Cognitive Differentiation and Socio-Politico Ideology: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Cognitive differentiation was studied in relationship to socio-politico ideology using 105 Swedish university students. Three indices of cognitive differentiation were defined by use of similarity estimates among nine Swedish political parties and Ekman's multidimensional scaling method. Socio-politico ideology was operationalized by asking the subjects to describe themselves as either Radicals, Liberals, or Conservatives. Cross-classification and likelihood ratio analysis disclosed statistically significant relationships between two of the three indices of cognitive differentiation and socio-politico ideology. The results were discussed in terms of three theories and/or hypotheses, authoritarian personality theory, the extremism hypothesis and the context hypothesis. The significant results were congruent with the context hypothesis.