Lower levels of resistance to change (but not opposition to equality) is related to analytic cognitive style

Abstract

In recent years, there has been increasing research attention to cognitive style differences between liberals and conservatives. While some studies have found a negative relation between conservatism and analytic thinking tendency, others have not observed such a relation. None of these studies has measured the core motives underlying conservative ideology and investigated their relation with analytic cognitive style (ACS). We predicted that ACS is related to only one of the core motives underlying conservatism (resistance to change), but not the other (opposition to equality). This hypothesis was supported in three non-Western samples (total n = 1,552). This finding may clarify why some studies found a relation between cognitive style and conservatism, while others did not.