Psychological Motives and Political Orientation - The Left, the Right, and the Rigid: Comment on Jost et al. (2003)

Presenting an impressive model based on a large body of evidence, J. T. Jost, J. Glaser, A.W. Kruglanski, and F. J. Sulloway (2003) proposed that political conservatism uniquely serves epistemic, existential, and ideological needs driven by fears and uncertainties. The authors offer an alternative view based on conceptual considerations, historical events, features of communist ideology and practice, and additional social science research not reviewed by Jost et al. (2003). First, the authors take issue with Jost et al. (2003) description of the two core components of political conservatism. Second, they propose that the motives in the model are equally well served by rigid adherence to any extreme ideology regardless of whether it is right wing or left wing.