The 4D Model of American Political Conservatism: Disgust, Disorder Aversion, Deontology, and (Social) Dominance

Abstract

Over the decades, numerous researchers have identified psychological predictors of conservative and liberal political orientation. However, most research teams have focused on a single predictor at a time, occasionally two. Moreover, most researchers have tended to stay within the theoretical and methodological confines of their subdiscipline (e.g., social psychology vs. personality psychology). Here, we review and integrate evidence across different subdisciplines to propose a constellation of four psychological constructs (disgust sensitivity, preference for order, deontological morality, and social dominance orientation) that, working together, form a more nuanced and fine-grained account of why people are attracted to different ends of the political spectrum. In doing so, we demonstrate the usefulness of moving beyond operationalizing political orientation in a single-dimensional (left-to-right) manner. We suggest that the proposed “4D Model” represents an incremental advance that makes more specific predictions about who will be attracted to which strands of political conservatism.