“Ultra Conservatism”

Political conservatism, as an belief system, is significantly (but not completely) related to concerns with the psychological management of uncertainty and fear which will ultimately lead to a resistance to change. Furthermore, concerns with fear and threat are linked to the endorsement of inequality. Although resistance to change and support for inequality are distinguishable in concept, they are definitely psychologically related.

Political conservatism integrates certain types of personality traits, i.e. authoritarianism, lovers of dogma with an intolerance of ambiguity and the need to experience closure of ideas as well as regulatory focus and terror management and the ultimate rationalization and justification of certain social dominances and ongoing injustices from which they prosper, be it psychologically, ideologically or financially or any combination thereof. The core ideas of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality and is motivated by varying needs to manage uncertainty and threat.

Several psychological characteristics predict political conservatism:

Fear of death

Fear of uncertainty

Fear of threat

Fear of loss

Dogmatism

Intolerance of ambiguity

Intolerance to new experiences

Intolerance to new ideas

Lack of integrative complexity (ability to understand and integrate other perspectives. Iows, a person with a high level of integrative complexity realizes that there are trade offs among perspective and solutions)

A need for order, structure, and closure

(Author Unknown)