Human Nature

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

romath — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:10:27 GMT

It's surprising that commentaries have seemed to accept the authors' assumption that political beliefs, and thus thinking, are essentially static. That is, the same person who is conservative today couldn't become liberal or radical tomorrow. Anyone familiar with what happens in popular thinking during political crises would recognize the fallacy of this, how fluid people's thinking can be. While there are quite a few historical studies that touch on this phenomen - some about the Russian Revolution come to mind right off - one really need look no further than the shifts in popular thinking among Iraqis in during the current Anglo-American occupation of their country. People who welcomed the US and expected it to lead the way in creating some kind of democracy now support attacks on American soldiers, if not participating in them themselves. Another classic case is that of house servants, who in normal times are usually much more conservative than their "field" brethren, but when the situation changes turn into some of the most militant. Then, of course, given the right circumstances some conservatives can become awfully friendly with fascists, to wit parts of the middle and working classes during the Nazi period in Germany (and upper class Americans and Brits who supported Hitler).

I haven't seen it mentioned that there is a long-standing literature that posits that conservatives are less open to new ideas and, in fact, are less psychologically developed or mature. I haven't been around the field for awhile, but Kohlberg and Maslow and maybe Erik Erikson come to mind (also much of the post-WWII communism=fascism crowd). The commenter who noted the self-serving nature of many studies done by liberal academics is spot on (btw, not all academics are liberals by any means, even in the social scienes - just look at psycho- and socio-biological research). And this is also another case where using hardly formed adolescent and young adult students as subjects is inappropriate to the issues being examined.

That said, I do think there is an important grain of truth to the notion that conservative thinking (political, social, etc.) differs from liberal (or more than liberal). It's true by definition - conservatives conserve and thus are more prone to do so at any moment. But people do change, as do the circumstances in which they live, which is why trying to correlate political orientations with the way brains work neurologically is fundamentally poor science.

OTOH, the irony is, if you think about it, that the underlying implication of the study is darn reactionary. As in 1984 reactionary, i.e., providing research findings that allow rulers to better know how to control, repress and eliminate individuals and populations.

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

TB007 — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 03:59:12 GMT

I believe that basing a complete study of political intellegence over a skill set that can be honed playing video games is makes about as much sense as claming just because the some one obviously has a different politcal slant, they are wrong, without addressing the arguments or facts themselves.

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

Jake33494 — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:46:12 GMT

I think that Slate should change their name to Slant. Come on! Maybe Slant should publish a conservative study which shows that conservatives are more successful. Its would certainly be more believable. How about doing a little research about the validity of what you print. If you read the heading of the article you would think that it is supporting the belief, which is the intent, read further, then you understand the real information, The study is crap. oh well shouldnt expect more from Slant.

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

Seraph — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:38:41 GMT

This entire situation is ridiculous. We are all the same, regardless of political orientation.

Both the experiment and article have flaws that show how circumstantial this entire thing is.

Liberals aren't smarter, conservatives aren't smarter. Who's to decide what "smart" is anyways? Who's smarter, the genius that has no social skills or the actor that makes millions?

We're all humans and lets accept that.

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

getajob — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:22:12 GMT

Theory of a Stupid Conservative:

I hypothesize inferior intelligence is associated with the organization or group who ended up paying for this study. I would also postulate any liberal who buys into this asinine diatribe is even lower intelligence than the organization who commissioned the study. This is so stupid, I have to question my own intelligence for responding. Therefore I am conservative.

getajob

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

montyq — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:40:17 GMT

Perhaps if the "liberals" and the "conservatives" could quit arguing about who is smarter, who is more intelligent, who has the bleeding heart and who is the war mongerer, and actually WORK TOGETHER to find common ground and to actually find some solutions to our various issues... perhaps then we'd all actually get something done and the world would be better for it.

Try Independence America! You may like it!

Re: But perhaps compared with toe tapping

LWetzel — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 22:21:55 GMT

Morality? Like Foley's? Craig? hmmmmm....... or that guy who owns a noose? Please dont start topics like this, it muddies the conversation.

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

LWetzel — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:58:58 GMT

Liberals would just shrug their shoulders, but look at the response of the republicans.

You can interpret the study in lots ofways:

1) Republicans tend to be more control freak once they have set their mind on one thing they are set for life.

2) Republicans are lazy. They really dont want to bother changing their minds, after all the brain is an energy hog.

3) They probably like pressing 'W' for William Bush.

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

SV SAM — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:21:27 GMT

Like most Liberal "studies", this is another example of flash with no content. If this study demonstrates anything it is that Liberals are like a CPU with lots of bells and whistles and a lousy operating system. They are good at coming up with a fast answer but the answer always ends up being wrong. Liberals may be glib, may be witty, they may even be clever.................but wisdom is the realm of the Conservative.

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

BalloonGenie — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:17:40 GMT

First off, I just want to say how much I have enjoyed this thread on this subject. The vast majority of the responses have included reasoned, thought out arguments either supporting or disputing Mr. Saletan's original article. (Shout out to you prefrontal - you are the man! You elucidated perfectly some of the points - and more -that came to mind when I read Mr. Saletan's article. And I think your tone set the stage for this whole thread!) There has been a minimum amount of the name-calling and dismissive "how stupid can you be" type comments that unfortunately so often populate ANY conservative vs. liberal discussion - no matter what the subject. And that really bothers me because I think that the only way we're going to survive as a planet is to realize that it really does take all kinds to move the world. No one is strong in ALL areas - although their are quite a few "renaissance people" who like to dabble in many different things. So in many ways, this study and the responses to it (starting with yours Mr. Saletan) remind me of the conflicting feelings that old chestnut "jack of all trades, master of none" stirs up in me. Which is better to be? I can't decide. But being good is not the same as being expert.

And that's kind of what this study's response seems to be about. Mr. Saletan, I want to say right now that I love your column and your articles - and I tend to agree with you more than I disagree with you (and yes, I self-identify as "liberal" just I'd say you self-identify as "conservative") - but I hated this article. And that's because I think that you took the knee-jerk "conservative" reaction and made the leap from "Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning ..." to he's calling conservatives stupid.

Call me liberal but I don't think that responsiveness to "informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty" is all there is to intelligence. It's a part of it but it's not the whole ball of wax. I think that's what Sakura was trying to point out.

And in a way, you self-reported reason for omitting Amodio et al's completion statement of what he thought conservatives' strong points might be (as demonstrated by their responses in the study) kind of re-inforces the above quote. You say that you omitted the second part because to you "fixed means pure inertia". That's a pretty conservative (if you will) definition of "fixed". Fixed to me tends to mean not easily moved for sure as in the gate is fixed to the post - it's not going to be easy to moved it but that doesn't mean that there are no conditions under which it might be moved.(the ambiguous interpretation) Pure inertia, to me, means it's not going anywhere, anytime - it's pure!

So I guess what this whole thing boils down to for me is why did you assume that this study really was an attempt to measure "intelligence" and did this study really come to a conclusion that's any different than the one that we probably can agree on: conservatives tend to not change as quickly as the situation mayt warrant and liberals tend to change more quickly that the situation may warrant and that there's a lot to be said for both tendancies. The hard part is deciding when to make the change when the situation warrants! As St. Francis of Assisi pointed out many moons ago - that's real intelligence!

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

rlsmith — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:07:00 GMT

Bwahaha! Perfect. It's science for blondes, the kind that get fired from M & M factories for throwing out all the Ws.

Perhaps if they tried a study with qs and ps people would take it more seriously. As it is, bias kind of destroys the credibility.

Re: But perhaps compared with toe tapping

janeslogin — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:34:38 GMT

"You cannot compare the part of the brain that deals with complex moral issues with finger tapping." but perhaps you can compare complex moral issues with toe tapping.

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

candoxx — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:39:45 GMT

Well, I am now certain of one thing: conservatives are far more creative than I ever thought, but in a most disgusting and vicious way -- dreaming up dirty tricks and reasons for war that do not exist! That takes a certain creativity, that's for sure.

They are also as zealotic/ideological as any commie ever was -- impervious to facts or reason, devoted to each other and their ideology, as Saletan's cheap "criticism" shows.

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

Sakura — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 13:45:48 GMT

I think part of the problem is that words and terms like "ambiguity", "conflict resolution" and "complexity" have a much broader, more powerful meaning to the general public than the very narrow, precise definitions they have in psychology.

In the actual technical article, there is none of the "liberals are smart, conservatives are dumb" aura that hangs over the media's representation of the study (and, unfortunately, some of the comments made by the researchers themselves outside of peer-review).

Also, you are absolutely correct. College students who volunteer for psych studies are about the exact opposite of a random sample.

Re: On the Saletan article from a CogNeuro person

kurtz — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 01:13:31 GMT

Seems to me that this study measures a persons reaction time. Linking that to "intelligence" is a bit of a leap.

Also, I doubt very much that there are two perfectly discrete boxes labeled liberal and conservative. To think that a person would fall neatly into one or the other under all circumstances (economic, foreign policy, art, culture, social issues, etc.) seems to me to be lacking even a basic level of human understanding.