Past research on political orientation suggests an association between conservatism and cognitive rigidity. In the area of self-regulation, cognitive rigidity has been related to avoidance motivation and cognitive flexibility to approach motivation. Furthermore, recent work suggests links between political orientation and self-regulation, with conservatism associated with (inhibition-based) avoidance motivation and liberalism with (activation-based) approach motivation. The authors therefore propose that self-regulatory differences may account for the links between political orientation and cognitive rigidity. Two studies investigate the effects of motivational prime and political orientation on rigidity, assessed by a cognitive categorization task. Across both studies, avoidance motivation moderated the relationship between conservatism and rigidity. Liberalism was associated with similar category inclusiveness across conditions, whereas conservatism was associated with greater rigidity in the avoidance condition. It appears that conservatives' cognitive rigidity is an avoidance-primed inhibitory strategy; conservatives are sensitive to avoidance motivation, which in turn accounts for their greater cognitive rigidity.
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