Our lab has long been at the forefront of research related to international and national security. Not only have we applied linguistic and natural language processing systems to better understand security in traditional physical security arenas (e.g., national defense, terrorism), we have also analyzed the procesess by which political security may break down internally. This includes studying the psychology of group dissension, the effect of ecological stress on democracy and support for institutions (such as business), and the specific kind of persons that might be especially prone to division (such as authoritarians on both the left and right side of the political spectrum). We have studied these processes across a number of contexts relevant to security, including business scenarios, environmental scenarios, and massive cross-cultural data-sets. A list of some of our security-relevant work is below:
Conway, L. G. III, Chan, L., Woodard, S. R., & Joshanloo, M. (in press). Proximal versus distal ecological stress: Socio-ecological influences on political freedom, well-being, and societal and business confidence in 159 Nations. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, XX, XX-XX.
Houck, S. C., Conway, L.G., III, & Zubrod, A. (in press). Automated language analysis: Integrative complexity. In R. Boyd & M. Dehghani (Eds.), The Atlas of Language Analysis in Psychology. New York: Guilford Press.
Woodard, S. R., Chan, L., & Conway, L. G., III (in press). In search of the cognitively complex person: To what degree is cognitive complexity a generalized individual difference variable? Personality and Social Psychology Review, XX, XX-XX.
Conway, L. G, III, Houck, S. C., Chan, L., Repke, M. A., & McFarland, J. (2021). The agreement paradox: How pressures for agreement can ultimately divide us. In J.-W. van Prooijen (Ed.), Current Issues in Social Psychology: Political Polarization (pp. 112-126). New York: Routledge.
Zubrod, A., Conway, L. G., III, Conway, K. R., & Ailanjian, D. (2020). Understanding the role of linguistic complexity in famous trial outcomes. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, XX, XX-XX.
Conway, L. G., III, Conway, K. R., & Houck, S. C. (2020). Validating Automated Integrative Complexity: Natural language processing and the Donald Trump test. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 8, 504-524.
Chan, L., Zubrod, A., Woodard, S. R., & Conway, L. G., III. (2020). Identity leadership is manifested via integrative complexity: Comment on Haslam et al. 2019. American Psychologist, 75, 403–405.
Conway, L.G. III, Zubrod, A., Chan, L. (2020). The paradox of tribal equalitarianism. Psychological Inquiry, 31, 48-52.
Conway, L. G., III, Chan, L., & Woodard, S. R. (2019). Socio-ecological influences on political ideology. Current Opinion in Psychology, 32, 76-80.
Conway, L. G., III, & McFarland, J. D. (2019). Do Right-Wing and Left-Wing Authoritarianism predict election outcomes?: Support for Obama and Trump across two United States presidential elections. Personality and Individual Differences, 138, 84-87.
Conway, L. G., III, & Repke, M. A. (2019). The psychological contamination of pro-environmental consensus: Political pressure for environmental belief agreement undermines its long-term power. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 62, 12-21.
Houck, S. C., & Conway, L. G. III. (2019). Strategic communication and the integrative complexity-ideology relationship: Meta-analytic findings reveal differences between public politicians and private citizens in their use of simple rhetoric. Political Psychology. DOI:10.1111/pops.12583
Houck, S. C., McFarland, J., VanderDrift, L. E., & Conway, L. G. III. (2019). When beliefs lead to (im)moral action: How believing in torture’s effectiveness shapes the endorsement of its use. Political Psychology. DOI:10.1111/pops.12590
Van de Vliert, E., & Conway, L. G. III. (2019). Northerners and Southerners differ in conflict culture. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 12(3), 256-277.
Chan, L., & Conway, L. G., III. (2018). Autocratic government moderates the relationship between culture and legal restriction. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 49, 1457–1463. DOI: 10.1177/0022022118793538
Conway, L. G., III, Houck, S. C., Gornick, L. J., Repke, M. R. (2018). Finding the Loch Ness Monster: Left-Wing Authoritarianism in the United States. Political Psychology, 39, 1049-1067. [Featured in a virtual issue of Political Psychology containing Most-Cited Papers from 2016-2018: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-9221.top-cited-vi; also awarded Top 20 Most Downloaded Articles 2017-2018 by Wiley for Political Psychology].
Chan, L., McFarland, J. D., & Conway, L. G., III. (2018). Political contamination of social psychology: A review of Crawford and Jussim’s (2017) edited book ‘The politics of social psychology.’ Social Justice Research. Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1007/s11211-018-0312-y
Conway, L. G., III, Suedfeld, P., & Tetlock, P. E. (2018). Integrative complexity in politics. In A. Mintz (Ed.), Oxford Handbook of Behavioral Political Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190634131.013.7
Houck, S. C., Conway, L. G. III, Parrow, K., & Luce, A., & Salvati, J. (2018). An integrative complexity analysis of religious and irreligious thinking. Sage Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018796302
McCullough, H., & Conway, L. G., III. (2018a). The cognitive complexity of Miss Piggy and Osama Bin Laden: Examining linguistic differences between fiction and reality. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 7, 518-532. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000150
Conway, L. G., III, Bongard, K., Plaut, V. C., Gornick,L. J., Dodds, D., Giresi, T., Tweed, R. G., Repke, M. A., & Houck, S. C. (2017). Ecological origins of freedom: Pathogens, heat stress, and frontier topography predict more vertical but less horizontal governmental restriction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 1378-1398. DOI: 10.1177/0146167217713192
Conway, L. G., III, Boyd, R. L., Dennehy, T. C., Mills, D. J., & Repke, M. A. (2017). Political behavior inside and outside the lab: Bringing political research to the real world. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 3, 227-230.
Conway, L. G., III, Repke, M. A., & Houck, S. C. (2017). Donald Trump as a cultural revolt against perceived communication restriction: Priming political correctness norms causes more Trump support. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 5, 244-259.
Houck, S. C., Repke, M. A., & Conway, L. G., III. (2017). Understanding what makes terrorist groups’ propaganda effective: An integrative complexity analysis of ISIL and Al Qaeda. Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, 12, 105-118. DOI:10.1080/18335330.2017.1351032
Repke, M. A., Conway, L. G., III, & Houck, S. C. (2017). The strategic manipulation of linguistic complexity: A test of two models of lying. Journal of Language and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X17706943
Tweed, R. G., Mah, E., Dobrin, M., Van Poele, R., & Conway, L. G., III. (2017). Can positive psychology influence public policy and practice? In C. Proctor (Ed.), Positive Psychology Interventions in Practice (pp. 257-271). New York: Springer.
Conway, L. G., III, Houck, S. C., Gornick, L. J., & Repke, M. A. (2016). Ideologically-motivated perceptions of complexity: Believing those who agree with you are more complex than they are. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 35, 708-718.
Conway, L. G., Gornick, L. J., Houck, S. C., Anderson, C., Stockert, J., Sessoms, D. and McCue, K. (2016). Are conservatives really more simple-minded than liberals? The domain specificity of complex thinking. Political Psychology, 37, 777-798. doi: 10.1111/pops.12304
Houck, S. C., & Conway, L. G., III. (2015). Ethically investigating torture efficacy: A new methodology to test the influence of pain on decision-making processes in experimental interrogation scenarios. Journal of Applied Security Research, 10, 510-524.
Conway, L. G., III, Conway, K. R., Gornick, L. J., & Houck, S. C. (2014). Automated integrative complexity. Political Psychology, 35, 603-624.
Conway, L. G., III, Houck, S. C., & Gornick, L. J. (2014). Regional differences in individualism and why they matter. In J. Rentfrow (Ed.), Psychological Geography (pp. 31-50). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Houck, S. C., Conway, L. G., III, & Gornick, L. J. (2014). Automated integrative complexity: Current challenges and future directions. Political Psychology, 35, 647-659.
Houck, S. C., Conway, L. G., III, & Repke, M. (2014). Personal closeness and perceived torture efficacy: If torture will save someone I’m close to, then it must work. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 20, 590-592.
Houck, S. C., & Conway, L. G., III. (2013). What people think about torture: Torture is inherently bad…unless it can save someone I love. Journal of Applied Security Research, 8, 429-454.
Houck, S. C., Conway, L. G., III, Gornick, L. J., & Cvasa, G. P. (2013). Terrorism. In Ken Keith (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Psychology (pp. 1280-1283). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.
Conway, L. G., III, Gornick, L. J., Burfiend, C., Mandella, P., Kuenzli, A., Houck, S. C., & Fullerton, D. T. (2012). Does simple rhetoric win elections? An integrative complexity analysis of U.S. presidential campaigns. Political Psychology, 33, 599-618.
Conway, L. G., III, & Conway, K. R. (2011). The terrorist rhetorical style and its consequences for understanding terrorist violence. Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 4, 175-192. [Reprinted in Smith, A. (Ed.), The Relationship Between Rhetoric and Terrorist Violence. New York: Routledge.]
Conway, L.G., III, & Gornick, L. J. (2011). Cognitive complexity. In D. Christie (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology (pp. 849-853) . Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.
Conway, L. G., III, Gornick, L. J., Houck, S. C., Hands Towgood, K., & Conway, K. R. (2011). The hidden implications of radical group rhetoric: Integrative complexity and terrorism. Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 4, 155-165. [Reprinted in Smith, A. (Ed.), The Relationship Between Rhetoric and Terrorist Violence. New York: Routledge.]
Gornick, L. J., & Conway, L.G., III. (2011). Political psychology and peace. In D. Christie (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology (pp. 139-143). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.
Liht, J., Conway, L. G. III, Savage, S., White, W., O’Neill, K. A. (2011). Religious fundamentalism: An empirically derived construct and measurement scale. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 33, 299-323.
Kitayama, S., Conway, L. G., III, Pietromonaco, P.R., Park, H., & Plaut, V. C. (2010). Ethos of Independence Across Regions in the United States: The Production-Adoption Model of Cultural Change. American Psychologist, 65, 559-574.
Conway, L. G., III, Salcido, A., Gornick, L. J., Bongard, K. A., Moran, M., & Burfiend, C. (2009). When self-censorship norms backfire: The manufacturing of positive communication and its ironic consequences for the perceptions of groups. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 31, 335-347.
Conway, L. G., III., Thoemmes, F., Allison, A. M., Hands Towgood, K., Wagner, M., Davey, K.,Salcido, A., Stovall, A., Dodds, D. P., Bongard, K., & Conway, K. R. (2008). Two ways to be complex and why they matter: Implications for attitude strength and lying. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1029-1044.
Smith, A. G., Suedfeld, P., Conway, L. G., III, & Winter, D. G. (2008). The language of violence: Distinguishing terrorist from nonterrorist groups by thematic content analysis. Dynamics of Assymmetric Conflict, 1, 142-163.
Thoemmes, F., & Conway, L. G., III. (2007). Integrative complexity of 41 U.S. presidents. Political Psychology, 28, 193-226.
Conway, L. G., III, Clements, S. M., & Tweed, R. G. (2006). Collectivism and governmentally initiated restrictions: A cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis across nations and within a nation. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 37, 1-23.
Conway, L. G., III, & Schaller, M. (2005). When authority’s commands backfire: Attributions about consensus and effects on deviant decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 89, 311-326.
Suedfeld, P., Leighton, D.C., & Conway, L.G. III (2005). Integrative complexity and decision-making in international confrontations. In M. Fitzduff & C.E. Stout (Eds.), The psychology of resolving global conflicts: From war to peace. Volume 1, Nature vs. Nurture (pp. 211-237). New York: Praeger.
Conway, L. G., III, Suedfeld, P., & Clements, S. M. (2003). Beyond the American reaction: Integrative complexity of Middle Eastern leaders during the 9/11 crisis. Psicologia Politica, 27 , 93-103.
Conway, L. G., III, Suedfeld, P., & Tetlock, P. E. (2001). Integrative complexity and political decisions that lead to war or peace. In D. J. Christie, R. V. Wagner, & D. Winter (Eds.), Peace, conflict, and violence: Peace psychology for the 21st century (pp. 66-75). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Suedfeld, P., Conway, L. G., III, & Eichhorn, D. (2001). Studying Canadian leaders at a distance. In O. Feldman & L. Valenty (Eds.), Political leadership for the new century: Lessons from the cross-cultural study of personality and behavior (pp. 3-19). Westport, CT: Greenwood.