Behavioral, physiological and neural evidence of the role of political ideology in social cognition

The social and economic crisis of the last decade seems to have given new impetus to a thirty years old idea claiming that we are living in post-ideological and post-political world (Fukuyama 1992). This idea is supported by the rising of a wide range of populistic movements claiming their detachment from any political ideology (see for example, Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy, Podemos in Spain, Le Front National in France). Although different, these movements share their opposition to the actual political system and their contempt toward its representatives (i.e., politicians). Starting from this point, we asked ourselves whether this ideological crisis depends on the fact that political ideologies have no longer who can represent them and thus on how political ideology is actually conveyed and perceived by people. Thus, with the present work we aimed at extending the current knowledge on how political ideology affects social cognition, specifically by looking at the impact that presenting political information in different way has on how people perceive, categorize, evaluate and interact with other social entities. In doing so, we either employed different tools and techniques taken both from experimental psychology and neuroscience and we tested politically polarized and non-aligned people to provide a detailed description of these processes. In the second chapter we present three studies that tested whether the way political ideology is conveyed can impact the emergence of the intergroup bias in left and right-wing people. Specifically, we measured how participants evaluated on an emotional and cognitive level their political ingroup and outgroup presented in different forms (i.e., images of politicians, ideological words and items referring to general people belonging to their political ingroup and outgroup). In keeping with this, the study presented in the third chapter explores whether different political ideologies presented in different forms could affect moral decision-making. Specifically, by means of an eye-tracker we measured physiologically whether images of politicians and ideological words representing left and right-wing ideologies and used as primes could affect how politically non-aligned people allocate their attention toward specific information (i.e., personal vs social) and how this, in turn, could drive their tendency to deceive other people during an interactive game. The study in the fourth chapter provides very preliminary evidence of how biases associated to political ideology and another source of social information, such as ethnicity, affect how these information are processed in the brain and, in turn, their impact on people’s ability to discriminate their own facial identity from that of other social entities

Left threatened by Right: political intergroup bias in the contemporary Italian context.

Using different evaluation targets (i.e., politicians’ pictures, ideological words, items referring to features attributed to political ingroup/outgroup) we characterized the intergroup bias among political groups in the Italian context (Study 1-2-3) and tested a model that may account for the bias itself (Study 3). For all evaluation targets, left-wing participants -compared to right wing participants - showed a greater intergroup bias, expressing more negative emotions towards the outgroup. The process was influenced by a greater perceived threat of the outgroup. Conversely, right-wing participants expressed the bias only when presented with ideological words. Our results provide a detailed description of how intergroup bias in Italy is differently expressed by the two ideological groups depending on the targets used to represent the political counterpart. Moreover, the results show that the stronger bias expressed by left-wing participants is driven by perceived threat of the outgroup

Left Threatened by Right: Political Intergroup Bias in the Contemporary Italian Context

Using different evaluation targets (i.e., politicians’ pictures, ideological words, items referring to features attributed to political ingroup/outgroup) we characterized the intergroup bias among political groups in the Italian context (Study 1-2-3) and tested a model that may account for the bias itself (Study 3). For all evaluation targets, left-wing participants - compared to right-wing participants – showed a greater intergroup bias, expressing more negative emotions toward the outgroup. The process was influenced by a greater perceived threat of the outgroup. Conversely, right-wing participants expressed the bias only when presented with ideological words. Our results provide a detailed description of how intergroup bias in Italy is differently expressed by the two ideological groups depending on the targets used to represent the political counterpart. Moreover, the results show that the stronger bias expressed by left-wing participants is driven by perceived threat of the outgroup

AVVIO ALLA RICERCA

Nel mondo politico odierno sconvolto da scandali e malaffari è più che mai importante studiare il ruolo della moralità (o meglio dell'immoralità) nei processi decisionali. Gli obiettivi principali del presente progetto sono: 1) capire se i politici italiani odierni siano ancora in grado di rappresentare le ideologie di cui si fanno portavoce; 2) di comprendere se la decisione di mentire a specifiche persone (alto vs basso status socio-economico) possa dipendere dalle ideologie politiche di riferimento. Per fare ciò alcuni questionari verranno somministrati per selezionati gli stimoli che verranno poi utilizzati nella procedura di priming nel successivo studio comportamentale. Un tipo di stimoli sarà costituito da volti di politici italiani rappresentanti dell'ideologia conservatrice e liberale, l'altro sarà invece costituito da parole connotate per rappresentare le medesime due ideologie. Secondo le nostre ipotesi la salienza dell'immoralità evocata dal volto dei politici dovrebbe portare a un numero maggiore di menzogne, indipendentemente dall'ideologia del politico stesso, con un pattern che prevede più menzogne a una persona di alto status che a una persona di basso status. Le parole invece, in grado ancora di trasmettere dei significati ideologici, dovrebbero portare a comportamenti diversi a seconda dell'ideologia che rappresentano. I concetti liberali, veicolando giustizia sociale, dovrebbero produrre un numero maggiore di menzogne verso le persone di alto status rispetto a quelle di basso status; i concetti conservatori invece, richiamando alla mente valori come meritocrazia e difesa dello status quo, dovrebbero portare al risultato contro intuitivo di un maggior numero di menzogne verso le persone di basso status rispetto a quelle di alto status. Modificare il frame ideologico per cambiare comportamenti di decisione sociale potrebbe risultare fondamentale per le strategie di campagna elettorale

Ideological priming-mediated effects over politically non-aligned people’s’ deceptive behaviour: An eye tracking study

The growing scandals and episodes of corruption involving politics have led to an increase of political abstentionism among voters and to the diffusion of protest movements. Thus, understanding whether and to what extent political ideology still plays a role in people’s decision making and behaviour is crucial. By combining an ideological priming procedure with the ‘Temptation to Lie Card Game’ (TLCG), an experimental task where participants spontaneously choose whether to lie or not to another player, we tested the impact of the two major political ideologies –i.e. Conservatism and Liberalism- on moral decision making of politically nonaligned participants’. In separate blocks we primed 50 politically nonaligned participants with different stimuli (faces of conservative vs liberal politicians and words that can be associated to one of the two ideological categories) before playing the TLCG with some high vs low status players. In addition to the behavioural response, participants’ oculomotor behaviour was recorded. Regardless of the type of the priming, participants made more egoistic lies (produced to increase their payoff) to high status players and more altruistic lies (produced to share their payoff) to low status players. Oculomotor behaviour revealed that when provided with visual competing information regarding the status of the other player and the outcome of the game (win/lose) , participants tended to look more at the status of the player (high/low) after a Liberal priming. Conversely, when primed with a Conservative stimulus, participants tended to look more at the outcome of the game and, moreover, to lie less to high status players. In addition to that, Liberal priming led participants not only to take more time to decide whether to lie or not, but also –once they decided- to avoid the eye contact with the low status player’s picture shown at the end of each trial, suggesting some sort of feeling of shame. Although the ideological priming procedure does not show direct increase/decrease in participants’ tendency to lie, implicit indicators measured during the TLCG (i.e., participants’ oculomotor behaviour and temporal latency of the decision) seem to suggest that the two opposite ideologies differently influences social decision making towards people of different social status. This may be in keeping with previous research showing that endorsing a liberal ideology leads to a higher sensitiveness to social inequality and support for redistribution of richness, while conservative ideology is associated to maintaining the status quo and justifying the differences among people based on meritocracy

When threat leads to intergroup bias: the strange case of Italian Liberals

The tendency to favor the ingroup and derogate the outgroup by means of positive/negative evaluations, emotions and behaviors is known as intergroup bias. Traditionally, Conservatives are thought to be more biased compared to Liberals. However, the value-conflict hypothesis suggests that this tendency can be equally expressed by the two political groups. In 3 separate studies, we provided a fine-grained picture of political intergroup bias by measuring Italian Liberals’ and Conservatives’ bias evoked by different political stimuli (i.e. ideological words, images of politicians and non-politicians people) in the emotional and cognitive domains. Furthermore, we tested whether ingroup/outgroup entitativity and agency and perceived threat of the outgroup could influence this phenomenon. Results from Study 1 show that while Liberals expressed more negative emotions towards pictures of politicians they categorized as conservative and more positive emotions towards those they categorized as liberal (intergroup bias), Conservatives did not. Interestingly, when ideological words were presented (Study 2) both groups showed the intergroup bias, which remained stronger for Liberals. Study 3 showed how this difference of the intergroup bias affects also the cognitive domain and that the relation between political affiliation and emotional bias is mediated by the perceived threat of the outgroup. Consistently with the value-conflict hypothesis, our results show that political groups express more intergroup bias accordingly to the perceived threat of the outgroup. Furthermore, we show how perceived threat plays a role in the emotional but not cognitive domain, suggesting that the different components of this bias can be independently modulated

Fearing the outgroup: why Italian Liberals dislike Conservatives

The term ‘intergroup bias’ describes how people tend to favor their ingroup and derogate their outgroup by means of positive/negative evaluations, emotions and behaviors. Traditional literature on political psychology claims that this bias is stronger in Conservatives than Liberals because of epistemic and personality motives. Conversely, recent research showed that Italian Liberals express more positive emotions for their ingroup and more negative emotions for the outgroup compared to Italian Conservatives. Moreover, it has been suggested that Liberals and Conservatives can be equally prejudiced, depending on which group they face, namely the more the outgroup is in contrast with their values and is perceived as threatening the more people tend to express the bias, regardless their political ideology. Here, in 3 separate studies we aimed at providing a fine-grained picture of political intergroup bias in Italy by measuring Liberals’ and Conservatives’ bias evoked by different political stimuli (i.e., pictures of politicians; ideological words) in emotional and cognitive domains. Furthermore, we tested whether variables such as entitativity and agency of the ingroup and the outgroup and perceived threat of the outgroup could play a role in this phenomenon. In study 1, Mixed Model Regression analysis showed that Liberals tended to express more negative emotions for politicians they categorized as conservative and more positive emotions for politicians they categorized as liberal. In contrast, conservatives did not show this effect. Interestingly, when the stimuli to categorize were ideological words (study 2) both groups showed the intergroup bias, that however, remained stronger for Liberals. Study 3 showed that the difference of intergroup bias in the two political groups was not only related to the emotional domain (positive/negative emotions) but also to the cognitive domain (positive/negative cognitive evaluations). Interestingly, a mediation analysis showed that perceived threat of the outgroup mediates the relationship between political affiliation and intergroup bias in the emotional but not in the cognitive domain. Thus, in line with value conflict hypothesis and morality-based groups theories, our findings suggest that Liberals might feel more negative emotions towards Conservatives (especially when certain categories of stimuli -i.e. pictures of politicians- are presented), because they feel more threatened by them. The resulting partial mediation indicated that other variables could play a role in the process; neither entitativity nor agency seem to be involved, as the two groups did not differ in how they evaluated ingroup and outgroup along these dimensions

Ideological priming-mediated effects over politically non-aligned people’s’ deceptive behaviour: An eye tracking study

The growing scandals and episodes of corruption involving politics have led to an increase of political abstentionism among voters and to the diffusion of protest movements. Thus, understanding whether and to what extent political ideology still plays a role in people’s decision making and behaviour is crucial. By combining an ideological priming procedure with the ‘Temptation to Lie Card Game’ (TLCG), an experimental task where participants spontaneously choose whether to lie or not to another player, we tested the impact of the two major political ideologies –i.e. Conservatism and Liberalism- on moral decision making of politically nonaligned participants’. In separate blocks we primed 50 politically nonaligned participants with different stimuli (faces of conservative vs liberal politicians and words that can be associated to one of the two ideological categories) before playing the TLCG with some high vs low status players. In addition to the behavioural response, participants’ oculomotor behaviour was recorded. Regardless of the type of the priming, participants made more egoistic lies (produced to increase their payoff) to high status players and more altruistic lies (produced to share their payoff) to low status players. Oculomotor behaviour revealed that when provided with visual competing information regarding the status of the other player and the outcome of the game (win/lose) , participants tended to look more at the status of the player (high/low) after a Liberal priming. Conversely, when primed with a Conservative stimulus, participants tended to look more at the outcome of the game and, moreover, to lie less to high status players. In addition to that, Liberal priming led participants not only to take more time to decide whether to lie or not, but also –once they decided- to avoid the eye contact with the low status player’s picture shown at the end of each trial, suggesting some sort of feeling of shame. Although the ideological priming procedure does not show direct increase/decrease in participants’ tendency to lie, implicit indicators measured during the TLCG (i.e., participants’ oculomotor behaviour and temporal latency of the decision) seem to suggest that the two opposite ideologies differently influences social decision making towards people of different social status. This may be in keeping with previous research showing that endorsing a liberal ideology leads to a higher sensitiveness to social inequality and support for redistribution of richness, while conservative ideology is associated to maintaining the status quo and justifying the differences among people based on meritocracy

Does dopamine shape moral decision-making by inducing a change in sense of agency? An investigation of the “hyper-honesty” phenomenon in Parkinson’s Disease

Despite decision-making has been extensively studied in Parkinson’s Disease (PD), much less is known about moral decision-making in PD. Two studies (Abe et al., 2009; Mameli et al., 2013) found a behavioral pattern of “hyper-honesty” in PD patients but the employed behavioral paradigms were not ecologically-valid (patients were instructed when to lie and when to tell the truth), were not “social” (lies and truths were not directed toward another individual) and the medical status of the patients (on versus off dopaminergic medication) was often mixed. Recent research also pointed out a role of Sense of Agency (SoA, the feeling that we are in control of our actions and of their consequences in the external world; Haggard et al., 2002) in moral responsibility for action. In particular, stronger intentional binding - a compression in time perception between voluntary actions and their effects that is considered an implicit marker of SoA - was reported for actions that produce morally relevant outcomes (Moretto et al., 2011). Importantly, increased intentional binding was found in PD patients in on vs. off medication, suggesting that dopamine might increase SoA (Moore et al., 2010). This project aims at investigating spontaneous deception in a social context in PD patients in order (i) to verify the presence of the “hyper-honesty” effect and (ii) to clarify the role of dopamine in modulating moral decision-making and SoA. For testing moral decision-making, we will employ the Temptation to Lie Card Game (Panasiti et al., 2011, 2014, 2016; Azevedo et al., 2017), a behavioral paradigm that proved effective for testing spontaneous deception (participants are free to decide whether to lie or tell the truth to the opponent player during a card game). Interestingly, this paradigm induces a moral conflict between the temptation to lie in order to get an economic reward and the desire to tell the truth, following the norms of moral conduct. For testing SoA, we will employ a novel behavioral paradigm in which multiple action features (movement congruency, goal attainment and timing of the action) are manipulated (Villa et al., 2018). Participants perform simple goal-directed action - pressing a button of a color of their choice (blue or yellow) by lifting or lowering the index - while viewing an avatar’s hand performing their same action or a different one in a mixed-reality scenario. The virtual action can be simultaneous or delayed, and participants provide synchrony judgments between their action and the observed one as a measure of SoA (Weiss et al, 2014). PD patients will perform both tasks twice (counterbalanced order): on- and off- dopaminergic medication. We expect that: (i) the frequency of self-gain lie decisions will be smaller in PD patients than in healthy control participants, (ii) the frequency of self-gain lie decisions will be lower in PD patients on-medication than in PD patients off-medication, and (iii) synchrony judgments will be higher (enhanced SoA) in PD patients on-medication with respect to PD patients off-medication. This project will help to clarify how dopaminergic treatment influences moral decision-making and SoA