Power Versus Affiliation in Political Ideology: Robust Linguistic Evidence for Distinct Motivation-Related Signatures

Posited motivational differences between liberals and conservatives have historically been controversial. this motivational interface has recently been bridged,but the vast majority of studies have used self-reports of values or motivation. instead,the present four studies investigated whether two classic social motive themes—power and affiliation—vary by political ideology in objective linguistic analysis terms. study 1 found that posts to liberal chat rooms scored higher in standardized affiliation than power,whereas the reverse was true of posts to conservative chat rooms. study 2 replicated this pattern in the context of materials posted to liberal versus conservative political news websites. studies 3 and 4,finally,replicated a similar interactive (ideology by motive type) pattern in state of the state and state of the union addresses. differences in political ideology,these results suggest,are marked by,and likely reflective of,mind-sets favoring affiliation (liberal) or power (conservative). © 2015,© 2015 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.