and pure-strategy equilibria, which can be desirable, where the right candidate is always elected in all states, or undesirable, where the wrong candidate is elected in some state. Our model yields distinctive comparative statics results. First, an increase in the proportion of informed citizens may cause the winning margin for the right candidate to either rise or fall, depending on the type of equilibrium. In addition, such an increase can have a non-monotonic effect on turnout of uninformed citizens. Second, as the prior becomes more favourable towards the ex ante favoured candidate, turnouts of informed and uninformed voters both change in a non-monotonic way. Furthermore, total turnout can be positively or negatively correlated with winning margins. The distinctive implications of our model could be tested using experimental or empirical studies. In addition, given its inclusion of uncertainty, our model can be used to study, in future research, information provision and acquisition as well as other policy questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies suggest psychological differences between conservatives and liberals, including that conservatives are more overconfident. We use a behavioral political economy model to show that while this is undoubtedly true for election years in the current era, there is no reason to believe that conservative ideologies are intrinsically linked to overconfidence. Indeed, it appears that in 1980 and before, conservatives and liberals were equally overconfident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether personality traits predict an individual's perceived accuracy and sharing intention of political misinformation and if cognitive ability further moderates this relationship. An analysis of survey data from the US revealed that individuals with high agreeableness and low extraversion were more likely to discern pro-conservative misinformation correctly. Individuals with high agreeableness and conscientiousness were also less likely to share partisan misinformation. Further, individuals with high cognitive ability were more likely to discern correctly and less likely to share misinformation across the partisan spectrum. Moderation analyses suggest that low cognitive individuals with higher neuroticism and openness are more prone to sharing partisan misinformation. However, high levels of agreeableness can safeguard low cognitive individuals from sharing. We discuss the implications of this work for theorizing misinformation engagement and its effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]