Hibbing et al. make two overarching claims: (a) the liberal–conservative continuum is an “ancient and universal” lens that people use to make sense of their social world (sect. 1, para. 1), and (b) the psychological explanation for the liberal–conservative continuum is that liberals are less sensitive and responsive to negative stimuli than conservatives. These claims are consistent with a scientific commitment to parsimony and alluring in their simplicity. Both of these claims, however, ignore a foundational psychological principle: Context matters. This commentary will address a number of ways that these claims fail to consider the importance of context.

Hibbing et al. reify the liberal–conservative continuum – they claim that it is an organizational framework that is “universal” and “in our DNA” (sect. 1, para. 3). Evidence suggests that this claim is overstated. Although some studies suggest that people organize their beliefs along a single, liberal–conservative dimension (Judd et al. Reference Judd, Krosnick and Milburn1981; Judd & Milburn Reference Judd and Milburn1980; Moskowitz & Jenkins Reference Moskowitz and Jenkins2004; Peffley & Hurwitz Reference Peffley and Hurwitz1985), other evidence indicates that people use more than one dimension (Duckitt Reference Duckitt2001; Kerlinger Reference Kerlinger1972; Reference Kerlinger1984; Krauss Reference Krauss2006; Saucier Reference Saucier2000), and that individuals vary in the number of dimensions that they use to organize their attitudes and beliefs (Stimson Reference Stimson1975). We contend that the tendency for scholars to focus on a single ideological dimension may be an artifact of widespread reliance on samples drawn from Western industrialized democracies and from a narrow band of time (the mid-twentieth through the early twenty-first centuries; see Gunther & Diamond Reference Gunther and Diamond2003). Cross-cultural studies of political ideology, for example, reveal substantial variability in whether people from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania use the left–right continuum as an organizational framework (Jou Reference Jou2010). Similarly, a glimpse at the United States' contemporary political landscape suggests the growing prevalence of ideologies that cannot be easily accounted for by a simple liberal–conservative continuum, including libertarianism (strong needs for autonomy fused with support for “liberalism” on social issues and “conservatism” on economic issues) and coercive egalitarianism (resentment of the wealthy fused with support for the redistribution of wealth, e.g., the Occupy Movement).

Hibbing et al.'s claims about the universality of the liberal–conservative continuum echo claims about the Big Five personality traits. Scholars have claimed that open-mindedness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extroversion, and neuroticism are universal individual difference variables (McCrae & Costa Reference McCrae and Costa1997) that are heritable (Loehlin et al. Reference Loehlin, McCrae and Costa1998) and based in physiology (DeYoung et al. Reference DeYoung, Hirsh, Shane, Papademetris, Rajeevan and Gray2010). Recent research and theory, however, cast doubt on the universality of the Big Five (e.g., Cervone Reference Cervone2005; Molenaar et al. Reference Molenaar, Huizenga, Nesselroade, Staudinger and Lindenberger2003; Orom & Cervone Reference Orom and Cervone2009). These critiques provide evidence that the Big Five describe aggregate-level, between-person differences that say little about within-person psychology and, moreover, do not consistently apply to specific individuals; a given person may see a trait as describing her personality in some contexts but not others. Darla, for example, may describe herself as extroverted in professional settings, introverted at parties, but may not think of herself as either extroverted or introverted with her family. The same critiques apply to claims that the liberal–conservative continuum is universal. Darla may see liberalism and conservatism as relevant to her attitudes about some issues or in some contexts (e.g., when discussing taxes) but irrelevant to other issues or in other contexts (e.g., when discussing same-sex marriage). In short, not all people consistently see their social world through the lens of the liberal–conservative continuum. Whether and when people see politics as relevant is idiographically and contextually variable (e.g., Skitka et al. Reference Skitka, Mullen, Griffin, Hutchinson and Chamberlin2002).

Hibbing et al. also assert that conservatives are intrinsically more sensitive and responsive to negative stimuli than their liberal counterparts. This conclusion, however, is at odds with extant research. For example, conservatives are higher in subjective well-being, nearly twice as likely to report they are happy, less likely to be maladjusted in their adult lives, and are less pessimistic about their future prospects than liberals (e.g., Brooks Reference Brooks2008; Napier & Jost Reference Napier and Jost2008; Schlenker et al. Reference Schlenker, Chambers and Le2012; Taylor et al. Reference Taylor, Funk and Craighill2006). A selective review of this body of research might suggest the existence of a conservative positivity bias! In short, although there may be evidence of conservative negativity in some contexts, there is ample evidence of conservative positivity in others.

The conclusion that context matters is further supported by numerous studies that demonstrate that liberals' and conservatives' reasoning styles can be affected by contextual cues. Conservatives, for example, generally prefer to explain social problems (e.g., poverty) by referencing the characteristics of persons (e.g., laziness) rather than situations (e.g., a lack of jobs), whereas liberals tend to do the converse. Although this pattern has been documented across numerous contexts (e.g., Cozzarelli et al. Reference Cozzarelli, Wilkinson and Tagler2001; Crandall Reference Crandall1994; Kluegel Reference Kluegel1990; Skitka Reference Skitka1999; Skitka & Tetlock Reference Skitka and Tetlock1992), it nonetheless reverses in other contexts (Morgan et al. Reference Morgan, Mullen and Skitka2010) and does not emerge at all in others (Skitka et al. Reference Skitka, Mullen, Griffin, Hutchinson and Chamberlin2002). Likewise, although liberals reason in ways that are more characteristic of conservatives when resources are scarce, they are distracted, or are under the influence of alcohol (Eidelman et al. Reference Eidelman, Crandall, Goodman and Blanchar2012; Skitka et al. Reference Skitka, Mullen, Griffin, Hutchinson and Chamberlin2002), other studies similarly reveal circumstances that lead conservatives to reason more like liberals (Skitka & Tetlock Reference Skitka and Tetlock1992; Skitka et al. Reference Skitka, Mullen, Griffin, Hutchinson and Chamberlin2002). Finally, small variations in context cues can influence liberals to be moral deontologists and conservatives to be moral consequentialists, or the converse (Uhlmann et al. Reference Uhlmann, Pizarro, Tannenbaum and Ditto2009). In sum, theory and research reveal that context affects ideological reasoning, findings that contradict the notion that ideological differences are fixed, hardwired, or inevitably emanate from differences in negativity bias.

In summary, we argue that to fully understand political ideology, researchers must adopt a position that appreciates the importance of context and the role of cognitive flexibility. The liberal–conservative continuum is far from universal, and ideological differences – including differences in sensitivity to negative stimuli – are flexible and contextualized rather than fixed.