06 June Today's term from psychology is the Cultural Cognition of Risk, usually called simply Cultural Cognition.

Analysis of extensive survey data done as part of Yale's Cultural Cognition project suggest that a person's values are derived from their particular world view, and can be classified into two broad groups: those whose personal values stress the individual over the group, and those whose personal values stress the group over the individual. Surprisingly, which of these two categories a person falls into is a stronger predictor of their positions on such topics as climate change, gun control, or vaccination, than are the characteristics such as race, gender, economic status, and political orientation which are usually assumed to be very predictive. Thus the difference between the political Right and the political Left in this country appears to have less to do with any specific topics themselves and more to do with a person's values, which in tern derive from their world view. The difference between the two world views becomes a major problem when people place a value on their world views that is then used as a justification for the use of force by one group against the other.