The Role of Moral Foundations Theory in Political Conservatism

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Stanford University social psychologist John Joseph and his colleagues published a paper in the prestigious journal psychological bulletin entitled political conservatism as motivated social cognition. It was a synthesis of 50 years of findings published in 88 papers encompassing 22,818 subjects that led researchers to conclude the conservatives suffer from uncertainty avoidance terror management along with dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity. Jordan Peterson said you know this has not been replicated and it has flaws and so on okay yeahYeah I think even um you know there's also like Jonathan Heitz work with moral foundations theory there's some studies that have questioned call that into question two because liberals and conservatives sort of emphasize different values but again some challenges that is like well it kind

The democratic ideal demands that the citizenry think critically about matters of public import. Yet many Democrats and Republicans in the United States have fallen short of that standard because political tribalism motivates them to acquire, perceive and evaluate political information in a biased manner. The result is an electorate that is more extreme, hostile and willing to reject unfavorable democratic outcomes.

Shermer and Redmond discuss: why we have political duopoly (Duverger’s law) • parties vs. policies • Are we living in a post-truth, fake-news, alternative facts world? • How do we know political polarization is worse now than in the past? • acquiring, perceiving, and evaluating political information • evaluating: false political information, political numbers and arguments, claims of rigged election • whataboutism • cognitive responsibilities of citizenship • cognitive biases • political polarization • myside bias • numeracy vs. innumeracy • solutions to the polarization problem.

Timothy J. Redmond received his PhD in political science from the University at Buffalo. He is an award-winning educator and author of over one hundred articles on critical thinking and politics. He is a professor at Daemen University where he teaches a political science and history course for education students.