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Feeling superior is a bipartisan issue: extremity (not direction) of political views predicts perceived belief superiority.

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Date
2013-12
Authors
Toner, Kaitlin
Leary, Mark R
Asher, Michael W
Jongman-Sereno, Katrina P
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Abstract
Accusations of entrenched political partisanship have been launched against both conservatives and liberals. But is feeling superior about one's beliefs a partisan issue? Two competing hypotheses exist: the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis (i.e., conservatives are dogmatic) and the ideological-extremism hypothesis (i.e., extreme views on both sides predict dogmatism). We measured 527 Americans' attitudes about nine contentious political issues, the degree to which they thought their beliefs were superior to other people's, and their level of dogmatism. Dogmatism was higher for people endorsing conservative views than for people endorsing liberal views, which replicates the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis. However, curvilinear effects of ideological attitude on belief superiority (i.e., belief that one's position is more correct than another's) supported the ideological-extremism hypothesis. Furthermore, responses reflecting the greatest belief superiority were obtained on conservative attitudes for three issues and liberal attitudes for another three issues. These findings capture nuances in the relationship between political beliefs and attitude entrenchment that have not been revealed previously.
Type
Journal article
Subject
Humans
Attitude
Prejudice
Politics
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Middle Aged
Male
Young Adult
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/23968
Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1177/0956797613494848
Publication Info
Toner, Kaitlin; Leary, Mark R; Asher, Michael W; & Jongman-Sereno, Katrina P (2013). Feeling superior is a bipartisan issue: extremity (not direction) of political views predicts perceived belief superiority. Psychological science, 24(12). pp. 2454-2462. 10.1177/0956797613494848. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/23968.
This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Scholars@Duke

Leary

Mark R. Leary

Garonzik Family Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Mark Leary is Garonzik Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University.  He earned his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from West Virginia Wesleyan College and his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Florida.  He taught previously at Denison University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Wake Forest University. Leary has published 14 books and more than 250 scholarly articles and chapters on topics dealing with social motivation, emotion, a
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