The American Journal of Political Science published a correction this year saying that the 2012 paper has “an error” — and that liberal political beliefs, not conservative ones, are actually linked to psychoticism.
“The interpretation of the coding of the political attitude items in the descriptive and preliminary analyses portion of the manuscript was exactly reversed,” the journal said in the startling correction.
Political psychology has long been interested in psychological differences between people with conservative and liberal orientations. A recent paper provides evidence that people with conservative political attitudes tend to have better health than their liberal counterparts because of the former place greater value on personal responsibility (Chan, 2019). This may also be a reflection of higher conscientiousness among conservatives.
The author of this study suggests that it might be possible to increase conservatism as a way to improve health-related behavior. However, this seems rather unlikely and might have unintended and undesirable consequences even if it were possible.
