Why American conservatives and individuals from traditionalist cultures may share a preference for group uniformity

American culture is known for its emphasis on freedom-promoting values such as self-determination and autonomy. Yet, a large segment of American society endorses a conservative ideology that seems to go against these values. In this article, we empirically show that conservatives' weaker endorsement of autonomy values predicts a preference to be an amorphous entity in a tight, uniform group (Study 1A). We do so by implementing a novel measure of sociocultural tightness that is not based on self-report items. We subsequently show that cultural (East-West) differences in this preference can be explained through a similar mechanism (Study 1B). Hence, we show that some cognitive processes of American conservatives are similar to those of individuals coming from more collectivist, non-Western societies.