Liberals Think More Analytically (More “WEIRD”) Than Conservatives

Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan summarized cultural differences in psychology and argued that people from one particular culture are outliers: people from societies that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD). This study shows that liberals think WEIRDer than conservative...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality & social psychology bulletin 2015-02, Vol.41 (2), p.250-267
Main Authors: Talhelm, Thomas, Haidt, Jonathan, Oishi, Shigehiro, Zhang, Xuemin, Miao, Felicity F., Chen, Shimin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Attitude
China
Comparative analysis
Conservatism
Cultural differences
Culture
Female
Humans
Liberalism
Male
Middle Aged
Peoples Republic of China
Political behavior
Political Culture
Politics
Psychology
Social Perception
Social psychology
Thinking
United States
Urban Areas
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan summarized cultural differences in psychology and argued that people from one particular culture are outliers: people from societies that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD). This study shows that liberals think WEIRDer than conservatives. In five studies with more than 5,000 participants, we found that liberals think more analytically (an element of WEIRD thought) than moderates and conservatives. Study 3 replicates this finding in the very different political culture of China, although it held only for people in more modernized urban centers. These results suggest that liberals and conservatives in the same country think as if they were from different cultures. Studies 4 to 5 show that briefly training people to think analytically causes them to form more liberal opinions, whereas training them to think holistically causes shifts to more conservative opinions.
ISSN:0146-1672
1552-7433
DOI:10.1177/0146167214563672