Does a feeling of uncertainty promote intolerant political attitudes and behavior? Moderating the role of personal value orientations

The aim of this paper is to investigate the conditions under which individual feelings of uncertainty lead to intolerant political attitudes and behavior. Drawing on social psychological Uncertainty-Identity Theory, we assume that (1) feelings of uncertainty are aversive, (2) people are motivated to reduce uncertainty, particularly if they are uncertain about self-relevant things, (3) uncertainty can be effectively reduced by group identification, and (4) high entitativity groups (i.e., those with clear boundaries, internal homogeneity, clear structure or common goals) are better than others at reducing uncertainty (Hogg, 2012; 2015; Hogg & Adelman, 2013). It is also assumed that groups promoting intolerant political ideologies tend to be characterized by high entitativity as they stress the common identity, strictly differentiate between “us” vs. “them” and use fear (typically by raising issues such as high criminality, vanishing culture and traditions, or losing jobs of native citizens because of immigrants). Hence, Uncertainty-Identity Theory provides a novel perspective on the research of far right groups. Overall, we hypothesize that feelings of uncertainty in different life domains (e.g., work, personal safety) predict greater propensity to adopt intolerant attitudes (e.g., negative views of immigrants) or support intolerant groups (e.g., vote for far right political parties). This effect should be particularly strong if people are uncertain about life domain that is important to them because of their value orientations. So far, political implications of Uncertainty-Identity Theory have been tested mainly using experimental data or data from specific contexts (e.g., Israeli-Palestinian conflict) (Hogg & Adelman, 2013). In the present paper, we test the theory using large European representative datasets. Special attention is paid to the fifth round of European Social Survey (2010) that captures people’s well-being and working conditions as well as their personal value orientations. Multilevel regression analysis with interactions is conducted in order to reveal whether the effect of job-related uncertainty on intolerant attitudes and behavior is stronger for achievement-oriented people. Furthermore, it is tested whether the effect of safety-related uncertainty is stronger for people oriented on security and conservation.