January 30, 2006
FIRST THE ANSWERS, THEN THE QUESTIONS:
Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases (Shankar Vedantam, 1/30/06, Washington Post)
Emory University psychologist Drew Westen put self-identified Democratic and Republican partisans in brain scanners and asked them to evaluate negative information about various candidates. Both groups were quick to spot inconsistency and hypocrisy -- but only in candidates they opposed.When presented with negative information about the candidates they liked, partisans of all stripes found ways to discount it, Westen said. When the unpalatable information was rejected, furthermore, the brain scans showed that volunteers gave themselves feel-good pats -- the scans showed that "reward centers" in volunteers' brains were activated. The psychologist observed that the way these subjects dealt with unwelcome information had curious parallels with drug addiction as addicts also reward themselves for wrong-headed behavior.
Another study presented at the conference, which was in Palm Springs, Calif., explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes -- subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups.
That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.
"What automatic biases reveal is that while we have the feeling we are living up to our values, that feeling may not be right," said University of Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek, who helped conduct the race analysis. "We are not aware of everything that causes our behavior, even things in our own lives."
Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said he disagreed with the study's conclusions but that it was difficult to offer a detailed critique, as the research had not yet been published and he could not review the methodology. He also questioned whether the researchers themselves had implicit biases -- against Republicans -- noting that Nosek and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji had given campaign contributions to Democrats.
that's the beauty of science, as Micvhael Crichton points out in State of Fear, scientists' studies will return the answers they want them to, but provide the delusion that they were impartial and are rendering facts. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 30, 2006 12:00 AM
recent
George Will wrote:
"Professors have reasons for their beliefs. Other people, particularly conservatives, have social and psychological explanations for their beliefs."
"No, no! Sentence first—verdict afterwards."
Posted by: The Queen of Hearts at January 30, 2006 12:55 PMI'd be interested in how the questions about racial bias were worded. If you were to ask me if blacks were more likely to commit serious crimes than whites, I would have to say yes. It is not a bias against blacks but a statement of facts based on crime statistics. I'm not saying that their blackness is the cause of this disparity, it is because of the historical developments that led to where they are now. But for a liberal the only unbiased answer is to say that they are not more likely to commit crime. To liberals, to be unbiased is to ignore reality.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at January 30, 2006 1:19 PMThey're going to put us away in re-education camps or the loony bin - they're laying the groundwork.
Posted by: Sandy P at January 30, 2006 1:32 PMThe "conservatives are nuts" meme is a long-standing tactic of the left. Go back to the Barry Goldwater era, and you'll find liberals saying roughly the same thing about him and his 1964 backers, that they were mentally unstable. And the same thing was said in 1980 about Ronald Reagan, though his more affiable personality made the line that he's crazy and wants to blow up the world a lot harder to push, especially with Mr. Peanut in the Oval Office.
The only difference here is their power is far less than even in 1980, so there's a higher level of frustration in the reporting, since those with the mental disorder seem to be outsmarting them the majority of the time.
Posted by: John at January 30, 2006 3:45 PMActually John, it dates back to the 1930s, when leftists tried to explain why it was OK for them to be Stalinsts, but not OK to be Nazis. The so-called Frankfurt School laid a thick wraping of psycho-babble around that meme and laid it out.
http://home.cwru.edu/~ngb2/Pages/Intro.html
The scholars that made up the Frankfurt school were all directly, or indirectly associated with a place called the Institute of Social Research. The nickname of the thinkers, originates in the location of the institute, Frankfurt Germany. The names of the men who made significant contributions to this school of thought are, Theodor W. Adorno (philosopher, sociologist and musicologist), Walter Benjamin (essayist and literary critic), Herbert Marcuse (philosopher), Max Horkheimer (philosopher, sociologist), and later, Jurgen Habermas. Each of these philosophers believed, and shared Karl Marx’s theory of Historical Materialism. Each of these individuals observed the beginning of Communism in Russia, and the resulting fascism in Italy. They lived through the first world war, the rise and fall of Hitler, and of course the devastation of the Holocaust. They formed reactions that were attempts to reconcile Marxist theory with the reality of what the people and governments of the world were going through. Each member of the Frankfurt school adjusted Marxism with his additions, or "fix" if you will. They then used the "fixed" Marxist theory as a measure modern society needed to meet. These ideas came to be known as "Critical Theory."
Their effect on intellectual life in Europe and the US has been lasting and extraordinarily pernicious.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at January 30, 2006 4:47 PMJohn:
Part of being a political partisan is thinking that, when the other side says you're nuts, they're wrong; but when you say they're nuts, you're objective. And, to be fair, I am absolutely right when I say that a significant portion of the Democratic base is out of their minds.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at January 31, 2006 12:47 AM