People’s feelings about political issues are often experienced as moral convictions, that is, as rooted in beliefs about right and wrong, morality and immorality. The authors tested and found that morally convicted policy preferences are associated with positive as well as negative emotions among policy supporters and opponents, respectively, and that positive and negative emotions partially mediate the effects of moral convictions on relevant behavioral intentions (i.e., willingness to engage in activism).

Hibbing et al. argue that the liberal–conservative continuum is (a) universal and (b) grounded in psychological differences in sensitivity to negative stimuli. Our commentary argues that both claims overlook the importance of context. We review evidence that the liberal–conservative continuum is far from universal and that ideological differences are contextually flexible rather than fixed.