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Political ideology does not predict self-control in Stroop task performance: new evidence using an incentivized task

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

David L. Dickinson Open the ORCID record for David L. Dickinson [Opens in a new window]
David L. Dickinson*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and CERPA, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, USA Economic Science Institute (Chapman University), Orange, CA, USA Institute for Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn, Germany
*
e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

An intriguing study concluded that political conservatives exhibited enhanced self-control using the Stroop task [Clarkson et al.: The self-control consequences of political ideology. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A, 112(27): 8250–8253 (2015)]. We preregistered our plans to re-examine this finding using a larger, representative, incentivized, and ideologically balanced sample (n = 476). Across a variety of specifications, we report a consistent null effect of ideology on Stroop response latencies and the Stroop interference effect. These findings suggest that the previously reported result may not generalize. We conclude that there is no causal relationship between political ideology and self-control, as measured by the Stroop task.

Keywords

Self-controlPolitical ideologyIndividual differencesExperiments

JEL classification

C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior D91: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡
Type
Replication Paper
Information
Journal of the Economic Science Association , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , December 2023 , pp. 319 - 326
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Economic Science Association 2023.

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