Psiholoģija Psychology - Latvijas Universitāte

40 Ps i h o l o ģ i j a
Summary
Echterhoff, Higgins, & Levine (2009) have defined four main conditions of
shared reality: a commonality of individuals’ inner states, a common target referent,
appropriate motivation for the communality of inner states, and the experience of a
successful connection to other people’s inner states. In this analysis we demonstrate
that political ideology corresponds to all four conditions of shared reality. We
extend and complement the analysis of ideological beliefs and shared reality by
Jost, Ledgerwood, & Hardin (2008), and show that the role of political ideology in
formation of shared reality reach beyond system justification. Our analysis confirms
that the shared reality theory offers a proper and convenient analytical framework
for studying socio-psychological phenomena related to political ideology.
Keywords: shared reality, political ideology, liberalism, conservatism.