{"id":{"repo_id":"buffalo","oai_identifier":"oai:ubir.buffalo.edu:10477/84039"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/buffalo/oai:ubir.buffalo.edu:10477/84039","repository":{"repo_id":"buffalo","name":"Buffalo","base_url":"https://ubir.buffalo.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Red Donkeys and Blue Elephants: An Examination of Liberals' and Conservatives' Divergent Responses to Expectancy Violation","abstract":"Ph.D.","abstract_html":"Ph.D.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Saltsman, Thomas; 0000-0002-0239-5291"],"institution":"State University of New York at Buffalo","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Seery, Mark","Psychology"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-06-21T15:47:18Z","date_published":"2022-06-21T15:47:18Z","updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:05:30Z","subjects":["social psychology"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/10477/84039","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Seery, Mark","Psychology"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Saltsman, Thomas; 0000-0002-0239-5291"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2022-06-21T15:47:18Z","2020"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["State University of New York at Buffalo"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Text","Dissertation"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["social psychology"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/10477/84039"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Ph.D.","When presented with situations that violate expected associations about the world (i.e., expectancy violations), individuals are thought to initially experience proximal, avoidant-oriented responses consistent with attentional vigilance, anxiety, and uncertainty. These proximal responses to expectancy violation are theorized to then motivate more distal, approach-oriented responses to palliate anxious arousal, which generally entails bolstering commitment to other established associations and belief frameworks (e.g., political or social groups). Previous work argues that the likelihood and rate of transitioning from avoidance-oriented to approach-oriented defense responses varies across individuals. The current research argues that political ideology may be one such individual difference that predicts divergences in expectancy violation response. Although past research argues that those who possess conservative political beliefs, relative to those who possess relatively liberal political beliefs, should respond more negatively to threat broadly, there are theoretical reasons to expect that conservative beliefs may also provide individuals with a sense of clarity in the face of expectancy violation, promoting greater approach-oriented, commitment responses. Across two pilot studies, the current work finds evidence that liberals and conservatives diverge in their expectancy violation response patterns. Specifically, conservatives demonstrated greater evidence of approach-oriented responses (e.g., greater relative challenge as defined by the biopsychosocial model of challenge/threat [BPSC/T], greater commitment to political ideology). However, liberals demonstrated greater evidence of avoidance-oriented responses (e.g., greater relative threat as defined by the BPSC/T; more negative, avoidance-oriented emotions). In the current study, I aimed to bolster and expand upon this broader theoretical framework, by examining the processes underlying this divergence in responses (e.g., situational and/or chronic perceptions of political instability or disorder), as well as examining additional theoretical moderators. I found that an induction of political instability—reading an article about a Trump loss for conservatives, an article about a Trump victory for liberals, and or a neutral article—moderated the previously observed relationship between political ideology and expectancy violation. However, the nature of this interaction diverged from hypotheses. Specifically, when exposed to a neutral task that did not violate expectancies, conservatives and liberals predictably differed across conditions designed to induce political instability for either group, with liberals tending to exhibit more positive responses after reading about a Trump loss, and conservatives tending to exhibit more positive responses after reading about a Trump victory. However, when exposed to expectancy violation, these relationships were reversed across measures of challenge/threat and task performance. Although I present plausible explanations for this pattern of responses, future research should further explore the mechanism underlying liberals' and conservatives' divergent responses to expectancy violation.","**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact library@buffalo.edu. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.**"]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Red Donkeys and Blue Elephants: An Examination of Liberals' and Conservatives' Divergent Responses to Expectancy Violation"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Seery, Mark","Psychology"],"dc:creator":["Saltsman, Thomas; 0000-0002-0239-5291"],"dc:date":["2022-06-21T15:47:18Z","2020"],"dc:description":["Ph.D.","When presented with situations that violate expected associations about the world (i.e., expectancy violations), individuals are thought to initially experience proximal, avoidant-oriented responses consistent with attentional vigilance, anxiety, and uncertainty. These proximal responses to expectancy violation are theorized to then motivate more distal, approach-oriented responses to palliate anxious arousal, which generally entails bolstering commitment to other established associations and belief frameworks (e.g., political or social groups). Previous work argues that the likelihood and rate of transitioning from avoidance-oriented to approach-oriented defense responses varies across individuals. The current research argues that political ideology may be one such individual difference that predicts divergences in expectancy violation response. Although past research argues that those who possess conservative political beliefs, relative to those who possess relatively liberal political beliefs, should respond more negatively to threat broadly, there are theoretical reasons to expect that conservative beliefs may also provide individuals with a sense of clarity in the face of expectancy violation, promoting greater approach-oriented, commitment responses. Across two pilot studies, the current work finds evidence that liberals and conservatives diverge in their expectancy violation response patterns. Specifically, conservatives demonstrated greater evidence of approach-oriented responses (e.g., greater relative challenge as defined by the biopsychosocial model of challenge/threat [BPSC/T], greater commitment to political ideology). However, liberals demonstrated greater evidence of avoidance-oriented responses (e.g., greater relative threat as defined by the BPSC/T; more negative, avoidance-oriented emotions). In the current study, I aimed to bolster and expand upon this broader theoretical framework, by examining the processes underlying this divergence in responses (e.g., situational and/or chronic perceptions of political instability or disorder), as well as examining additional theoretical moderators. I found that an induction of political instability—reading an article about a Trump loss for conservatives, an article about a Trump victory for liberals, and or a neutral article—moderated the previously observed relationship between political ideology and expectancy violation. However, the nature of this interaction diverged from hypotheses. Specifically, when exposed to a neutral task that did not violate expectancies, conservatives and liberals predictably differed across conditions designed to induce political instability for either group, with liberals tending to exhibit more positive responses after reading about a Trump loss, and conservatives tending to exhibit more positive responses after reading about a Trump victory. However, when exposed to expectancy violation, these relationships were reversed across measures of challenge/threat and task performance. Although I present plausible explanations for this pattern of responses, future research should further explore the mechanism underlying liberals' and conservatives' divergent responses to expectancy violation.","**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact library@buffalo.edu. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.**"],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/10477/84039"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:publisher":["State University of New York at Buffalo"],"dc:rights":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."],"dc:subject":["social psychology"],"dc:title":["Red Donkeys and Blue Elephants: An Examination of Liberals' and Conservatives' Divergent Responses to Expectancy Violation"],"dc:type":["Text","Dissertation"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:05:30Z"}