• Login
    View Item 
    •   NU Archives Home
    • Scholarship
    • Dissertations and Theses
    • Doctor of Psychology in Counseling Psychology (Psy.D.)
    • View Item
    •   NU Archives Home
    • Scholarship
    • Dissertations and Theses
    • Doctor of Psychology in Counseling Psychology (Psy.D.)
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Political Ideology and Black-and-White Thinking

    Thumbnail
    Tweet
    View/Open
    meyer_patrick_psyd_2020.pdf (635.6Kb)
    Date
    November 30, 2020
    Author
    Meyer, Patrick Herman
    Advisor
    Lampson, Kim
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    The political ideology of the American people has become increasingly polarized over the last decade; this trend corresponds with increasingly negative views of people with different values. Black-and-white thinking is a propensity to think of things in extremes—thinking something as fully positive or negative and not recognizing almost everything has elements of both. This study explored the history and current state of political ideology in the United States and black-and-white thinking. The aim of the study was to see if political views were related to thinking styles, specifically if an individual’s level of black-and-white thinking could predict their political ideology. Online surveys were completed by 183 adults from the United States. Political ideology was conceptualized as a scale with very liberal on one side and very conservative on the other, along with concepts of social conservatism and economic conservatism. Black-and-white was measured using a scale measuring overall dichotomous thinking with subscales of dichotomous belief, preference for dichotomy, and profit-and-loss thinking. Findings suggest the more conservative someone is, the more likely they were to have higher levels of black-and-white thinking. More liberal individuals had lower levels of black-and-white thinking. Black-and-white thinking could predict conservatism, with it being a stronger predictor of social conservatism than it was for economic conservatism. The implications of this study are that thinking styles and political ideologies are interconnected, and understanding these connections can ideally improve productive conversations in and outside of the therapy office.
    Original item type
    PDF
    Original extent
    66 pages
    Subject
    Ideology—Political aspects
    United States
    Conservatism
    Liberalism
    Conservatism—Social aspects
    Conservatism—Economic aspects
    Collections
    • Scholarship > Dissertations and Theses > Doctor of Psychology in Counseling Psychology (Psy.D.)
    URI
    archives.northwestu.edu/handle/nu/57386
    Copyright
    This original work is protected by copyright. Copyright is retained by the author(s). Works may be viewed, downloaded, or printed, but not reproduced or distributed without author(s) permission.

    Browse

    All of NU ArchivesCategories & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitles

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    About the Archives

    Donate

    Share your stories

    Find Yourself in the Archives

    Policy

    Copyright

    Maintained by the Northwest University Library

    © 2017 Northwest University

    Scholarship 

    • Dissertations and Theses
    • Faculty Publications
    • Syllabi

    NU History 

    • Biographies
    • Histories
    • Objects
    • Press Clippings

    Events and Photos 

    NU Publications 

    • Academic Catalog
    • Graduate Academic Catalog
    • Karisma Yearbook
    • The Talon Newspaper
    • Northwest Passages
    • Pursuit
    • The Northwesterner
    • Northwest
    • Student Handbook
    • Student Bulletin

    Independent Collections 

    • Henry Ness
    • Butterfield Family
    • Eugene Bronson

    Institutional Records 

    • Employee Publications
    • Library

    About the Archives

    Donate

    Share your stories

    Find Yourself in the Archives

    Policy

    Copyright

    Maintained by the Northwest University Library

    © 2017 Northwest University

    Scholarship 

    • Dissertations and Theses
    • Faculty Publications
    • Syllabi

    NU History 

    • Biographies
    • Histories
    • Objects
    • Press Clippings

    Events and Photos 

    NU Publications 

    • Academic Catalog
    • Graduate Academic Catalog
    • Karisma Yearbook
    • The Talon Newspaper
    • Northwest Passages
    • Pursuit
    • The Northwesterner
    • Northwest
    • Student Handbook
    • Student Bulletin

    Independent Collections 

    • Henry Ness
    • Butterfield Family
    • Eugene Bronson

    Institutional Records 

    • Employee Publications
    • Library