A recent study published in the journal Cognition and Emotion has found that individuals in Israel may exhibit an unconscious aversion to left-wing political concepts. The research found that people took longer to verbally respond to words associated with the political left, suggesting a rapid, automatic rejection of this ideology. This effect was observed even when participants were simply asked to identify the location of these words on a screen, indicating that the aversion might operate at a basic cognitive level.
The researchers were motivated by observations of the increasing negativity and vilification directed towards the political left, particularly in contexts like Israel where right-wing political movements have gained prominence. They noticed a trend where aversion to the left seemed to be more than just reasoned disagreement, potentially resembling an automatic, reflexive rejection. Specifically in Israel, the term “leftist” is often used as an insult, and there have been public campaigns that negatively portray left-wing organizations.
This led the researchers to hypothesize that, in the Israeli political climate, the term “left” and related concepts might have become akin to taboo words – terms so negatively charged that they trigger an automatic avoidance response. They wanted to investigate if this perceived revulsion was not just a conscious political stance, but something deeper, operating at an implicit, possibly unconscious level.
“We were particularly interested in understanding the role of political metaphors in spatial processing. Historically, the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ became associated with liberal and conservative political ideologies. Given this association, we wanted to explore whether it influences how individuals process spatial information,” said study author Heather A. Kumove, a PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
To investigate this, the researchers employed a variation of a classic psychological test known as the Stroop task. However, instead of using colors, they used spatial locations. Participants were presented with words on either the left or right side of a computer screen and were instructed to verbally state the location of the word (“left” or “right”) as quickly as possible.
In the first study, 85 participants were presented with words that were politically charged, categorized as either left-wing or right-wing in the Israeli context. These words included names of politicians, political parties, and common political terms. The words appeared either on the side of the screen that matched their political association (for example, a left-wing word on the left side – a congruent condition) or on the opposite side (an incongruent condition). The researchers measured how long it took participants to verbally say “left” or “right” in response to each word. The participants were Jewish Israeli students from a university in central Israel, fluent in Hebrew. They also completed questionnaires about their own political views, rating themselves on a scale from very left-wing to very right-wing.
The second study, involving 128 participants with similar characteristics, aimed to strengthen the idea that the observed effects were specifically related to political associations, not just spatial locations. This time, the researchers used the Hebrew words for “left” and “right” themselves as the stimuli in the spatial Stroop task. Before the task, some participants were given a “political prime” to make political thoughts more prominent. This prime involved showing pictures of well-known Israeli politicians, either leaning to the left or right, and asking participants to judge the direction they were leaning. Other participants, in a control condition, were shown pictures of research assistants leaning left or right. The researchers then measured verbal response times in the spatial Stroop task, expecting that if political awareness was heightened, any aversion to “left” would be more pronounced.
In addition to these main studies, the researchers conducted two smaller auxiliary studies to rule out alternative explanations. One study explored whether the sounds of the Hebrew words for “left” and “right” might be responsible for any differences in response times, rather than the meaning. Participants were asked to verbally classify unfamiliar shapes using made-up words that sounded similar to “left” and “right” in Hebrew but had no political meaning.
Another auxiliary study checked if there was a general preference for responding to stimuli on one side of the screen over the other, which could also influence the results, especially given that Hebrew is read from right to left. Participants were asked to identify the location of neutral words on the left or right side of the screen by saying “one” or “two,” associated with the left and right locations.
The results of the first study revealed that participants were indeed slower to respond to left-wing words compared to right-wing words. They were also slower to verbally say “left” when a word appeared on the left side of the screen. Interestingly, this slowness in saying “left” was more noticeable among participants who identified as politically center-right. Contrary to expectations based on typical spatial Stroop effects, there was no “congruency effect,” meaning that responses were not generally faster when the word’s political orientation matched its spatial location.
The second study confirmed and expanded on these findings. It replicated the slowdown in verbal responses for “left” locations. Importantly, the political priming manipulation amplified this effect. Participants who were primed with political images showed an even greater slowdown when responding “left” compared to those in the control group. This suggests that making political concepts more salient increased the aversion to “left.” In this study, the typical congruency effect of spatial Stroop tasks was observed: responses were faster when the word “left” or “right” was presented on the corresponding side of the screen. However, even with this congruency effect, the slowdown for “left” responses was still evident and stronger under political priming.
The auxiliary studies helped eliminate other possible explanations for the main findings. The study using made-up words with similar sounds to “left” and “right” showed no difference in response times, suggesting that the phonetic properties of the words were not the cause of the slowdown. Similarly, the study investigating spatial preferences found no general bias towards responding faster to one side of the screen, indicating that spatial preference was not driving the results.
“We were particularly surprised by the extent to which responses to the word ‘left’ were slowed, resembling reactions to taboo or unpleasant words,” Kumove told PsyPost. “Further, our subsequent tests suggested that this effect may indicate a bias that operates at an automatic, cognitive level rather than being solely a product of conscious political attitudes. Moreover, this bias may not only impact political attitudes but may further extend to how people engage with the spatial world around them. This highlights the deep integration of political ideology into fundamental cognitive processes, which was more robust than we initially anticipated.”
Overall, the study provides evidence that, in the Israeli context, there may be an automatic, negative reaction to left-wing political terms. This reaction manifests as a hesitation in verbal responses, even in a simple task requiring spatial judgments.
“Our studies suggested that internalized political biases can extend beyond opinions and may potentially influence how people process spatial information,” Kumove explained. “Our findings highlight how ideology can shape cognitive processing, potentially reinforcing biases which exist in a given society, as was the case in the Israeli context.”
The researchers noted that their study used a specific method – the spatial Stroop task – and further research is needed to confirm these findings using different approaches. Future studies could explore whether this effect is specific to the Israeli political context or if it exists in other societies with different political dynamics.
“Given that we only were able to test this in a heavily skewed political climate, where there is a clear political minority, it would be important to test this relationship in countries with more political parity, such as the United States,” Kumove said.
The research team also hopes to explore whether these automatic reactions to political language are connected to deeper political opinions and behaviors.
“This research suggests the deep rooted reactions to political terms and how they can be imbued with a ‘taboo’ meaning,” Kumove said. “In the future, we would wish to see if these reactions relate to political views on the issues and to the fact that these views can be marked with a clear political mark (i.e., ‘left’ or ‘right’).”
The study, “Left out and vilified: Do the effects of political metaphors on spatial orientation judgments indicate a taboo effect?,” was authored by Heather Ashley Kumove, Gilad Hirschberger, and Boaz M. Ben-David.
