From Ideology to Social Perception Influence of Ideological Initiation on Competition, Homogenization and Judgments of Responsibility

This article investigates how our cognitions are influenced by various values of liberal ideology. Two pre-tests were used to identify two ordinary and daily objects (advertising and coaching) as vectors of liberal ideology. We used these objects to prime liberal values in two experiments. The results confirmed our hypotheses. The first experiment showed that liberal priming is more conducive to competitive decisions than to neutral decisions. Similar results have been found with respect to competitive attitudes. In the second experiment, as compared to neutral priming, liberal priming was found to be more conducive to perceived outgroup homogeneity. Similar results have been found with respect to responsibility judgment. The results are discussed in view of the social perception framework. © 2011 Verlag Hans Huber, Hogrefe AG, Bern.