Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

uu.sePublications from Uppsala University
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Motivated Social Cognition and Authoritarianism: Is It All About Closed-Mindedness?
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology.
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9641-6275
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology. Harvard Univ, Dept Psychol, 33 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA.
Stockholm Univ, Dept Psychol, Stockholm, Sweden.
2019 (English)In: Journal of Individual Differences, ISSN 1614-0001, E-ISSN 2151-2299, Vol. 40, no 4, p. 204-212Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The domain of motivated social cognition includes a variety of concepts dealing with a need to seek structure and avoid ambiguity, and several of these concepts are also powerful predictors of social attitudes, such as authoritarianism. It is possible though that these relations are due to certain facets reoccurring in the different scales. In this paper, we tested the notion that authoritarianism is predicted specifically by rigidity in beliefs (closed-mindedness), rather than broader cognitive styles. Thus, we initially identified items in the motivated social cognition scales that are specifically measuring closed-mindedness. These items included the closed-mindedness facet of the need for closure scale and items from intolerance of ambiguity and need for cognition. We used these items to predict right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and their common factor authoritarianism (generalized). In line with our prediction, two studies showed that the motivated social cognition scales did not provide a significant prediction of authoritarianism beyond the closed-mindedness items. We conclude that the relation between motivated social cognition and authoritarianism is captured entirely by the former's closed-mindedness component.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
HOGREFE & HUBER PUBLISHERS , 2019. Vol. 40, no 4, p. 204-212
Keywords [en]
motivated social cognition, cognitive styles, closed-mindedness, generalized authoritarianism, SDO, RWA
National Category
Applied Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-404708DOI: 10.1027/1614-0001/a000293ISI: 000507386000003OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-404708DiVA, id: diva2:1396853
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2011-1891Available from: 2020-02-26 Created: 2020-02-26 Last updated: 2020-02-26Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full text

Authority records

Berggren, MathiasAkrami, NazarBergh, Robin

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Berggren, MathiasAkrami, NazarBergh, Robin
By organisation
Department of Psychology
In the same journal
Journal of Individual Differences
Applied Psychology

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 52 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf