Personality, Ideology, Prejudice, and Politics: A Dual‐Process Motivational Model

Abstract

Early theorists assumed that sociopolitical or ideological attitudes were organized along a single left-right dimension and directly expressed a basic personality dimension. Empirical findings, however, did not support this and suggested that there seem to be 2 distinct ideological attitude dimensions, best captured by the constructs of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation, which express 2 distinct sets of motivational goals or values. We outline a dual-process motivational (DPM) model of how these 2 dimensions originate from particular personality dispositions and socialized worldview beliefs and how and why their different underlying motivational goals or values generate their wide-ranging effects on social outcomes, such as prejudice and politics. We then review new research bearing on the model and conclude by noting promising directions for future research.