Lay Conceptions of History, ideology, nationalism, and religiousness in Argentinean population

ZUBIETA, ELENA; BARREIRO, ALICIA VIVIANA; BOBOWIK, MAGADALENA

Roma

Congreso; 37th Annual Scientific meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP); 2014

International Society of Political Psychology

History contains the foundational myths of a society, defining their rights and obligations, agreements and legitimizing roles in relationships with other social groups or nations according to past experiences. In recent decades, several studies have shown that people possess different conceptions of history which may affect their attitudes and behaviour in the present. Current study, based on a convenience correlational sample of 375 Argentineans, explored these lay conceptions of history, and its relationships with nationalism, political ideology, and religiousness. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) yielded eleven dimensions of Lay Conceptions of History: Devine Plan, Laws, Great men, Micro history, Truth, Marxism, Technology, Progress, Suffering, Cycle, and Myth. Each factor included four items, ccomposite reliabilities ranging from .97 to .99, and average variance extracted ranged from .83 to .94. Correlations between factors were mostly moderate. Subsequently, a non hierarchical cluster analysis was applied to create profiles based on ideology, nationalism, and religiousness. This analysis confirmed the existence of four profiles: non-nationalist left (n = 108), nationalist left (n = 93), religious moderates (n = 104), and nationalist right (n = 62). The analysis of variance revealed a significant effect of ideological positioning on participants? conceptions of history in terms of a Devine plan, and ruled by laws. Right political orientation support a representation of history as following a Devine plan while nationalism exhibited an idea of history as ruled by laws. Meanwhile, religiousness supported both, the idea of history guided by a divine plan but also ruled by laws.