The psychology of Psychology Today (about those liberals and conservatives)
I want to say more about that Psychology Today article on fearful conservatives vs. rational liberals, the one the Sanity Squad discussed in its latest podcast.
But oh, where to begin, where to begin?
I’ll start by disclosing my personal association with the article. Back in July, I got an email from an intern at the magazine, inviting me to be interviewed for a piece on political conversions. According to the email, the article was be entirely even-handed and nonpartisan, and would incorporate stories from both sides of the political spectrum about people whose viewpoints had changed. It sounded like fun, and definitely right up my alley.
But if you read the finished product, it turns out that the “change” stories have boiled down to just one, that of journalist and blogger Cinnamon Stillwell, plus four short and superficial blurbs containing a couple of sentences apiece about four famous “changers” (yes, this part was an attempt at even-handedness, at least by the numbers: there were two righty-to-lefties and two lefty-to-righties: Brock, Huffington, Reagan, and Hitchens).
During my rather lengthy telephone interview with author Jay Dixit, he asked me many times whether my post-9/11 political change had been motivated by fear. I repeatedly explained that it had not, referring to my blog articles on change, and describing the process involved in some detail.
Certainly, I said, there had been brief moments of fear, but they were not predominant, and didn’t last very long. Instead, it seemed to me that 9/11 had acted initially as a sort of shock to the system, a signal to me that there was a lot that I didn’t understand about the world, and that learning more would be of vital importance and would help me know what actions to support as a response to the attack.
I said that reading had been a huge part of the process for me–and in due course I’d encountered books and articles from the conservative side, a point of view I hadn’t studied in any depth up to that point (I was already familiar, of course, with the liberal point of view). I emphasized that for me the process of change was not sudden at all; it took several years, and was far more cognitive than emotional.
Looking back, it’s clear to me that the questions Jay Dixit asked were designed to get me to focus on fear as a motivator. That’s fine, since it turns out to be the main topic of the article. But it hardly seems unbiased or balanced to leave out a story (mine) that challenges the article’s conclusions.
I can’t know for certain what motivated the author to leave me out of the article entirely. Nor do I know whether there were others who were similarly left on the cutting room floor. But I can’t help but wonder whether my interview was eliminated from the final product because I repeatedly gave answers that didn’t fit in with the message the author wanted to deliver: that those who became more conservative were motivated by fear rather than rational thinking.
In addition, are fear and rationality mutually exclusive, anyway? As the Squad said on the podcast, fear is often adaptive and functional. After all, it evolved to warn us of dangers, so that we can respond appropriately. The real question is this: even if most post-9/11 “changers” were motivated by fear (and the article presents no data on that particular question; I don’t think anyone’s done the research), was the danger realistic? If so, fear would be a rational initial response, and could lead to taking appropriate action to eliminate the danger. Denying the existence of a real danger is not only irrational, it can lead to the destruction of the denier.
Nowhere in the article are any of these issues dealt with, even on a superficial basis. And yet they are absolutely vital.
But the bulk of the article had nothing to do with this. The article as published was predominantly a summary of research studies purporting to study the differences between conservatives and liberals; to associate fearfulness and other (mostly negative) character traits with the former, and openness and flexibility (and, ultimately, rationality) with the latter; and to show that fear motivates people to become slightly more conservative in their responses.
I might have written that the finished piece represented an analysis rather than a summary of such research, but that didn’t seem to be the proper word. In fact, the Psychology Today article made no real attempt either to evaluate the research or critique it, nor to mention any research that might counter or negate it.
As I went through the article, flaws in the reasoning behind every piece of research cited came to mind. But to really understand the quality of a piece of research and to effectively critique its flaws, it’s necessary to go to the source, the original paper itself. To do this for all the research cited in the article would be enough work for a small Ph.D. thesis. So, even though I’m known for my long posts, I’m not about going to be doing that today (sighs of relief all around).
Fortunately, the internet has come to my rescue, as it has so many times before. Someone known as IronShrink has done some of the work for me, and for us.
IronShrink critiques one of the main pieces of research relied on in the article: Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway’s review of some 88 previous studies on conservatism. Finding fault with their study seems to have been a bit like shooting fish in a barrel for those well-versed in research methodology (here’s another take-down of the same Jost, et. al. article, this one written by Colorado State professor C. Richard Jansen–who, by the way, is a research chemist and nutritionist rather than a social scientist).
Read both pieces, if you’re interested in the details. Even in the slippery world of social science research, the Jost review’s methodology seems particularly elusive (or perhaps the proper word would be “illusive”). Among other things, as both articles point out, the Jost researchers fail abysmally in their most elementary task, the basic definition of the terms they are studying–conservatism and liberalism.
Just to get a bit of the flavor of what we’re talking about here, the Jost review apparently says that Stalin, although on the left, could be considered as a figure on the right because he wanted to defend and preserve the Soviet system. “Conservative,” get it?
Other methodological flaws are enumerated in some detail in both articles. Here’s Jansen on the subject:
Jost and his colleagues carried out a meta-analysis of 88 studies involving 22,818 individual subjects in which approximately 27 discrete psychological variables were examined, according to the authors, in terms of the political orientation of the subjects…The methodology and software employed were not described, indeed in this paper there is not even a section entitled methodology or methods. Meta-analysis to be even valid much less successful should be based on a systematic review of the available literature, definition of terms, and a complete unbiased collection of original high quality studies that examine the same, not 27 variables in terms of 12 other variables.
This clearly was not done…[A] hodgepodge of variables were examined in studies involving mostly undergraduate students. The subjects, other than undergraduates were not adequately described, either qualitatively or quantitatively. Gender, age, race or ethnicity were not addressed. The authors describe no efforts to attest to the quality of the studies examined, or the biases potentially involved in the studies themselves or by the investigators, not to mention their own biases. Many of the studies quoted apparently were not peer reviewed since they were in monographs book chapters and conference papers.. The impression of statistical rigor is more apparent than real…
I’m no expert on research; I haven’t got a Ph.D. in the field. But I had to take courses at the graduate level in statistics and in designing and critiquing research, and I worked for a while as a research associate on a large project under some fairly well-known social science researchers. So I know enough to know that you shouldn’t leave out important data–and if you do, it usually means you’re covering up some more basic flaw in that data itself.
IronShrink goes into even greater detail than Jansen in his piece about the Jost review article. I didn’t read the original Jost research (it doesn’t appear to be available online), but IronShrink has, and he’s not impressed.
I did, however, read another piece of research discussed at length in the Psychology Today article, the Block and Block study. You can find it online here.
I’ve mentioned that I’m familiar with reading psychology research. I’m also well aware that it’s almost spectacularly difficult to design it well, and easy to find fault with most such studies that are done. But even give that caveat, the Block research is almost shockingly poorly designed, especially in terms of sample.
This is the basic design: taking nursery school students in Berkeley and Oakland, California; testing them at the age of three (1969-1971) for certain personality traits; and then comparing the personalities of those judged to be liberal against those judged to be conservative years later, (around 1989), at the age of twenty-three.
So, what’s wrong with this picture? Quite a bit, I’m afraid. The most serious problem is the nonrepresentativeness of the sample population. Then, as now, conservatives in Berkeley and Oakland were and are scarcer than hen’s teeth. And these were twenty-three-year-old conservatives in Berkeley and Oakland, growing up in the late 60s and 70s–an especially unusual bunch, I’d imagine. There is absolutely no reason to imagine that any conservatives found by this study would be typical or representative of conservatives as a whole; on the contrary. So the generalizability of the study would be highly suspect, to say the least, even if it were otherwise impeccably designed.
But it’s actually much worse than that. When I looked at the figures, I encountered what I’ll call the mysteriously missing data problem. There were 95 subjects, and when I looked to find one of the most elementary facts about them–how many had been defined as conservatives and how many as liberals–I discovered that Block and Block had failed to report the answer.
How odd. Because the authors had written in the body of their article that, “The LIB/CON [Liberal/Conservative] score distribution in this sample leans toward liberalism, with relatively few participants tilting toward conservatism.”
Get that, folks? In this supposedly seminal study on the personality traits of conservatives, not only can we conclude that any youthful conservatives found in Berkeley and Oakland might be atypical in terms of the conservative population as a whole, but it appears possible that the authors found hardly any conservatives at all. At any rate, they’re not telling.
Note the authors’ careful wording: there were “relatively few participants tilting [my emphasis] towards conservatism.” If you read the rest of the paper, it continually speaks of “relatively liberal” and “relatively conservative” [my emphasis again] subjects. Every now and then the authors slip into use of the terms “liberal” and “conservative” without the modifier, but for the most part the authors use the term “relatively.” That fact, coupled with the glaring absence of the relevant data involved, leads me to conclude that it is entirely possible that the study featured no conservatives at all.
There’s no way to know, of course. But the authors’ careful hedginess about terminology such as “relatively,” their mentioning the paucity of conservatives in the study, and, above all, the missing figures, make me very suspicious indeed. And, if there were few or no conservatives in their population, then what were the Blocks actually studying and comparing? The liberal and the less liberal, perhaps? The Left and the liberal? A worthy task, no doubt, but one that cannot possibly shed much light on conservatives. Because a relatively less Leftist liberal does not a conservative make–even in Berkeley.
But the point is not to attack Block. The point is that Psychology Today, which should know better, breathes not a word of any of these problems or criticisms.
Social science research about politics needs to be especially rigorous because of its potential to reflect the bias of the researchers, whatever side they may be on. Such research is especially amenable to being used (and misused) to score political points, as propaganda. And that’s something Psychology Today ought to have been well aware of, and to have guarded assiduously against. Unfortunately, the editors appear to have failed abysmally at that task.
[NOTE: Here’s a great email another blogger, Asher Abrams, sent to Dixit. And here’s Cinnamon Stillwell’s own take on the article. Others speaking out are Fausta, Shrink, and Dr. Sanity. And here’s a discussion at Eugene Volokh’s by a researcher named Jim Lindgren, who agrees with me on the problem of sample representativeness in the Block study.]
Agenda driven? I’d say the article attempts to do what most magazine articles attempt to do: flatter the (mostly liberal) reader so that the reader will continue to buy the magazine. Can you imagine an article in Psych Today concluding that liberals are less rational than conservatives?
The very idea to do meta-analysis on a set of psychology articles is flawed, irrespective of metodology. In these “sciencies” the “variables” used can not be defined with any degree of rigor, and different authors really measure different “quantities”. To pool these samples (and this is the central idea of meta-analysis) is just as absurd as add apples and oranges and seek mean values and standard deviation.
I’m happy to see that the researchers of these flawed and biased studies are finally getting their balls busted. Viva la blogosphere!
indeed in this paper there is not even a section entitled methodology or methods
As an economics major, if I was to be graded on a research paper, I had to provide a methods/methodology section.
To me, it’s mind-boggling that any art can call itself a science while ignoring quantifying and mathematical analysis.
Fausta, really they did much worse thing than ignoring quantifying and mathematical analysis: they apply them where these tools really can not be applied. Mathematics is not a magic wand that can give rigor to poorly defined concepts. It is like millstone: charge it with wheat and would have a flour; but if you charge it with rubbish, you get a pulverized rubbish. See my Homepage on this subject.
Sergey, I jusst read your post, and am adding your blog to my blogroll!
These exercises in bias use previous pseudo-scientific claptrap to bolster their own credibility. Academia chose its side in the sixties and it’s sticking with it.
It’s all a waste of time and money and will eventually go the way of all such research, for example the research in the 19th century which ‘proved’ phrenology could predict personality – and will become a strange, vaguely comical blip on the radar of scientific history.
But in the meantime the gullible and eager to believe will eat it up.
The Ballad of the Yellow Beret
(to the tune of “The Ballad of the Green Berets”)
We are tough, young Republicans
We fight with words (but never guns)
We show support by drinking beer.
But since we’re rich we’ll stay right here.
(chorus)
Chicken wings suit me just fine
They go so well with my yellow spine
I’ll ply my trade while you’re overseas
When you return, your job will speak Chinese
I’m like my grandpop and my dad,
Those terrorist bastards make me mad;
But I’m a Stanford B-school grad;
So I’ll not be going to Baghdad
(Chorus)
Chicken wings suit me just fine
They go so well with my yellow spine
The poor man’s born to join the fray
I was born rich, I’ll get an MBA
I just can’t share the poor man’s fate
Cause at the Frat House hot babes wait
Just like Dubya I get “C’s”,
And like Dick, I got “Priorities”
(Chorus)
Chicken wings suit me just fine
They go so well with my yellow spine
We strut like cocks in our “Old School” halls
We’re really hens, we’re lacking balls
Hey justaguy – ah, nevermind. Fish. barrel.
Psychology Today is the Discover magazine of social sciences. A sciencey magazine without a lot of rigor.
The Jost (et al) paper is actually on the Web:
Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition
Yes, of course A.V.I. Since when has Justa been known for substance?
Anyway, regarding the study: Is it just me, or were there many logical leaps and outright fallacies in the Psych Today writeup? Not to mention unsupported conclusions (For example, the page 4 commentary that economic interests are what turn people conservative; I’d love to see the data they base that on. Assuming they have any, that is; it sounds more like a preconception than anything else).
This reads more like an attempt for liberals to avoid or explain away the cognitive dissonance imposed by the actuality of terrorism than any true attempt to gain knowledge of what motivates conservatives and liberals. And to use science as a cover for doing so (which in my mind puts them on an equal level as the Intelligent Design folks, ethically. Both attempt nonscientific manipulations and continue to call it science; both are wrong). Anyway, I’ve seen the fear canard used far more by the left than I ever, ever seen done by the right. It’s just that they present the US government as the demon to feared, and have done so by using far more abstract arguments than I ever heard used to justify the war on terrorism.
“”People have two modes of thought,” concludes Solomon. “There’s the intuitive gut-level mode, which is what most of us are in most of the time. And then there’s a rational analytic mode, which takes effort and attention.”
The solution, then, is remarkably simple. The effects of psychological terror on political decision making can be eliminated just by asking people to think rationally. Simply reminding us to use our heads, it turns out, can be enough to make us do it.”
And what? Conservatives don’t do this? Again, listening to liberal friends, reading liberal blogs and authors/commentators, I see far less analytic rationality used by the left than I do from the right. It may be a valid question to ask what a conservative bases his/her analysis on, but to imply that conservatives do not do such analysis is such a strawman, canard, empty assertion, and erroneous preconception that I wonder how the author can make that claim and even remotely think it’s supportable by any evidence. Especially in the face of Neo’s assertion here that there were definite attempts to steer the narratives in a preselected direction, thus implying that the results were predetermined and not honestly reached.
Sometime, I’ll dig around for the actual paper itself; the writeup is a bit thin, informationwise. I sort of think I’m going to find that study full of canards, unsupported assertions, and loads of confirmation bias, but I’m willing to withhold my final judgement until I’ve read it.
Thank you, Anon, for the link.
Neo,
I’m glad you took the time to write this post. I was shocked in the other thread when someone had the nerve to use Jost’s work as an example of something valid. I came on his work 3 or 4 years ago, and I have read with interest many of the articles (it helps to have a university library at hand); it never ceases to amaze me that anyone could be so out of touch with the concepts or research and reason that they take this stuff seriously. When someone outside of science asks me how this rubbish can be published, I have to explain that all one needs is a few like minds that get onto the editorial boards of specific journals and then choose each other as reviewers. I receive manuscripts for review all the time, and many of them are from friends on the editorial boards of various journals. The difference is that these journals have no politics to play (plant biochem is not yet ripe for bringing about social justice). I hope this is just a beginning in bringing this stuff out into the light.
I wonder if you or someone else of blogging note could contact the department head at Stanford, where Jost was faculty, and ask him how this stuff could have come out of an elite university?
I also wonder if the anon who included this stuff in his comments is still enjoying his delicious irony?
Excellent stuff, Neo. I do believe the point is to barbeque them, Neo, instead of attacking them.
Social science is really a misnomer. It is more like the social art.
Since justaguy is a banned troll, I usually delete his comments without even reading them. But his little ditty caught my eye, and since I’m softhearted, I left his it up this time. As the next commenter noted, it would be very easy to refute, but why bother at this point? Instead, and because I’m in a good mood today, I wanted to send a little Tom Lehrer his way (Lehrer, by the way, has now unfortunately succumbed to a bad case of Bush Derangement Syndrome).
The following lyric was penned by Lehrer in the early 50s, I believe, back in the days when every man of a certain age had to either serve in the army or give an excellent reason why not. Lehrer had been drafted, served his time, gotten out, and wrote this song (you will note some general Left-leaning themes) after his discharge. It was his tongue-in-cheek suggestion for an army theme song:
IT MAKES A FELLOW PROUD TO BE A SOLDIER
The heart of every man in our platoon must swell with pride,
For the nation’s youth, the cream of which is marching at his side.
For the fascinating rules and regulations that we share,
And the quaint and curious costumes that we’re called upon to wear.
Now Al joined up to do his part defending you and me.
He wants to fight and bleed and kill and die for liberty.
With the hell of war he’s come to grips,
Policing up the filter tips,
It makes a fella proud to be a soldier!
When Pete was only in the seventh grade, he stabbed a cop.
He’s real R.A. material and he was glad to swap
His switchblade and his old zip gun
For a bayonet and a new M-1.
It makes a fella proud to be a soldier!
After Johnny got through basic training, he
Was a soldier through and through when he was done.
It’s effects were so well rooted,
That the next day he saluted
A Good Humor man, an usher, and a nun.
Now Fred’s an intellectual, brings a book to every meal.
He likes the deep philosophers, like Norman Vincent Peale.
He thinks the army’s just the thing,
Because he finds it broadening.
It makes a fella proud to be a soldier!
Now Ed flunked out of second grade, and never finished school.
He doesn’t know a shelter half from an entrenching tool.
But he’s going to be a big success.
He heads his class at OCS.
It makes a fella proud to be a soldier!
Our old mess sergeant’s taste buds had been shot off in the war.
But his savory collations add to our esprit de corps.
To think of all the marvelous ways
They’re using plastics nowadays.
It makes a fella proud to be a soldier!
Our lieutenant is the up-and-coming type.
Played with soldiers as a boy you just can bet.
It is written in the stars
He will get his captain’s bars,
But he hasn’t got enough box tops yet.
Our captain has a handicap to cope with, sad to tell.
He’s from Georgi
I want to add that the Left-leaning theme in the Lehrer lyric is of course the stupidity of those in the armed forces. In the days of the draft, although draftees were tested and the unqualified supposedly eliminated, there’s little question that intellectual standards were lower. Today’s all-volunteer armed forces are a totally different thing. See here.
Neo, all the research you and the other bloggers cite is wonderful, BUT…
Who’s going to read it? Certainly not any Psych Today readers, nor anyone who reads the press release, er, “new stories” based on it. The factoid is now out there: conservatives are fearful, liberals are rational. It will persist until the heat death of the universe.
See, liberals _don’t care_ if what they’re saying is a lie. Truth doesn’t matter to them. It’s persuading others that’s important to them, and they’re perfectly willing to spread stories even if they know they’re untrue.
I think we’d do better to start doing some bogus “studies” and spreading some counter-memes of our own. You’re a psychologist, you could probably cobble something together. Here’s a good “fact” you can assemble and/or make up evidence to support: Liberals are all mentally ill.
There’s plenty of evidence to support it, and all we have to do is get it out there in the “news” media.
Tri is right,
the damage is done. PT has a million times the influence than all the non-left bloggers combined. I disagree with ymar: one can not BBQ them in a backyard venue and expect anything to come of it. The long march goes on and on in academia with no hope of attenuation anytime soon. That is why the proponents of this stuff are so confident and comfortable; I work around them: tri is right again: it’s a variant of insanity.
“the damage is done”
The damage was done long ago. But I personally don’t care and think defending such absurdities – a clash of scientific swords – is a waste of time. Lefties believe righties are IMMORAL (or at least amoral). Really. So at best we’re too dumb to know what we do (d’oh!). At worse our hearts are black. So the rebuttal will be treated with the respect we on the right give to the speeches of Chavez and his buddies.
Righties already know this crap isn’t true (or its exaggerated, twisted, taken out of context, fake but true) – so no point in defending it for us.
And the non-left/right aka ‘the middle’ are too busy living life to care.
This shit makes the left happy – why get in the way while they’re (ripping from Wednesday’s South Park on Comedy Central) farting into wine glasses to savor the aroma? I actually get a kick out of these “studies”.
Justaguy, what’s truly—well, not mind-boggling, but laughter inducing, is the fact that, like so many on the Left, you offer up no real arguments or facts, just snarky insults. Come on, can’t you do better than stupid songs and trying to pick a fight with Fausta?
(Of ocurse, if Justa were, himself, a valiant, non-chickenhawk Leftist, he’d be off being a human shield in Iraq, supporting the cause of the PEOPLE!)
Neo-Neocon, I confess, the Left-leaning tilt of Lehrer makes me like him less and less as time goes on. Even if the army’s intellectual standards of his era were lower, he still sounds like a more erudite version of snarky, juvenile Justaguy. (“He’s from Georgia, and he doesn’t speak the language very well”—HA, HA, HA! Oh, those Southerners, they’re all so stupid and backwards, donchaknow, unlike us enlightened Ivy-Leaguers!)
But I can’t help but wonder whether my interview was eliminated from the final product because I repeatedly gave answers that didn’t fit in with the message the author wanted to deliver:…
I don’t wonder much myself, I consider it highly likely. That said, I haven’t looked into Psychology Today since the seventies and it was already pretty shallow back then. There has always been an overwhelming political component to psychology, no doubt because in practice it aims to lead people to a better life. The problem is that “better life” is a normative statement, not a positive one, so psychology as practiced is inherently political/cultural at its core. It is religious, if you will, but with new methods of conversion and instruction. Not that religious technology hasn’t undergone other innovations over the years. The born again experience was considered pretty radical back in the late 1800’s.
Anti-war movement emerging in Middle America
From Salon:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/01/20/lafayette_crosses/print.html
Peace movement at a crossroads
Three years ago, it was called “un-American.” But now this moving
antiwar protest in small-town America has been embraced by the community.
By Katharine Mieszkowski
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/01/20/lafayette_crosses/print.html
Having had a look at your blog, Fausta, I am confident that you are not doing an economics degree at a reputable university.
Don’t worry Fausta, they have to read our blogs because otherwise they would forget how to read, and they comment on Neo otherwise they would forget how to write.
The eternal fight against illiteracy continues. Or was that semi-literacy.
I’m no scientist and certainly no researcher, but If I know someone well enough to classify them as a liberal or a conservative I can, with uncanny accuracy, predict there behavior in many situations.
Here’s an example: A student is taking an exam. He notices another student copying off his paper. He has studied hard for the exam and he is annoyed at the cheater who probably never studied. So he purposely writes down some wrong answers. The cheater copies them, and when he is finished the cheater gets up and turns in his paper. The the good student changes his answers so they are correct and hands in his test paper. He gets an A and the cheater fails the exam.
Has the good student done anything unethical?
Liberals almost always say yes and are incensed at the good student for misleading the cheater and, in their minds, causing the cheater to fail the exam. Conservatives almost always say no and think the cheater got exactly what he deserved.
For anyone truly interested in why liberals are liberal and why conservatives are conservative, there is a good source. “A Conflict of Visions” (Basic Books, 2002) by Thomas Sowell gives as good an explanation of the ideological origins of political struggles that have existed between the two polar opposites that we now call liberals and conservatives as you are likely to find.
Psychology is not the only domain where junk science thrives; any other field where exact knowlege is still impossible or never will be possible, became a playground of pseudo-scientific speculations. But there is one all-important factor, beside immaturity of field, which foster pseudo-science: this is politization. After some problem became a hot potato in political or ideological clashes, any chance of objective, impartial study is irrevocably lost. In my memory this calamity has spoiled racial anthropology, eugenics, climatology, gender studies, many fields in history and brain research.
It is strange that PT would try to advance the idea that liberals are more rational than conservatives when it must be common knowledge that it is liberals who advance feel-good government programs to help some perceived victim group and conservatives that marshall the evidence that these liberal programs actually harm the very people they are ostensibly meant to help.
Liberals go for something that sounds good without thinking it through. It is conservatives who think it through. PT’s claim that libs are more rational doesn’t pass the laugh test.
“It is conservatives who think it through.“:
Like they thought the whole invasion of Iraq thing though?
“…there’s little question that intellectual standards were lower.“:
We where, however, of sufficient quality to go when others did not because they “had other priorities”.
I also wonder if the anon who included this stuff in his comments is still enjoying his delicious irony?
Very much so, thanks for asking, Brad. Apparently nobody here recognizes the absurdity of casually dismissing the Jost et al material as sloppy and biased while upholding your own unquestioned stereotypes about the “left” and the “right.” I’ll always chuckle at it, every time the joke is told in this forum. The folk wisdom expressed here is untouchable (no matter how shocking or how ugly) but the peer-reviewed research is pilloried.
It was me that posted the link to the PDF yesterday (you’re welcome, ElMondoHummus) but I note that nobody’s delved into it, or bothered to follow up on the Iron Shrink’s critique of the piece. For instance,
I would absolutely not forgo all of that in favor of a Webster’s dictionary definition. Yet, that is precisely what the authors did.
Open the pdf of the study, skip to p.342, and read the section entitled “The Ideology of Conservatism.” Are the authors relying on one outdated dictionary?
If I were setting out to understand a complex social phenomena such as conservatism, I would want to get to know conservatives. etc.
This was a review of the literature, not an ethnographic study. The 88 studies used as material for the review were the actual experiments/field work.
Re. selection bias issue, the Iron Shrink notes “the authors acknowledge this (p. 366).” The page reference is incorrect, try p.368 in the section entitled “A Plea for Future Research.” Are the authors merely acknowledging it? Why did they write that section?
No, I’m not going to step through every critique of the Iron Shrink for reasons I’ve given here (reasons you’ll note are amply demonstrated in the very same thread). Also, I actually have other things to do, (I am a full-time graduate student and I work part time). Instead, I’ve emailed Neo-neocon further articles, including Jost et al’s reply to criticism, as well as a recent article by Jost that you would all find fascinating, on ideology. Maybe she’ll write some more on the topic? And more even-handedly?
(continued …)
Neo, thanks for the long posts. When a post is interesting, and yours are, the longer the better.
(… continued)
And here’s the final irony: this is it folks, this is the subject this community actually struggles with day in and day out. Foreign policy is your context, the psychological makeup of your ideological opponents is your passion. You’ve demonstrated in countless conversations that you all strongly agree with the premise motivating research in the field — that there’s a psychological basis to political ideology. But then you extinguish any possibility that you’ll pursue the topic meaningfully by bolstering justifications that prevent an honest appraisal — demonstrating the very behaviour described by the researchers you hold in contempt.
On that note, I sincerely hope I can resist the temptation to post here again. Of course this post will be challenged, but don’t expect a response. I just can’t afford to waste this much time. I’ve sworn off this community god knows how many times, but this time (fingers crossed) it’s final.
Read Sun Tzu!
Peace.
.
you all strongly agree with the premise motivating research in the field — that there’s a psychological basis to political ideology
Just one of many misconceptions revealed by the commentor. I, for one, doubt that there’s ANY “psychological basis to political ideology.” But I would welcome some REAL research on the subject, instead of these smug, OBVIOUSLY flawed in just about every way a scientific study COULD be flawed, exercises in cultural prejudice. These ‘studies’ serve only to underscore the authors’ own pathological life-views, which evidently includes using pseudo-science to further their political causes AND the sad state of Academia in general. They don’t teach anymore, they preach – couched of course in ‘science.’
Psychology Today is not a scientific journal–more like a “People” ripoff.
Leftists aren’t rational enough to debate the issues, so they settle for cheap-shot Lakoffian style attacks on an emotional level.
If you’re over thirty and still a lefty, your brain is total mush.
What is suspiciously absent in the whole discourse of Jost et al, is rational arguments that enforce people adopt one or other political philosophy. They assume that there are predominantly emotional causes for such decisions. This is purelly reductionalistic approach, especially wrong in case of conservative thinking. Much more convincing is opposite assumption, that Leftist thinking is emotionally-based, and conservative – logically based. This is common wisdom, supported by observation that young people more inclined to be Left, and later usually drift to right. Conversions in opposite direction are rare. If you reject these common beliefs as prejustice, compare proportion of conservatives in hard sciences (mathematics, economics, physics) with their proportion in “soft” sciencies (linguistics, history, philosophy). You know the answer, and it can be easily confirmed by statistics. So the main thesis of the Jost study looks like projection: ascribing to opponents their own features, namely emotionally-based wishful thinking.
Actually, I remember during my own university studies in (physiological) psychology that we used to joke, not without reason, that the “clinical” and behavorial psychology students in our program were there to gain understanding of their own very obvious (to the rest of us, anyway) pathologies.
anon: I finally have gotten around to taking a quick look at the Jost article for which you kindly provided the URL. At 37 extremely dense pages, it would (as I think I referenced earlier) take more time than I have at hand for this particular topic to try to delve into it in depth. I may post once more on the subject, however, if I can find the time.
But just briefly, I will say that I have quickly read the part you referenced, “The Ideology of Conservatism,” and I find that I basically agree with IronShrink. The authors’ definition of conservatism is most definitely based–although certainly not limited to–that dictionary definition of conservatives as (a) resistant to change, and (b) tolerating inequality. They cite other sources for the definition as well as the dictionary one (which they lead off with), but it is most definitely this outdated, restrictive, and simplistic–not to mention misleading–definition that they are using. In fact, they call those two principles (on p.343) the “two core concepts of conservatism.” They are most assuredly not, as IronShrink disucsses in some detail in the piece I linked.
What’s more, that “Ideology” section of the Jost et. al. research contains the absolutely absurd reference to Stalin’s desire to preserve and defend the Soviet system as being right-wing in nature. If that’s not a bizarre assertion (and a reductionist and profoundly mistconceived definition of conservatism), I don’t know what is. Here is the quote (also on p.434):
There are also cases of left-wing ideologues who, once they are in power, steadfastly resist change, allegedly in the name of egalitarianism, such as Stalin or Khrushchev or Castro. It is reasonable to suggest that some of these historical figures may be considered politically conservative, at least in the context of the systems they defended.
If this is “reasonable” in the eyes of the authors–well, I’d hate to see what they call “unreasonable.”
My distrust of the Jost study is certainly based on a great deal more the IronShrink’s article, although, as I said, I’ve found nothing whatsoever in that part of the Jost research that contradicts the basic points IronShrink is making. My own feeling about social science research is that much of it tends to be a “garbage in, garbage out” situation that needs to be approached with extreme rigor and care (see Sergey’s comments in this thread for some details on that, as well). The Jost article quite clearly does not do this, in the parts I’ve read so far. Their selection of the 88 studies is very suspect, as well (see this discussion–scroll down a little bit till you get to the part about Jost’s work–at Eugene Volokh’s blog some time back. Jim Lindgren, the author, is apparently writing a Ph.D. thesis critiquing Jost’s work.) The 88 studies in the Jost et. al. research seem very nonrepresenta
Just to clarify–when I say Jost, et.al. do not limit their definition of conservatism to the dictionary definition, I mean that they don’t just discuss the dictionary and leave it at that. However, their working definition of conservatism actually does boil down to the simplistic and misleading premises of that dictionary definition: reseistance to change, and tolerance of inequality.
oops, earlier comment (at 3:37) was cut off prematurely. Here’s the rest:
The 88 studies in the Jost et. al. research seem very nonrepresentative of conservatives as a whole in their sampling, as Lindgren points out. Their results are in fact contradicted by studies with larger, nationwide, more representative samples (again, see this for more information and a more detailed critique of the flawed methodology behind the choice of parameters Jost et.al. use to purportedly measure conservatism, such as the F-scale).
anon: I finally have gotten around to taking a quick look at the Jost article for which you kindly provided the URL. At 37 extremely dense pages, it would (as I think I referenced earlier) take more time than I have at hand for this particular topic to try to delve into it in depth. I may post once more on the subject, however, if I can find the time.
Neo, do what propagandists do, farm it out to your friends. You know, you read a couple of pages there, Shrink reads some there…
How dare her own comment section cut Neo off!!! Heads will roll…
I’m just starting the comment thread here, so I don’t know what others have said above.
Although I now jokingly refer to myself as a “right-winger,” I have to say that this business of labeling political views is quite inadequate.
The “conservative/liberal” divide is useless for understanding present-day issues, and the sooner we abandon them the better.
After reading a lot about liberals/conservatives and blue-state/red-state people since 9/11, I’ve come to the conclusion that the most meaningful cause of political differences is:
(1) heritage (i.e. Jewish people whose grandfathers voted for Eugene Debs–you know who you are) and
(2) employment in one of the talking/writing industries, like publishing, teaching, or government work. People who work outdoors or at trades are much less apt to fit the “liberal” profile, since they are much more grounded in reality.
The “liberals” I know (most people I know) flatter themselves that they are well-read, but their main source of info is the NYTimes. Sometimes, when I’m feeling mean, I ask them if they’ve ever read the Koran or know what a dhimmi is. That leads to instant subject change.
These snobs, who got good grades but have not kept up with world events, will do anything to keep their false pride, even going so far as to monkey with data, like your interviewer did with your input.
Re fear: I’ve said goodbye to the Chicago skyline several times, thinking that the next 9/11 anniversary might obliterate it. I wouldn’t call that “fear,” any more than I would call looking both ways before you cross the street “fear.” The difference between me and my “liberal” friends is knowledge and awareness. They are unaware of various aspects of Islam and Jihad, so they have no understanding of the danger.
It’s like knowing that one shouldn’t leave a sandwich with mayonnaise out in the sun too long.
Regarding the “liberal” view on universal health care and other government-sponsored benefits–here is where much ignorance reigns. Many many many “liberals” have never studied Economics 101 so they are totally clueless about the laws of supply and demand, the workings of a black market, and other simple concepts. There they are operating in the world of “feelings,” not any kind of knowledge.
For those who dispute this, I challenge you to explain to me why rent control leads to fewer apartments for rent and why universal health care leads to richer people getting care in the private sector or the U.S. Note also how our “liberal” Senators and Representatives have provided themselves with all the free health care they need.
So when the NYT crowd (which presumably includes readers of PT) warn us that:
–the world will end because of global warming
–Bush wants to install a fascist dictatorship
–the CIA brought down the Twin Towers
–the Christian right wants to establish a theocracy in the USA
–and ban science
–the South is full of redneck racists
–the whole human race hates America
–Big Business wants to ship all our jobs off to China
–yadda, yadda, yadda
they’re not exhibiting fear? If we’re nuts, they belong in the next padded cell. They belong there anyway.
Sergey, great news that you have a blog up and running. I won’t be the only one here visiting.
You know, it would certainly be possible in theory, and mildly entertaining in practice, to turn the techniques of so-called “social science” back on itself, predefining its own dominant ideology, liberalism, in terms of, say, an incapacity for orderly or systematic thought and a tendency toward envy — and then “finding” a statistical correlation (carefully put together) between such traits and people who decided to become psychologists. Entertaining to contemplate, but unlikely to happen, simply because the carefully chosen gatekeepers of these professions — editors, “peer-reviewers”, grant dispensers, appointments committees and the like — would have so much to lose. In any case, it would only be light entertainment — as neo, Sergey and others have amply demonstrated, the techniques of social “science” are commonly little more than a kind of simple-minded aping of the techniques of actual scientific inquiry, a way of just going through the motions in the hope of sliding an ideology through on the prestigious coat-tails of real science.
There are 2 kinds of liberals. Fake liberals and true/classical liberals.
There are also two kinds of conservatives. Namely, those who are more or less Jacksonian in persuasion, and those who are isolationist.
But the one principle by which the political pendulum operates, pendulum as opposed to say spectrum, is that the farther right you go, the nearer to the left you will get. Same for vice a versa. That’s why you have folks like David Duke with Amanie in Iran, and Amanie in Iran with Syria, and Syria with Saddam Hussein. All buddy buddy together, and then we have the Left feeling sorry for Saddam.
Of course the most notorious example of the links between the far left and the far right is probably Nazi-Stalin mutual defense pact. They hate each other’s guts, but they are more alike than different in terms of the basic ethics of their philosophies.
The probable reason why they are linked is that Hitler started his rise to power from the Socialist party platform. When he did get emergency powers, he of course purged his former allies. Mussolini also started from the Socialist camp. But whereas the socialists were “weak kneed” in terms of purging the opposition, Musso and Hitler had no such moral compunctions.
So you have 3 factions. Communism, socialism, and nazism. They all are more or less philosophically similar, but they all hate each other’s guts for this or that reason.
So the dynamic is that you have to have this revolutionary corps, if you will, which seeks to change the underlying Constitution or principles by which a government is situated upon. Once you change this principles via socialist revolution, then you have what is known as the “2nd Purge” I call it. This is where usually the true fanatics come out and get rid of their fellow allies on the Left. You saw it when the mullahs did that purge. First purge was the government. Second purge was Trotsky and those who helped purge the government.
So now what you have is a conservative movement. Meaning, now Hitler has to “conserve” his power base, now he has to prevent change and reform because now he has the power. The Left likes to talk about far right dictators, but they of all people should know where far right dictators come from. (Hugo anyone?)
I mean really, how does a conservative be a dictator when he is forced to conserve a Constitution that bars him from power? Really, even by basic dictionary definitions, that has a logic flaw.
That is also why Socialism, Communism, and Nazism (Islamic Jihadism 2) hate each other’s guts. Because they ALL Know, that any one of those factions will purge any of the others if given the chance for ultimate power, for ultimate conservative power.
Socialism has always been weak kneed, focused more on “indoctrination schools” rather than intimidation and assassination. Their version of the purge is basically blacklisting and economic intimidation. When compared against the Islamic Jihad, Nazis, and Communists? They do not compete.
Socialists have power in Europe because America protects the socialists from any regional upheaval which might possibly create the chaotic conditions for a revolution or a coup de tat. Even Trotsky needed WWI for his coup.
“but this time (fingers crossed) it’s final. ”
Thanks. None too soon, either.
Promethea, you are touching on some of my favorite topics about the various “tribes” Americans belong to: Science & Technology Tribe, Arts & Humanities Tribe, and the trust cues and enforcement they engage in to perpetuate themselves. Please drop over sometime.
Anon, read “The Book of Five Rings.”
Peace? What peace?
The peace that occurs when the katana slices through 5 jihadists without slowing down.
Silence, glorious peaceful Silence.
The funny thing was, I spoke about the Way of the Sword here, in fact. But folks just said in a rather comic tone that “he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword”.
I don’t think they got what it was about, unfortunately. It cannot be explained in a way.
“So you have 3 factions. Communism, socialism, and nazism. They all are more or less philosophically similar, but they all hate each other’s guts for this or that reason.”
Just for one reason, actually: they all realize that there can only be one dictator at the top. They will cooperate in tearing down democracy and building an authoritarian state in its place, but when it comes time to decide who commands the social machine they’ve built, the backstabbing begins, and continues until the most ruthless leader emerges triumphant.
Assistant Village Idiot . . .
Sounds interesting. I’ll drop over right now.
Ymar . . .
Thanks for shortening your name.
Sergey . . .
I always enjoy your posts and was pleased to discover your blog.
Anonymous . . .
Puh leeze give yourself a fake name. It’s not hard. Name yourself after your street, your dog, your goldfish, your favorite junk food, your car, your elementary school, your favorite element, whatever.
Labeling yourself “anonymous” is annoying if one wishes to respond to your posts.
The four letters was always the shortened version I used and one I recommend anyone else use as well. You can thank Neo’s holoscan, because now only does it cut off Neo’s own comments at the knee, it also tends to sometimes forget my registration information.
Not even I will keep typing in my full name over and o ver.
If I had to shorten Assistant’s name, it would probably be Vill. Can’t use his last name, and can’t use the first 3 letters of his first either. And first 4 letters of his first, just doesn’t sound like a name.
I tell the difference between Anon, Anonymouse, and Anonymous by their writing technique. And basic political differentiation. I think they just want to be cute or something.
Anonymous | 01.22.07 – 12:41 am | #
he’s not too bad. It is hard to judge though, because I usually catalogue a person by his history of comments and positions. I agreed with that comment of his more or less.
I changed my political ideas from left to right-libertarian. It was mainly through reading and thinking. If antyhing, the main emotion involved would be love. The more I know about history, politics, economy etc, the happier I feel that I was born in the western world.
Many spanish liberals seem to hate Spain, western way of life, freedom, USA, Israel, christian traditions, human nature, etc. And so they support or at least understand left and islamic dictators, basque terrorism (ETA) and islamic terrorism (after the attacks in Madrid many paintings in the walls read: Osama mé¡tanos, Osama kill us).
I got tired of all that hate, self-hatred and self-loathing. So much for emotions.
I hate studies that disagree with my conclusions as well, and often denounce them.Just keep studying till you get it right is my motto.
In my little corner of the business world people are addicted to fancy graphs, charts and arrays of numbers. Whole forests are sacrificed to make their endless research reports. It’s all bunkum of course, just draping our petty-bs in the robes of scientific rigor.
One day a few of us decided to kill time by cooking up our own methodology to the end of proving mathematically that people think water is more flavorful than beer. As I recall, we generated several dozen pages of the fanciest bar graphs and such to support this proposition. It started as pure make-pretend, but as we built this edifice of nonsense we became bewitched by our own creation. While we never exactly believed it, it was so pretty; who cared whether it was true or not?
Luckily, we had no training or expertise in this sort of thing, and, unlike those earnest PT researchers, had the attention span of gnats. So when it was 5 o’clock we went home and forgot all about it.
But Ihaving briefly heard the song of the sirens of quantification, you may be sure I stop my ears to all such stuff, in PT or anywhere else.
Another humorous look by the Left on the Right
” What is suspiciously absent in the whole discourse of Jost et al, is rational arguments that enforce people adopt one or other political philosophy. They assume that there are predominantly emotional causes for such decisions.”
Sergey
Thanks to anon’s link, I just read the first 3 pages of “Jost”, thinking, “My God, they can’t be really saying this!” – making one’s total thought process conveniently deterministic, regardless of ideology, but thus even negating the rationality of their own article.
And so on.
Nice one on “projection”, too, Sergey.
I read Iron Shrink’s analysis, and thanked him for doing it. Someone had to do it.
I would suggest that fear is an important, but not exclusive, motivation for every one of us – liberal and conservative alike. Where we differ is in what we fear.
True, and it would be interesting to see a future Psychology Today artice on liberal versus conservative fear vs. rationality ratings in terms of climate change and concerns about global warming. My guess is the magazine would come to the opposite conclusions and decide that, in contrast to post-9/11 emotions, fear is the rational course to take on this topic.
John,
No doubt. The article about fearful conservatives is a classic example of starting a project with a belief and then constructing an argument to support it. Shameful.
Of course this post will be challenged, but don’t expect a response. I just can’t afford to waste this much time. I’ve sworn off this community god knows how many times, but this time (fingers crossed) it’s final.
Translation: “I won’t answer if I’m seriously challenged.”
This from someone who writes a 42-paragraph comment in which they explain that they’re “much too busy” to elaborate on a point, and “have a real life”.
Niiiice.
Ymar – the only reason that Hitler was tagged with the term “Far Right” is that he was so tagged by the Left…AFTER he attacked Russia. Hitler was a SOCIALIST – he just instituted “National” Socialism as a different brand of socialism. Same thugs, different gang colors. This is a classic case of socialists perverting language and the meaning of words to further their cause.
“Right Wing” is a term that emerged after the French Revolution – it refers to where representatives that were not affiliated with the revolutionary party were seated in the assembly. Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin were all Leftists. Also, fascism refers to strong centralized authority, as symbolized by the Roman fasces. This term is not the anti-thesis of Socialist or Communist – all non-democratic societies (incl. communist dictatorships) are, by definition, fascist.
I came to the same conclusion, Danny. I also said around here that socialism, nazism, and communism were more alike than different, regardless of who they hated.