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Political prejudice masquerading as social psychology
by Scott Gilbreath ~ October 17th, 2008
Two more pseudo-scientific “studies” purport to find that liberals are psychologically and socially better-adjusted than conservatives.
First, examine the rooms people live in.
[T]he bedrooms and offices of liberals, who are generally thought of as open, tend to be colorful and awash in books about travel, ethnicity, feminism and music, along with music CDs covering folk, classic and modern rock, as well as art supplies, movie tickets and travel memorabilia.
Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to surround themselves with calendars, postage stamps, laundry baskets, irons and sewing materials in their personal spaces, according to the study.
Hmmm. At my home, I’m not surrounded by laundry baskets, irons, or postage stamps, but I see books on travel, ethnicity, art, and music, along with modern rock, folk, and classical music CDs. I also have tons of travel memorabilia, some of which I’ve blogged. So, according to those criteria, I’m a liberal, which—as regular readers will know—I would consider a scurrilous lie.
Co-author Dr Dana Carney of Columbia University’s Business School positively revels in her political prejudices.
“It’s pleasurable for liberals to think more. They gravitate toward art, to things that are not as concrete,” says Carney. “Conservatives have a need for order, for there not to be ambiguity. There you see that expressed by being more orderly, having more cleaning supplies, needing to have everything lined up and organized so that one feels one’s environment is predictable and therefore safe.”
The researchers are so wrapped in their political biases that they fail to notice their study is based on an inadequate sample: 76 college students and 94 professionals. Even if the sample were selected randomly, it’s too small to draw any general inferences about liberals and conservatives.
The other study is even weirder. People who scare easily are more likely to be conservatives. (Note that this study is based on a laughably tiny sample of 46 individuals.)
Threatening and non-threatening images were shown to survey participants, whose reactions were recorded and assessed.
Having conservative leanings predicted stronger physiological reactions to the scary pictures, including a spider sitting on a person’s face, a bloodied face and a maggot-infested wound. People who leaned more politically left didn’t respond any differently to those images than they did to pictures of a bowl of fruit, a rabbit or a happy child.
Anyone who has the same reaction to pictures of a bloodied face and a happy child is sick. But I suppose that opinion only proves that I’m a conservative.
h/t: BioEdge
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October 18th, 2008 at 02:39 PM
[...] POLITICAL PREJUDICE masquerading as social psychology; Study: Liberals are filthy but beautiful, conservatives clean [...]
October 19th, 2008 at 03:24 AM
Gosh, I own books…does this mean I am a liberal (in the American sense of the term?).
My bedroom is clutter with, well, books, classic lingerie, Richard Scarey tomes, really high heeled shoes and PlayMobil. Yikes, I live with the mother of my children…does that make me a conservative?
Well, actually, we just moved in a month ago and we are still sorting stuff out…I will admit to procrastination.
October 20th, 2008 at 07:22 PM
Surely you aren’t surprised at this “research.” Lots of social science research is trendy.
Donald T. Campbell, the late eminent social research methodologist, early in his career commented that psychological ideas about rearing children were less helpful than traditional views. Campbell was not overtly religious, but he had the sense that what the ‘experts’ thought up was not particularly valuable. Here is the comment:
From Don Campbell [from E. S. Overman ed. Methodology and
Epistemology for Social Science: Selected Papers (of Donald T. Campbell,
pp.21-22)]
“…my early period in the Berkeley Institute of Child Welfare nursery
school had convinced me that the recipes by which psychiatrists and
psychologists were rearing their children were less adequate than
traditional ones, rather than better. My increasing understanding of what it
would take to be scientific about the important choices in life furthered a
double standard, in which I was committed to helping create a thoroughly
scientific social psychology but unwilling to jettison traditional wisdom
about how to live life and rear children.”
I don’t have the date, but it was probably in the late 50’s.
October 21st, 2008 at 07:34 AM
Jay, We moved in just over a month ago; I know the feeling of clutter.
Emil, Many similar “studies” have been published, so I’m not surprised. I just thought I’d take a closer look at the latest. Thanks for the illuminating quote from Don Campbell, whom I’d never heard of before.