Fight, Flight, or Vote Right? A Systematic Review of Threat Sensitivity in Political Conservatism

Within the framework of social cognition, conservatism can be conceptualized as a strategy for addressing fundamental psychological needs. Therefore, it is hypothesized that individuals with conservative orientations exhibit stronger reactions to perceived threats compared to their less conservative counterparts.

To perform an exploratory scoping systematic review of existing literature examining behavioral, physiological, neurophysiological, and emotional responses associated with the relationship between conservatism and threat perception.

Following PRISMA guidelines, a systematic search was conducted using PubMed and Google Scholar primary databases, resulting in the inclusion of 19 relevant articles.

Approximately three-fifths (11 of 19 studies; 57.9%) provided empirical support for the hypothesis that conservatism is positively associated with threat sensitivity. These findings reveal a complex and nuanced relationship between conservatism and threat perception, with recent evidence-including large-scale longitudinal data and experimental manipulations of COVID-19-related threats-indicating weak or context-dependent associations. The overall pattern highlights substantial heterogeneity across methodological approaches, with mixed results particularly among physiological and priming studies.

While the majority of evidence supports a relationship between political conservatism and threat sensitivity, the magnitude of this association appears modest, emphasizing the importance of considering moderating variables such as cultural context, the type of threat, and methodological variations in measurement in future research.