Writing autobiographical narratives increases political conservatism

•Writing a chronological autobiography increases respondents' political conservatism.•Counter-chronological or biographical (about someone else) narratives have no effect.•This effect is limited to the core of conservatism: resistance to political change.

Two experiments show that writing chronological autobiographical narratives increases political conservatism, defined as an ideology of resistance to social change. When writing chronological autobiographical narratives, we hypothesized that people would re-experience the events of their life in a way that portrays the current situation as the result of past personal actions and choices. This awareness should evoke a general sense that the current situation is not the result of chaos and randomness, but that the way things are is the way things should be. This sense of order makes people feel that the status quo should be maintained and causes a corresponding shift towards resisting social change. Experiment 1 shows that only writing chronological autobiographical narratives increase political conservatism. Experiment 2 shows that only writing autobiographical narratives increases political conservatism. Together, these experiments demonstrate that the experience of writing chronological autobiographies systematically affects political thinking.