| The purpose of this study was to examine epistemic motivation and motivated social cognition in relation to political ideology. This study focused on the relationship between personal worldview, religiosity, the need for cognitive closure and political identification by examining social-cognitive motivation underlying beliefs. Previous research suggests that need for closure is negatively correlated with the postmodern worldview and religiosity, that cognitive motivational needs to reduce uncertainty are satisfied by conservative beliefs, and that epistemic need for closure is better served by traditional ideologies.;The results of the study indicated that religiosity is significantly related to postmodern worldview (r = -.32, p < .01) indicating that those that are more religious are more likely to reject the postmodern worldview. As hypothesized, need for closure, religiosity, and worldview predicted the level of agreement with a candidate whose platform offered quick and clear-cut solutions F(3, 80) = 2.89, p < .05, R2 = .10. |
