> Thus, we hypothesized a relation between forms of social rigidity, including Socio-cognitive polarization (i.e., a factor capturing conservative political ideology, absolutism/intolerance of ambiguity, and xenophobia)
Did they seriously classify "conservative political ideology" in general as an aspect of socio-cognitive polarization, and casually toss it into the same bin as xenophobia?
This reeks of bias from a mile away.
In both the US and Italy, conservative ideas are strongly associated with the religious right (Evangelical in the US, and Catholic in Italy). This at minimum means that the results of this study do not necessarily transfer to other societies, but more likely suggests that those two nationalities were deliberately chosen to arrive at a predetermined conclusion.
The initial description of conservatism in the study:
According to the ‘rigidity of the right’ perspective, politically conservative beliefs are paired with cognitive and even perceptual rigidity (e.g., Jost et al., 2003; Tetlock et al., 1985).
Although, people develop ideas of the world based on their own experiences and beliefs. People developing economic theories aren't exempt. It's especially not strange that economic models are biased because economics affects and is affected by society and politics. It would be just dandy if people were more cohesive.
What is your opinion on the section of the paper where they discuss the link between conservative ideology (and political extremism in general, including liberal) and perceptual rigidity, referencing 28 other studies?
But try queering a political binary and all of a sudden everybody's staring at you.
They really do try to slip political bias into this "paper" wherever possible. Bizarre and untrustworthy authorship.
Of course now we have TDS.