Political conservatives exhibit greater judgment & decision-making confidence than liberals: They exhibit a greater motivation to make rapid & efficient judgments & are more likely to “seize” on an initial response option

The confident conservative: Ideological differences in judgment and decision-making confidence. Benjamin Ruisch & Chadly Stern. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, August 13 2020. https://read.qxmd.com/read/32790460/the-confident-conservative-ideological-differences-in-judgment-and-decision-making-confidence

Abstract: In this research, we document the existence of broad ideological differences in judgment and decision-making confidence and examine their source. Across a series of 14 studies (total N = 4,575), we find that political conservatives exhibit greater judgment and decision-making confidence than do political liberals. These differences manifest across a wide range of judgment tasks, including both memory recall and “in the moment” judgments. Further, these effects are robust across different measures of confidence and both easy and hard tasks. We also find evidence suggesting that ideological differences in closure-directed cognition might in part explain these confidence differences. Specifically, conservatives exhibit a greater motivation to make rapid and efficient judgments and are more likely to “seize” on an initial response option when faced with a decision. Liberals, conversely, tend to consider a broader range of alternative response options before making a decision, which in turn undercuts their confidence relative to their more conservative counterparts. We discuss theoretical implications of these findings for the role of ideology in social judgment and decision-making.


But... Liberals Report Lower Levels of Attitudinal Ambivalence Than Conservatives, despite conservatives been shown to be positively correlated with intolerance of ambiguity, need for closure, and dogmatism and negatively correlated with openness to new experiences and uncertainty tolerance:

Liberals Report Lower Levels of Attitudinal Ambivalence Than Conservatives. Leonard Newman & Rikki Sargent. Social Psychological and Personality Science, July 22, 2020.
https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/09/liberals-report-lower-levels-of.html