I'm a political and social psychologist. I study how people understand the world and what this means for society and for democracy ... which, as it turns out, is quite a lot. Some people see the world as safe and good, and this allows them to be OK with uncertainty and to take time to explore and play. Others are acutely aware of threats in their environment, so they prioritize order and predictability over openness and experimentation.
In my academic research, I study how these two approaches shape how we think and feel about everything from art to politics. I also explore how political elites and partisan media use these very differences to engender hatred and fear and how the economics of our media system exploit these same divides.
But after studying this, I have come away not with a sense that we are doomed to be divided but that it's up to us to see both sets of traits as necessary and even valuable.
Take for example two men who have been so influential in my own life. First, my late husband, Mike. He was an artist who saw the world as safe and good. He welcomed ambiguity and play in his life. In fact, we met through improv comedy where he taught improvisers to listen and be open and to be comfortable not knowing what was going to happen next. After we got married and had our baby boy, Mike was diagnosed with a brain tumor. And through months of hospitalizations and surgeries, I followed Mike's lead, trying to practice being open, trying to be OK not knowing what was going to happen next. It was Mike's tolerance for ambiguity that allowed me to survive those months of uncertainty, and that helped me explore new ways to rebuild my life after he died.
About a year and a half after Mike passed away, I met my current husband, PJ. PJ is a criminal prosecutor who sees the world as potentially good provided that threats are properly managed. He also is someone who embraces order and predictability in his daily routine, in the foods that he eats, in his selection of wardrobe. And PJ has a vicious wit, but he's also morally very serious with a strong sense of duty and purpose. And he values tradition, loyalty and family, which is why at the age of 28 he did not hesitate to marry a widow, adopt her baby boy and raise him as his son. It was PJ's need for certainty and closure that brought stability to our lives.
I share these two stories of Mike and PJ not just because they're personal, but because they illustrate two things that I have found in my own research. First, that our psychological traits shape how we engage with the world, and second, that both of these approaches make all of our lives possible. Tragically though, political and economic incentives of our media environment seek to exploit these differences to get us angry, to get our attention, to get clicks and to turn us against one another. And it works. It works in part because these same sets of traits are related to core political and cultural beliefs.
For years, political psychologists have studied how our psychological traits shape our political beliefs. We've conducted experiments to understand how our psychology and our politics shape how we respond to apolitical stimuli. And this research has shown that those people who are less concerned with threats, who are tolerant of ambiguity, these people tend to be more culturally and socially liberal on matters like immigration or crime or sexuality. And because they're tolerant of ambiguity, they also tend to be OK with nuance and they enjoy thinking for the sake of thinking, which helps explain why it is that there are distinct aesthetic preferences on the left and the right, with liberals more likely than conservatives to appreciate things like abstract art or even stories that lack a clear ending. In my experimental work, I've also found that these differences help explain why ironic, political satire is more likely to be appreciated and understood by liberals than conservatives.
On the other hand, those people who are monitoring for threats, who prefer certainty and closure, those tend to be our political, cultural, social conservatives. Because they're on alert, they also make decisions quickly and efficiently, guided by intuition and emotion. And we've found that these traits help explain why conservatives enjoy political opinion talk programming that clearly and efficiently identifies threats and enemies.
What is essential though is that these propensities are not absolute -- they're not fixed. There are liberals who are monitoring for threats just as there are conservatives who are tolerant of ambiguity. In fact, PJ's political beliefs are not that radically different from those that Mike held. The link between psychology and politics is contingent on context: who we're with and what's going on around us. The problem is that right now, our dominant context, our political and media context, actually needs these differences to be absolute, to be reinforced and even to be weaponized.
For reasons related to power and profit, some in politics and media want us to believe that those people who approach the world differently from us -- the Mikes or the PJs -- themselves are dangerous. And social media platforms use algorithms and microtargeting to deliver divisive messages in our preferred messaging aesthetic. Messages that relate to politics, culture and race. And we see the devastating effects of these messages every single day. Americans who are angry and fearful of the other side. Charges of the other side destroying America.
But stop and think for a moment. What would happen if those differences had never been weaponized? It is liberal inclinations towards openness and flexibility that allow us to cope with uncertainty and that allow us to explore new paths towards innovation, creativity -- scientific discovery. Think of things like space travel or cures for diseases or art that imagines and reimagines a better world.
And those conservative inclinations towards vigilance and security and tradition. These are the things that motivate us to do what must be done for our own protection and stability. Think of the safety that's offered by our armed forces or the security of our banking system. Or think about the stability that's offered by such democratic institutions as jury duty, or cultural traditions like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
What if the real threat posed to society and democracy is not actually posed by the other side? What if the real danger is posed by political and media elites who try to get us to think that we'd be better off without the other side and who use these divisions for their own personal, financial, political benefit?
Mike and PJ engaged with the world very differently, but these distinct approaches continue to enrich my life every day. Instead of our political and media context determining that the other side is the enemy and lulling us into believing that that's true, what if we choose to create the context? Real people connecting with other real people, appreciating these two approaches for what they are: necessary gifts that can help us all survive and thrive together.
Thank you.
