Research Interests:  Margarita explored how belief systems, or
ideologies, structure our mental representations of the world,
infuse our lives with meaning, and help guide our behavior. She
examined how social influences and motivated reasoning interact
to prompt the internalization of a belief system, the
development of conviction regarding that set of beliefs, and the
consequent resistance or susceptibility to novel, challenging,
or contradictory information. She used surveys, natural
experiments, content analyses, and experimental manipulations to
investigate the differences and similarities between liberals
and conservatives, along with the intrapersonal, interpersonal,
and societal consequences of those differences.  Margarita was
interested in liberals' and conservatives' cognitive and
motivational responses to power and inequality, asking the
questions: Does interpersonal behavior in power-differentiated
roles resonate with beliefs about social dominance and equality?
If conservatives tend to see the w