Browsing by Author "Sairanen, Veronika"

Objectives Over the past decade the importance of psychological phenomena as part of political behavior has begun to be recognized and research on the subject has increased. The formation of political opinions is influenced by several psychological factors and individual characteristics of information processing. Studies have found that thinking style is associated with political orientation and with what type of needs motivate cognition. Thinking style and motivation together effect how information is viewed and what type of influences are adopted. Rejecting new information and accepting false news can have a problematic effect on political opinion-forming. The purpose of this review is to explain how political opinions are formed and what kind of differences in processing result in political differences. There is also an interest in what kinds of heuristics can influence opinion forming. Psychological factors that are examined include thinking style, epistemic and existential motivation, as well as rejection of science and acceptation of false information. Methods Studies were found using Helka-, PubMed- and Google Scholar databases and search terms "analytic thinking" + "political orientation", "fake news" + "political orientation" and "political psychology" + ”motivation”. In addition, articles were discovered with a manual search from the reference lists of found studies. Conclusions Several studies have found a link between intuitive thinking and conservative political orientation, but there are some differing results. Intuitive thinking could also be associated with epistemic and existential motivation, which have also been found to be stronger among politically conservative. Intuitive thinking together with epistemic and existential motivation expose to heuristics that influence the formation of political opinions. Furthermore, the rejection of information is also more common among intuitive and conservative people. The results regarding the predisposition to accept false news as true and its relation to thinking style and political orientation are more controversial and require further research. Studying the interaction of thinking style, motivation and stance on information could in future shed light on which psychological tendencies and characteristics can potentially lead to diverse political behavior.