Intolerance of Ambiguity and Political Orientation Among Israeli University Students

Abstract

The relation between political orientation and cognitive style—as measured by intolerance of ambiguity—among Israeli university students was explored. A Hebrew translation of Budner's Intolerance of Ambiguity Scale was pretested with 39 students, a political orientation test was developed by the authors and pretested with 24 other students, and 159 students subsequently completed both measures. The data lend support to the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis over the ideologue hypothesis. As an alternative, a value-pluralism model, in which the relation between cognitive style and political orientation depends on the values underlying the central issue that defines the left-right continuum, could account for the current findings and provide rich alternatives to either the rigidity-of-the-right or the ideologue hypothesis.