The relationship between cultural thought styles and political ideology :|viewed through multiple aspects of holism

Abstract

Holistic thinkers are found to be socially more conservative, relying on the Triad Task as the measure of holism. However, holism is defined in the literature as a multifaceted construct and there are reasons to believe that some (dialectical) aspects of holism—expectation of change and tolerance of contradictions—might be differently related to political ideology. Moreover, the overlaps between reflective thinking and what the Triad Task measures makes the interpretation of the Triadconservatism relation difficult. This thesis aimed to investigate the relationship between political ideology and holism focusing on its multiple aspects and to examine the mechanisms underlying this relation. Study 1 did not replicate the Triadconservatism relation, but Study 2 did with a larger sample and methodological improvements. The evidence with respect to dialecticism was rather complex; while Study 1 found a negative relation between dialecticism and social conservatism, Study 2 did not replicate this finding. On the other hand, both studies revealed that dialectical thinkers are economically more liberal. Furthermore, the two studies did not provide evidence for a relationship between the Triad Task and the AHS (a selfreport measure of holism); and Study 2 revealed that reflective thinking (but not the AHS) predicted Triad Task responses. Overall, the results contributed both to political psychology literature by a detailed examination of political orientation (both social and economic) with respect to cultural thought styles, and to cross-cultural psychology literature by sheding light on the looseness of the concept holism.