How Do False Alarms, Misses, and Preexisting Beliefs Predict Conservative and Liberal Policy Preferences?

The present dissertation tested potential ideological differences between conservatives and liberals in false alarm and miss error concerns across policies that offered rewards. A series of three studies tested competing hypotheses, the Asymmetry and Symmetry Hypotheses, which suggested conservative and liberal error concerns depended on individual differences and were contextually stable across policies (asymmetry), or that conservative and liberal error concerns depended on specific policy contexts and corresponded with whether either group preferred a restrictive or permissive policy (symmetry); results support the Symmetry Hypothesis. When conservatives supported a restrictive policy more than liberals, and liberals supported a permissive policy more than conservatives, conservatives were more concerned about false alarms and liberals were more concerned about misses related to the policy (Studies 1A & 2). Additionally, when typical policy preferences flipped and instead conservatives supported a permissive policy more than liberals, and liberals supported a restrictive policy more than conservatives, conservatives were more concerned about misses and liberals were more concerned about false alarms related to the policy (Studies 1B & 2). Together, these studies offered initial evidence that error concerns partially explain support for policies that offer rewards, and ideological differences in error concerns result from the type of policy one supports, rather than individual differences; this work has implications for work on political cognition and motivation.