Distinct psychological theories make testable rival predictions about ideology and cognitive complexity

Evidence

The primary goal of this study was to test alternative (although not mutually exclusive) hypotheses on the relation between cognitive style and ideology by assessing the integrative complexity of the parliamentarians in the Putnam sample. For instance, the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis leads us to expect that extremely conservative members of Parliament will be less integratively complex than their moderate conservative and socialist colleagues. The ideologue hypothesis leads us to expect that extreme conservatives and extreme socialists will be less integratively complex than their moderate conservative and moderate socialist colleagues. Finally, the value pluralism model leads us to expect that moderate socialists (who, according to Rokeach , place approximately equal importance on freedom and equality) will be more integratively complex than members of all three other ideological groups (who either value freedom over equality, like conservatives, or value equality over freedom, like extreme socialists). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2293

Categorization

• DEFINE: Cleanly distinguishes three rival hypotheses — rigidity-of-the-right, ideologue, and value-pluralism — with falsifiable predictions from each.
• SEED: Angle for a piece: value pluralism as a mechanistic explanation for why political moderates think in more complex ways than extremists.
• XREF: connects to: SDT converts vague ideology claims into empirically testable mediational hypotheses — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 3227