This study examines in detail the psychological variables underlying ideological political orientation, and structure and contents of this orientation, in Sweden and Latvia. Individual political orientation is conceptualized on two dimensions: acceptance vs. rejection of social change and acceptance vs. rejection of inequality. Swedish (N = 320) and Latvian (N = 264) participants completed measures of political orientation, Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), self vs. other orientation, tolerance for ambiguity, humanism and normativism, core political values, system justification, as well as moral foundations questionnaire and portrait values questionnaire. The results showed that the relation among the measured variables was similar in both samples. Swedish participants showed stronger endorsement of egalitarian attitudes and social values, whereas we found more self-enhancing and socially conservative values and attitudes among the Latvian participants.

Fifty-one university college students were presented with 10 political proposals, recently advanced in Sweden. For each participant, each of the 10 proposals  was described as being implemented in the near future and in a more distant future. The participants were asked to judge the proposals in terms of their favorability, desirability, and feasibility. In line with Construal Level Theory (CLT, Trope & Liberman, 2010), it was found that feasibility better predicted favorability of close future proposals (as compared to temporally distant proposals) whereas the opposite pattern was found for desirability.  Also in line with CLT, correlational data suggested that participants to a larger extent as compared to the near future tailored their representations of the distant future such that feasibility co-varied positively with the desirability of a proposal, suggesting an optimism bias. Presumably, this was possible because feasibility is less concrete and more malleable for more distant events.

Although often measured on a single right-left (or conservative-liberal) continuum, individual political orientation can be conceptualized as consisting of at least two orthogonal dimensions. The first is acceptance vs. rejection of social change, and the second is acceptance vs. rejection of inequality. We propose a theoretical model where the former dimension is represented as acceptance vs. avoidance of uncertainty, and the latter dimension is represented as tough mindedness vs. empathy. The former axis corresponds to the conservation vs. openness to change dimension in the Schwartz's (1992) value model; the latter axis corresponds to the self-enhancement vs. self-transcendence dimension. Two secondary axes represent the possible combinations of the variables defining the primary axes. Tough mindedness in combination with uncertainty avoidance result in high system justification, whereas empathy in combination with uncertainty acceptance represents low system justification. This axis corresponds to the self-protection vs. growth dimension of the refined Schwartz et al. (2011) value model. Tough mindedness in combination with uncertainty acceptance results in preference for self-reliance, whereas the opposite combination represents preference for dependence on others. This axis corresponds to the personal vs. social focus of the Schwartz et al. (2011) value model. Participants (N = 287) completed both one-dimensional and two-dimensional measures of political orientation, measures of social dominance orientation, right wing authoritarianism, system justification, need for cognitive closure, moral motives, values, dependence on others, and a number of political attitude measures. Multidimensional scaling supported the proposed model. The results show that the network of political beliefs and attitudes that represents individual political orientation can be largely reduced to the basic psychological variables of uncertainty avoidance and tough-mindedness, and that both dimensions of political orientation are separable not only theoretically, but also empirically. Our findings call for using two-dimensional measures of political orientation instead of one-dimensional measures (even in cultural contexts where both dimensions are highly correlated), because each dimension can be used to predict its own set of political beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

Individual political orientation can be conceptualized on two dimensions: acceptance vs. rejection of social change and acceptance vs. rejection of inequality. We propose a theoretical model where the orthogonal primary axes represent acceptance vs. avoidance of uncertainty, and tough mindedness vs. empathy, respectively. The former axis corresponds to the conservation-openness to change dimension in the Schwartz's (1992) value model; the latter axis corresponds to the self-enhancement vs. self-transcendence dimension. Two secondary axes represent the possible combinations of the variables defining the primary axes. Tough mindedness in combination with uncertainty avoidance result in high system justification, whereas empathy in combination with uncertainty acceptance represents low system justification. This axis corresponds to the growth vs. self-protection dimension of the refined Schwartz et al. (2011) value model. Tough mindedness in combination with uncertainty acceptance results in preference for self-reliance, whereas the opposite combination represents preference for dependence on others. This axis corresponds to the social vs. personal focus of the Schwartz et al. (2011) value model. Participants (N = 287) completed measures of SDO, RWA, system justification, NFC, moral motives, values, dependence, and a number of political attitude measures. Multidimensional scaling supported the proposed model. The results show that the social and economic aspects of political orientation are both theoretically and empirically separable, and can be at least partially explained with the importance of basic values. The model allows a deeper analysis of individual political orientation beyond a simple liberal-conservative division.

Individual political orientation is primarily comprised of two dimensions: acceptance vs. rejection of social change and acceptance vs. rejection of inequality. We propose a theoretical model where the orthogonal primary axes represent both dimensions (corresponding to acceptance vs. avoidance of uncertainty, and tough mindedness vs. empathy, respectively). Two secondary axes represent the possible combinations of these psychological variables. Tough mindedness in combination with uncertainty avoidance result in pronounced system justification tendencies, whereas empathy in combination with uncertainty acceptance represent low system justification. Tough mindedness in combination with uncertainty acceptance results in preference for self-reliance, whereas the opposite combination represents preference for dependence on others. Participants (N = 287) completed measures of SDO, RWA, system justification, NFC, moral motives, values, dependence, and a number of political attitude measures. Multidimensional scaling supported the proposed model. The model allows a deeper analysis of individual political orientation beyond a simple liberal-conservative division.

To explain individual political orientation, we propose and successfully test a theoretical model where two primary dimensions of acceptance vs. avoidance of uncertainty, and tough mindedness vs. empathy are combined resulting in the secondary dimensions of high vs. low system justification, and high vs. low dependence on others.