Abstract
<p>An individual’s social-political attitudes can be explained by factors that are internal (e.g., personality traits) or external (e.g., parents' social attitudes) to the self. In the current work, we provide an account of the inter-generational transmission of socially-conservative attitudes that accommodates such internal and external factors. Relying on the ideas of Gene-Culture Co-Evolution theory, we propose that humans differ in their level of Psychological Conservatism, namely, the extent to which they are predisposed to adhere to the teachings of previous generations. Our model suggests that psychologically conservative individuals will often exhibit socially conservative political attitudes because of the extra-psychological processes of modernization of human society. We examine the preconditions and provide preliminary support for our model in three large correlational studies. The current work highlights that scientists’ understanding of social phenomena may benefit from a stronger integration of psychological and sociological theory.</p>