Running for your life, in context: Are rightists always less likely to consider fleeing their country when fearing future events?

• We examine how context and ideology moderate fear's effect on flight intentions.
• Context, ideology and fear interactively affect willingness to consider flight.
• When ideology is irrelevant, fear increases only rightists' flight intentions.
• In ideologically-relevant contexts, fear increases only leftists' flight intentions.

Fear is a powerful motivator for the classic fight or flight response. Under extreme social and political circumstances, fear may lead people to emigrate from their land to protect themselves and their families. While ideology is related to differences in behavioral fear reactivity, little is known about how it moderates the effect of fear on flight intentions. In a large experimental study (N = 243), we examined our hypothesis that this moderating effect is context-dependent, such that the context's relation to the ideology determines its influence. In ideologically-irrelevant contexts, because rightists (versus leftists) are assumed to be more behaviorally reactive to fear, their willingness to consider flight should be more affected. In ideologically-relevant intergroup contexts, however, rightist ideology provides clear reaction guidelines ruling out flight, and therefore fear should have a weaker effect on rightists' (versus leftists') flight tendencies. Our findings supported these predictions, and their significance is discussed.