Kathleen Hudson, Mengyao Li, & Linda Skitka
Does Priming Utopian and Dystopian Mindsets affect Liberals and Conservatives Differently?
Contact at: khudso4@uic.edu
Moral motives theory (MMT, Janoff-Bulman & Carnes, 2013) predicts liberals and conservatives are motivated by different moral concerns; liberals鈥� motivations are more prescriptive and approach-oriented compared to conservatives who are more proscriptive and avoidance-oriented. We tested MMT by priming utopian (approach) and dystopian (avoidance) mindsets for outcomes related to either the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests or the U.S. 2020 presidential election. The results of two studies in the contexts of the BLM movement (N = 436) and the 2020 election (N = 509) found partial evidence of ideological differences. Mediational analyses revealed that a utopian (vs. dystopian) mindset for the BLM movement and for the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, predicted stronger activist intentions through stronger positive emotions, 尾 = 0.12, CI = [0.002, 0.24] and 尾 = 0.13, CI = [0.07, 0.21], respectively, for both liberals and conservatives. However, a dystopian (vs. control) mindset for the 2020 election predicted stronger activist intentions through stronger negative emotions to a greater extent for conservatives, 尾 = 0.56, CI = [0.40, 0.75] than liberals, 尾 = 0.24, CI = [0.02, 0.45]. Whereas approach-oriented outcomes were similarly motivating for liberals and conservatives, avoidance-oriented outcomes were more strongly motivating for conservatives compared to liberals, partially supporting MMT.
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