The disgust test
[Hat tip: Althouse.]
According to the disgust test, my brain is a Republican. Slightly, anyway (54%). Who knew?
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
[Hat tip: Althouse.]
According to the disgust test, my brain is a Republican. Slightly, anyway (54%). Who knew?
Mine is 77% Democat so yelu kno
Mine is 77% Democrat so you know it is an social science misfire.
Probably because I am a surgeon and am disgusted by almost nothing. Nothing physical anyway.
Mine came out as 59% Republican.
Yea, maybe.
If Ghengis Kahn is 58%.
Mine is Democrat, but they mostly disgust me. Go figure.
53% Republican. Not sure those questions have anything to do with political positions though.
61% Democrat. I suspect something wrong with the test.
Mine came out Democrat. I neglected to write down the percentage, but think it was about 60 percent. I am not easily disgusted, so I guess Democrats have a high tolerance for disgusting things. Like San Francisco Democrats are not easily disgusted by all the disgusting things that have infested that city.
Well I’m apparently 63% Democrat which I can assure you is 100% incorrect.
I’m slightly Democrat, which anyone who knows me would find pretty hilarious.
Since when does not being grossed out by things make one a Democrat? Seems like they’re always freaking out about stuff.
66% Democrat for me. Maybe because I was a die hard Democrat until I was 30. Since then: Not. At. All.
Bs test, from my result and other comments. I was supposedly 74% Dem; I’ve only voted for one Dem in my 45 years of voting. And that only so I could vote against RINO Dan Evans.
Interesting that they don’t ask your gender.
49% republican, 51% Democrat, right in the middle, just as I expected.
jvermeer,
I would take a Dan Evans over our current governor or senators in a heartbeat.
68% Democrat. Looking through the comments this doesn’t seem to be a very accurate test.
55% Repub
As an Internist, much like the surgeon above, many of the examples simply does not disgust me due to my life experience.
This is probably another example of social science looking for a correlation from a sea of data and saying Eureka! and thinking it is real and causative.
Stupid, meaningless questions with stupid responses to choose from designed to make conservatives double think their convictions and wonder if they are actually ‘progressives’. Do I get a t-shirt for wasting my time?
57% GOP.
Meaningless test.
As a farm boy I’ve seen many a thing that might provoke disgust in a city slicker. Maggots are a fact of life. Eating monkey meat, no because I am aware that doing so might expose me to diseases. Ask me about eating a porcupine and I would respond tasty.. A real disgust test would requie the question what a hog would not eat, and the correct answer is nothing.
The test is flawed; it says my brain is 70% democrat, when in reality, democrats disgust me. I’m a conservative Libertarian.
Basically if nothing bothers you they rate you a Democrat.
its a poor test… its quite opposite what i see in the world..
i think the test is a projection of the creators desires on what qualities he or she imagines each side to have, not actually making a test that aligns with that.
lots of bad tests out there, and even more bad research that keeps getting quoted despite its bad research… i even watch it get made sometimes…
I have no opinion (gasp!) on the veracity of the test. According to it, I’m 58% Republican and 42% Scoop Jackson/Daniel Moynihan democrat. That seems about right for me. I’m an independent, conservative-libertarian, never having registered with any party.
parker, exactly. I’ll bet this test was created and validated by a bunch of urbanites who have rarely touched, seen or smelled anything that isn’t man-made. Supposedly my brain is a Democrat, but I know which answers triggered that result, and they spring from my experiences, not my politics. I’ve lived most of my life in the country and spent many of my days in the woods or in houses and barns full of animals. Touching a dead cat or seeing some maggots is part of my everyday experience. Also, I’m old enough that in my time, I’ve touched dead bodies and scattered cremation ashes. Presumably these aren’t solely Republican or Democratic experiences. How silly.
Mrs. Whatsit.
How silly indeed. Superstition ain’t the way.
I am an old soldier, not too disgusted with disgusting stuff or dead stuff. Dead people will not hurt your and dead meat, even kind of funky can be cooked enough for nourishment.
This thing for some reason say I am a democrat and I have not idea why? Stupid test if I say so myself.
As a true test, althouse needs to let maggots eat an infected wound on her body. I volunteer to make the cut that is the deepest with a blade tainted with chicken caca.
Silly is as silly does.
The problem is if we play this game too calling for someone to quit an elected position whenever it’s someone from the left we are emboldening the weaponisation of sexual assault accusations. The correct tactic is pointing out the hypocrisy of the left covering up for their own to deweaponize sexual assault accusations, not joining the fun of the witch hunt, we will never play this game as well as they do. Remember how much fun the right was having destroying Harvey Weinstein, then the left use the sentiment of anti sexual harassment hyped up with help from the right to try to destroy one from our side Roy Moore. they lost an Hollywood over the hill producer, so what, we potentially could lose a senate seat, they win by taking out our bishop by giving up merely a pawn, is it worth it?
There was no evidence that he touched her, he was obviously playing around faking that he was about to grab her booties for fun, the left do that to each other all the time. If his constituents don’t like that they would kick him out next term, asking to quit for that is silly.
Sorry posted on the wrong topic
Wow! As best as I can tell from the comments I am the most Republican here. 70% worth.
Probably because unlike the surgeon, internist, farmer and others above who have to deal with the ‘real world’ I was a computer geek. It bothered me if someone’s monitor had a spot on it. And I was disgusted by dirty keyboards or ( computer) mice.
I’ll also admit to not being keen on viewing people’s bodies at open casket wakes.
Griffin,
As would I. Dan Evans was a RINO to be sure, but it’s becoming hard to fathom someone with an (R) behind their name winning statewide in Washington, period.
66% Democrat, and I’ve been a Republican since I was 16. Does disgust actually correlate with politics? I find that hard to believe, as our little non-random test here supports.
61% Republican, which is impressive given I’m Canadian. For me, I’m not disgusted by death, strange food or shared germs, but I am extremely revolted by spoiled food and exposed viscera, so I suppose the intensity of disgust made up for the specificity of it.
66% Democrat? Hard to believe since I consider myself very conservative and especially being a Canadian. For example, when I was a teen in ’68, I cheered for the cops at the democratic convention. When I went to university I devolved into a leftist but I quickly cleared my head when I realized that ethics was not a strong point among them.
“70% Liberal – I have a liberal brain”
I laughed for several minutes. As with other posters I grew up on a farm and had to deal with a variety of “disgusting” things so it doesn’t really bother me any more.
The social sciences aren’t really science.
57% liberal
So, I am a conservative after all.
Because the only remaining liberals are conservatives now.
56% republican
68% liberal. Test is a joke. Life experience outside of sterilized urban living, apparently, makes one a liberal? I’d have thought it was the other way around.
We live in an uber-uber liberal neighborhood. Across the street, my neighbor died at home. They couldn’t rent the apartment for 3 years (!) because people were “beyond grossed out” that someone had died there. (Did they think death was contagious?) Normally, there’s a line up the block for any vacant apartment…. and it’s rented out in about 2 minutes.
That’s about 15 minutes I’ll never get back…Shoulda known…bloody Althouse. Her outside links are as useless as she is.
Ha ha…I knew u guys were lefties. How else to explain your russian-loving, sex-pervert, long-haired hippie leader?
77% Demorat.
Not surprising, it seems to classify lack of disgust at things as typical of Demorats.
Which is also not surprising, seeing the Clintons, Weinstein, Weiner, Pelosi, Reid, and all the others.
But it clearly is not typical or rather not specific enough to just determine Demorat vs. Conservative based on the number of things that disgust you.
65% Democrat. That may be correct on the Disgust scale but couldn’t be much more wrong on the Political one.
65% Liberal. Hah, the old “unshockable = liberal” trope, eh?
After reading the comments, I’m glad I didn’t click the link and take the test. It apparently (again, judging from the comments) asks respondents to rate how turned off they are by death and decay. I am not, having prepared the bodies of several colleagues for shipment to their home, and being a long-time hunter, but that hardly makes me a Democrat. Now THAT would be disgusting!
54%
Yeah, balderdash to this test. It says I’m 58% liberal. I am a principled conservative and by my principles I’m not bothered by touching a dead human body or that of a cat. I have a degree in the social sciences, and I’m not offended when some people speak of that discipline as the “pseudo sciences” because it’s clearly true in some cases.
Democrat brain. Yeah, right …
Trick is that there are lots of libertarian leaning personal conservatives here who like the out of doors, gut animals, have been on farms, and know some science and react by thinking rather than emotionally.
Haidt has commented that traditional ideological scales don’t process this leaning..
Irene Says:
November 17th, 2017 at 1:29 am
68% liberal. Test is a joke. Life experience outside of sterilized urban living, apparently, makes one a liberal? I’d have thought it was the other way around.
* * *
This.
Should have read the thread before I commented with a pointless “me too”.
From the ‘How Does this Work’ link:
How does this work?
A 2014 study concluded that people who were more prone to disgust are more conservative and tend to align with the republican party. But, why?
Some scientists believe it’s ancestral and that the adverse reactions were used to protect primitive ancestors from contamination and disease. This way a person wouldn’t confuse drinking water with dirty pond scum.
The study measured participants’ brain response to “disgusting” imagery using an MRI. The study could predict party affiliation with up to 98% confidence. The questionaire on chartsme.com uses Jonathan Haidt’s disgust scale in lieu of MRI and imagery, so results are likely far less accurate. Watch TED Talk to learn more or read “Yuck!: The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust”.
~~~
Somewhat interesting… I am 53% R.
Julia says,
Apropos Haidt
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0042366
“Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians
Ravi Iyer, Spassena Koleva, Jesse Graham, Peter Ditto, Jonathan Haidt
PLOS x”
I tested as 70% Democrat/liberal. Cockroaches do not disgust me as much as Demo candidates like Kerry, Obama, or Hillary.
Those “social scientists” who claim that disgust is stronger among Pubs than Demos are using a rather limited scope of disgust.
My hunch is that Demos are more disgusted at those who disagree with their politics than Pubs are. For example, Hillary mentioned more than once her disgust at “deplorables.” When has a Pub candidate for President expressed a similar level of disgust for political opponents? Some college students are so disgusted at speakers they disagree with that they shout them down in an attempt to prevent them from speaking-quite often successfully. Who are shouting down speakers on campuses?
Not Pub supporters.
Demo levels of disgust towards AGW are probably higher than Pubs. If anyone gets into a hissy fit about the future consequences of AGW, odds are it is a Demo. Similarly Demo levels of disgust towards those who disagree with AGW are stronger. Arrest them!
DNW – I’m liberatarian-ish, but my devout Catholicism has brought me to believe that moral duties ARE imposed. The big difference is that I continue to consider it a moral duty, not a legal imposition.
So, I have no (personal) right to NOT help feed the poor (because God expects it of me), but I’m don’t really buy the legal requirement. At least that’s where I am now, in terms of balancing God vs my socio-economic beliefs.
Mine came out as 59% Republican.
Yea, maybe.
If Ghengis Kahn is 58%.
Call me Ghengis.
I lied and mine came out Democrat. How fitting.
Julia Says:
November 17th, 2017 at 2:19 pm
DNW — I’m liberatarian-ish, but my devout Catholicism has brought me to believe that moral duties ARE imposed….”
LOL. This bloody virtual salon of Neo’s is full of Catholics, and University graduate “rednecks”, and Catholic Southerners, and New England and California Libertarians, and Jewish Aristotelians and …. Geez.
I mean, like what’s going on ?
73% Democrat = 100% wrong.
PunchCardProcessing Says:
November 17th, 2017 at 3:15 pm
I lied and mine came out Democrat. How fitting.
* *
Thread winner.
American conservatives do not subscribe to the Pro-Choice religion, and so are less tolerant of selective principles, thus the disgust factor.
I am a retired dentist; the things I have seen and the odors I have smelled over the years have left me, according to this test, a 75% percent Democrat.
Obviously, this is someone’s idea of humor.
As a conservative Libertarian, little disgusts me, so the test wrongly says my disgust level is like a Dem (68% ?).
I’m not sure the the test is “flawed”, as I can believe that when a large number of college students take the test, then self-identify, the results are as said, the Dems have less disgust.
a) The Dems are likely also more willing and able to lie about their disgust, claiming that something won’t bother them when in fact, it will (the MRI study would show this better than the test),
b) The people on Neo’s blog are more Libertarian on social / cosmopolitan issues, so oppose the Dems for reasons other than disgust.
http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/disgustscale.html
I took the test again to choose only extremes, and easily got the 100% Dem rating, so I could see the link above and others.
The 2014 paper summary is VERY provacative:
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)01213-5?_returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982214012135%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
“Remarkably, brain responses to a single disgusting stimulus were sufficient to make accurate predictions about an individual subject’s political ideology.”
The summary doesn’t say who is taking the test.
In the earlier Jon Haidt (like height) home page, I noticed a cool titled paper:
The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail.
Scott Adams, so far the best predictor of Trump and Trump-haters’ responses, claims that people are persuaded by emotion, and reason is then used to justify the feeling.
I’m sure most readers & commenters here want to be more reason oriented, and so we have non-disgust yet are still conservative.
Because only idiots can really believe the Democrat Party drivel … (just joking. Not.)
Barbara Brandon wrote about her cheating husband N. Brandon & Ayn Rand, that smart people are all smart enough to lie to themselves, in way that they believe the lie is true.
I got 64% Democrat. Not really surprising. I was a democrat for years and I moved away from my small city upbringing and lived in a large East coast city for a long time, only to return to the smaller city. I consider myself an independent, but after moving back home, I had no choice but to register as a Republican for primary voting purposes. I know this survey is similar to the work that Jonathan Haidt has done and he found that Republicans rate much higher on the revulsion scale. I suspect political changers may throw off this test and I’m guess there a good many of them here.
Melissa
I suspect political changers may throw off this test and I’m guess there a good many of them here.
Not necessarily. Those from rural areas have been exposed to a lot more “disgusting'” stuff. Think of all the disgusting stuff on farms, for example. All that manure, for example.
I am reminded of an incident my freshman year in college. My roommate was from the Upper West Side of Manhattan- West End Avenue to be more precise. I was from a rural area. A horsefly flew into our room. My roommate from Manhattan freaked out. But the horsefly didn’t upset me. It wasn’t as if it were the first time I had been exposed to a horsefly.
Also see my previous comment about this test having a rather limited scope for what it considered disgusting.
65% Conservative Republican. But the test smells fishy.
Leftists and Democrats in inner cities have little disgust? For what, chickens without their head running around? Beheading rats and getting rid of them?
What is warped is the human obsession with human tests. Like polls, they don’t reflect human opinion so much as influence via propaganda PR.