The Self-Validating Role of Political Ideology on Political Attitudes

Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in the influence of ideology on the formation and maintenance of political attitudes. Much of this work has examined ideology as an individual difference that influences evaluations of political issues; these studies instead examined how one's ideology explicitly serves to polarize political opinions. Using the self-validation perspective as a theoretical backdrop, two studies examine the role of political ideology in validating thoughts about a political issue. In Study 1, considering one's political ideology after writing about one's attitude toward abortion increased thought confidence and attitude extremity related to abortion. Study 2 utilized a more subtle manipulation of ideology salience and found that political ideology validated thoughts about abortion, but not the issue of changing the legal drinking age (an issue less related to political ideology). These studies suggest that political ideology plays a role in attitude extremity and certainty toward ideology-relevant issues.