To meme or not to meme? Political social media posts and ideologically motivated aggression in job recommendations

This study tested the notion of ideological asymmetry, which proposes that conservatives are more prejudiced than liberals. It involved 682 self-identified conservative (<i>n</i> = 383) and liberal (<i>n</i> = 299) perceivers (MTurk workers; 54% female) who evaluated a target person’s professional attributes, personal character, and job suitability based on the target’s social media posts. The results did not support ideological asymmetry as both conservative and liberal participants negatively evaluated an ideologically opposite target. Interestingly, liberals showed three times more bias than conservatives. This study better supports a worldview conflict hypothesis, an alternative to ideological asymmetry, with both sides showing indirect aggression in an apolitical setting.本研究检验了意识形态不对称（ideological asymmetry）这一理论假设，该假设提出保守派相较自由派更具偏见。研究共招募682名自我认同为保守派（n=383）与自由派（n=299）的评判者（均为亚马逊机械土耳其人（MTurk）平台参与者，其中54%为女性），要求其基于目标对象的社交媒体帖文，对该对象的职业特质、个人品格与岗位适配性展开评估。研究结果未支持意识形态不对称假设：保守派与自由派参与者均对意识形态立场相反的目标对象作出了负面评价。值得注意的是，自由派的偏见程度为保守派的三倍。相较于意识形态不对称假设，本研究结果更支持世界观冲突假说——在非政治场景中，双方均表现出间接攻击行为。