Ideology is a potent motivational force; human beings are capable of committing atrocities (as well as acts of generosity and courage) and sacrificing even their own lives for the sake of abstract belief systems. In this article, we summarize the major tenets of a model of political ideology as motivated social cognition (Jost et al. in Psychol Bull 129:339–375, 2003a, Psychol Bull 129:389–393,...

Researchers seeking to establish causal relationships frequently control for variables on the purported causal pathway, checking whether the original treatment effect then disappears. Unfortunately, this common approachmay lead to biased estimates. In this paper, we show that the bias can be avoided by focusing on a quantity of interest called the controlled direct effect. Under certain conditi...

Cognitive scientists, behavior geneticists, and political scientists have identified several ways in which emotions influence political attitudes, and psychologists have shown that emotion regulation can have an important causal effect on physiology, cognition, and subjective experience. However, no work to date explores the possibility that emotion regulation may shape political ideology and a...

A Bayesian uncertainty analysis of 12 parameters of the Bern2.5D climate model is presented. This includes an extensive sensitivity study with respect to the major statistical assumptions. Special attention is given to the parameter representing climate sensitivity. Using the framework of robust Bayesian analysis, the authors first define a nonparametric set of prior distributions for climate s...

This study considers the implications of corporate political activity and political risk on asset pricing. It is found that firms which operate an affiliated political action committee (PAC) outperform firms that do not. Among firms that operate a PAC, we find that those that spend relatively less on politics outperform those that spend more and that political risk is successfully hedged by fir...

Political correctness (PC) norms are highly controversial and have been subject to political and philosophical debate for decades. Yet, surprisingly little empirical research has been conducted to understand if they have any impact at all and, in particular, if and how they affect the perception of and interaction between social groups. In this chapter, we will argue that PC language has tangib...

n fall 1997, the democratic movement in Russia will celebrate its tenth anniversary. In November 1987, a group of young intelligentsia from Moscow (creators of the then unknown historical-educational organization Memorial) marched to Arbat to collect signatures. Those signatures were not calling for the dissolution of the Soviet system, but for the creation of a memorial to the victims of Stali...

Unlike his theory of justice as fairness, John Rawls’s political liberalism has generally been spared from critiques regarding what is due to the disabled. This paper demonstrates that, due to the account of the basic ideas of society and persons provided by Rawls, political liberalism requires that the interests of numerous individuals with disabilities should be put aside when the most fundam...