Is Political Conservatism a Mild Form of Insanity? - Article in Psychology Today Magazine

[cleanhippie]

Here are the facts. A meta-analysis culled from 88 samples in 12 countries, and with an N of 22,818, revealed that “several psychological variables predicted political conservatism.” Which variables exactly? In order of predictive power: Death anxiety, system instability, dogmatism/intolerance of ambiguity, closed-mindedness, low tolerance of uncertainty, high needs for order, structure, and closure, low integrative complexity, fear of threat and loss, and low self-esteem. The researchers conclude, a little chillingly, that “the core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and a justification of inequality.”

The above list of variables is more than a little unsavory. We are talking about someone full of fear, with a poor sense of self, and a lack of mental dexterity. I always tell my students that tolerance of ambiguity is one especially excellent mark of psychological maturity. It isn’t a black and white world. According to the research, conservatives possess precisely the opposite: an intolerance of ambiguity and an inability to deal with complexity. Maybe that’s one reason why Obama seems so distasteful to them: he is a nuanced, multi-faceted thinker who can see things from several different perspectives simultaneously. And he isn’t preaching fear, either.


http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/1733

[Ernesto]

1. K&R!!! nt

[valerief]

2. Political conservatism makes a small number of people very, very rich.

They're not crazy.

Of course, their sheeple are.

[BrklynLiberal]

15. Becoming rich does not exclude insanity. "Howard Hughes"

[valerief]

17. Correct, but excessive greed doesn't assume insanity either.

However, it's pretty nutty to believe the GOP leadership now if you're one of their sheeple.

[guitar man]

3. No, it isn't

It's full blown psychosis!

[alfredo]

4. This should go viral

[catzies]

11. It did - back when this came out in 2008. But repeating reaches new audiences sometimes. n/t

[backscatter712]

5. This brings my mind straight back to Bob Altemeyer's study of Right-Wing Authoritarianism.

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

He's been studying their psychology for years.

[BrklynLiberal]

16. scary scary scary....

We REALLY REALLY need to start listening to and acting on the things the George Lakoff writes.

[BrklynLiberal]

18. wrong place...sorry

[HereSince1628]

6. My summary of Jost et al from several years ago, it's really not about mental illness

It IS about what sort of thinking motivates a person to act in conservative manners.
And understanding that is very important to understanding why conservatism is chosen by some as solving their deepest existential concerns.

Conservatism has been studied by sociologists and psychologists and a metanalysis of that work was published

Within the 80 or so studies they included in their metanalysis (analysis that analyzes previous studies) they found 8 elements that account for much of the variability in motivation to conservative social behavior.

The paper is titled “Political conservatism as motivated social cognition” (Psychological Bulletin vol 129, pp 339-375).

Here are my notes on it... obviously the authors haven't approved my interpretation and I accept that my own limitations may result in something of a biased summary of their paper.

(Things that appear in parentheses are notes to myself intended to help me understand the paper)

The authors,Jost et al,reviewed the work of 19 authors (historians, journalists, and political scientists) concerning the ideology of conservatism. From the review, Jost et al derived two features that represent persistent features of conservatism regardless of its geopolitical, or temporal context. They used these to describe the core dimensions that characterize conservative principles:

1. Opposition to change (privileges status quo or urges return to idealized old state)
2. Acceptance of inequality (legitimizes asymmetries of wealth and status).

Other dimensions of conservatism are context dependent and are considered peripheral dimensions. Because of the influence of historic circumstance, at any given time what is considered conservative may not be deemed so at another time. It seems at times some of these may play more significant roles than at other times.

(The theoretical principles at work here seems to be that peripheral aspects of political conservatism reflect responses to problems that create a psychological need to manage personal or social variables that distress an individuals’ relationships with core dimensions. Such need(s) motivates conservative individuals toward social attitudes whose predictable manifestation characterize day-to-day political conservatism.)

Various theories postulate explanatory correlations between social-psychological variables and conservatism. Consequently, the paper presents an interesting summary of behavioral and attitudinal orientation that characterize the peripheral dimensions of conservatism. It should be noted that Jost et al don’t fully discriminate right wing from conservative politics.).

Personality Theories–
-Authoritarianism (exploits status inequalities for decision/rule making, and includes acquiescence to authority)
-Dogmatism (opposes new explanation/interpretive models, promotes reliance on tried solutions)
-Intolerance to Ambiguity (emphasizes boundaries/distinctions ,
literal interpretation of rules. This makes conservatives vulnerable to Manicheism–the division of reality into absolute good and absolute evil.)

Existential Needs Theories–
-Closure (provides release from anxiety of ambiguity, promotes adoption of available solutions above wrestling with uncertainty and confusion )
-Regulatory focus (emphasizes stability , promotes cravings for security)
-Terror management/Fear of Death (promotes and protects systems that provide avenues of death denial/transcendence)

Ideological Rationalization–
-Social dominance (promotes legitimizing myths (such as divinely chosen people, classes of people, and nations) that support personal or group hegemony and enables/endorses identification and punishment of deviants/minorities)
-System justification (resolves conflicts about personal status/treatment by rationalization of the system’s worth, promotes defense of the system against threats even at high social or personal cost–as required for justifying death in war)

The authors evaluated 88 published studies (some of these are European so the paper is not only about conservatism in the US) to determine if correlations between political conservatism and expectations derived from the theories...they found the following correlations:

death anxiety (r =.50)
system stability (r = .47) (not surprising since opposition to change is a core dimension)
dogmatism/intolerance to ambiguity ( r =.34)
openness to experience (r=-.32)
uncertainty tolerance (r=-.27)
needs for order/structure/closure (r=.26)
integrative complexity (r=-.20)
fear of threat and/or loss (r=.18)
self-esteem (r=-.09)

(Consequently, these correlates represent how political conservatives orient to some social/psychological variables that had been previously successfully used to characterize the peripheral dimensions of conservatism. Comparison of political liberals and political conservatives along these same variables was hampered by the lack of available studies of political liberalism. Conservatism and its radical rightwing spin-offs seem to have been much more interesting to academics than liberalism.)

Here are examples taken from the internet during the past 18 months:

(1) mental rigidity and closed-mindedness; (Stop THEM, just say no to all 'democrat'legislation, Tax cuts are the answer to EVERY problem)

(2) lowered self-esteem; (Stop THEM , they come in and take all the good jobs.)

(3) fear, anger, and aggression; (Attack THEM, Yes, we know Iraq didn't attack the WTC, but someone MUST be punished. We must look strong to the rest of the world.)

(4) pessimism, disgust, and contempt; (From a congressman: “Stop feeding THEM , they are like stray dogs, it will only make them dependent.” From a teabagger: “If you quit giving people that stuff, they would figure out how to do it on their own,”)

(5) loss prevention; (Stop THEM, if they do X it will be the end of America, example: there will be death panels determining your healthcare)

(6) fear of death; (fear THEM, they are going to come into your house and kill you, get an assault rifle, and a permit to carry a concealed pistol.)

(7) fear of social and economic deprivation (fear Them, they are after your--profits, job, doctor, etc)

(8) fear of threats to the stability of the social system. (fear Them, they are going to destroy marriage; they are going to destroy AMERIKA as we know it!)


The work of Jost’s et al stirred up a hornets nest during W's first term.

If you google the title: Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition
You will come up with the original article and the line of studies that have followed.

[cleanhippie]

7. Good stuff! I will read Jost's research.

[cleanhippie]

9. Here are some links to Jost's research...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12784934


http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml


Powerful Stuff

[Steely_Dan]

34. Good Read...Thanks! n/t

[w4rma]

8. I wonder if cultists have the same symptoms. Or the extremely sheltered.

Or people who have been brainwashed.

[mwb970]

10. Conservatism is so simple. In fact, it's child's play!

Conservatives have three favorite playground games:

1. Follow the Leader (identify and submit to authority)

2. Odd Man Out (eliminate anyone who's different)

3. Statue (resist any form of change)

[BrklynLiberal]

13. EXCELLENT!!

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[BrklynLiberal]

12. "MILD" ???!! I think not.

In most cases the ones with the most visibility appear to be certifiable and should be institutionalized, and would benefit a GREAT DEAL from a prefrontal lobotomy...Well, the rest of society would benefit a lot if they got that surgery, anyway.

[eppur_se_muova]

25. Spot on. nt

[EC]

14. That would also indicate that their "faith" is pretend.

Faith was meant to defer all those feelings. So from what I see, they have no real faith, since they are still afraid, unsure and anxious...They are using faith as a form of structure is all.

[LWolf]

19. The diagnosis of conservatism is no surprise, but the conclusion you reach,

"Maybe that’s one reason why Obama seems so distasteful to them: he is a nuanced, multi-faceted thinker who can see things from several different perspectives simultaneously. And he isn’t preaching fear, either,"

doesn't explain a couple of things:

Obama is more conservative than liberal. More like them, in fact, except that they don't recognize it. They can't see beyond the "D."

Obama is distasteful to many on the liberal left, exactly because of his center-right conservatism. Because all of that "nuance," and "multi-faceted thinking," is put to work rejecting the liberal left, and promoting neoliberals and more conservative factions.

[Individualist]

32. Thanks for pointing out those facts.

:thumbsup:

[BrklynLiberal]

20. Brought to mind a poem Calvin Trillin wrote about Richard Perle's childhood

http://www.thenation.com/article/richard-perle-whose-fault-he

Consider kids who bullied Richard Perle--
Those kids who said Perle threw just like a girl,
Those kids who poked poor Perle to show how soft
A mamma's boy could be, those kids who oft-
Times pushed poor Richard down and could be heard
Addressing him as Sissy, Wimp or Nerd.
Those kids have got a lot to answer for,
'Cause Richard Perle now wants to start a war.
The message his demeanor gets across:
He'll show those playground bullies who's the boss.
He still looks soft, but when he writes or talks
There is no tougher dude among the hawks.
And he's got planes and ships and tanks and guns--
All manned, of course, by other people's sons.


I also recall a study that was done on children...predicting their later political affiliation based on
VERY early behavior patterns. It was a pretty long term study. Showed the insecure tended to go
conservative..while the self assured, adventurous went liberal.

[BrklynLiberal]

21. Longitudinal studies of children that used early childhood tendencies to determine later political

affiliation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/us/07block.html

One of Professor Block’s studies drew particular notice in the news media. Published in The Journal of Research in Personality in 2006, it found that subjects who at 3 years old had seemed thin-skinned, rigid, inhibited and vulnerable tended at 23 to be political conservatives. On the other hand, 3-year-olds characterized as self-reliant, energetic, somewhat dominating and resilient were inclined to become liberals.

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2006/03/whiners_grow_up.html
Whiners grow up to be conservative, study claims

A new study reports that whiny kids are more likely to become conservative:

Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.
At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area that social scientists have been tracking for the last 20 years. The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals. The study from the Journal of Research Into Personality isn't going to make the UC Berkeley professor who published it any friends on the right. Similar conclusions a few years ago from another academic saw him excoriated on right-wing blogs, and even led to a Congressional investigation into his research funding.But the new results are worth a look. In the 1960s Jack Block and his wife and fellow professor Jeanne Block (now deceased) began tracking more than 100 nursery school kids as part of a general study of personality. The kids' personalities were rated at the time by teachers and assistants who had known them for months. There's no reason to think political bias skewed the ratings — the investigators were not looking at political orientation back then. Even if they had been, it's unlikely that 3- and 4-year-olds would have had much idea about their political leanings.A few decades later, Block followed up with more surveys, looking again at personality, and this time at politics, too. The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.

The alternative explanation is that conservative toddlers in Berkeley, California have a lot to whine about.

More information on Jack Block and his famous longitudinal study of personal development, still going after over 30 years.


http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-sci-politics10sep10,0,2687256.story
Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain
Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently, researchers show.

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

In a simple experiment reported todayin the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

<snip>

Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

"There is ample data from the history of science showing that social and political liberals indeed do tend to support major revolutions in science," said Sulloway, who has written about the history of science and has studied behavioral differences between conservatives and liberals.

Lead author David Amodio, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University, cautioned that the study looked at a narrow range of human behavior and that it would be a mistake to conclude that one political orientation was better. The tendency of conservatives to block distracting information could be a good thing depending on the situation, he said.

Political orientation, he noted, occurs along a spectrum, and positions on specific issues, such as taxes, are influenced by many factors, including education and wealth. Some liberals oppose higher taxes and some conservatives favor abortion rights.

Still, he acknowledged that a meeting of the minds between conservatives and liberals looked difficult given the study results.

"Does this mean liberals and conservatives are never going to agree?" Amodio asked. "Maybe it suggests one reason why they tend not to get along."

[ProgressiveEconomist]

22. This study evidently struck a nerve with Rs in COngress, who 'investigated' it

and called for measures to bar Federal funding for such research

From http://article.nationalreview.com/269555/the-conservatives-are-crazy-study/byron-york

'The "Conservatives Are Crazy" Study
Byron York August 1, 2003 9:00 A.M.

Congressional investigators call for a new look at funding academic research.

An academic study of conservatism that lumped together Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Ronald Reagan, and Rush Limbaugh was funded by federal grants, according to congressional investigators. The study, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," was written by John T. Jost, a professor at Stanford University, Jack Glaser and Frank J. Sulloway, professors at the University of California, Berkeley, and Arie W. Kruglanski, a professor at the University of Maryland. It was published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin. Congressional investigators have found that the study was financed by $1.2 million in federal funds. According to the House Republican Study Committee, Kruglanski received National Institute of Mental Health grants totaling $976,762, Glaser received National Institute of Mental Health grants totaling $48,464, and Jost and Kruglanski together received an estimated $213,800 from the National Science Foundation. ...

In an interview with National Review Online, Florida Republican Rep. Tom Feeney, who looked into the study and its funding, called the project "outrageous." "Taxpayers shouldn't be required to pay for these things," Feeney said. "If private universities, privately funded, want to study ridiculous hypotheses for political agendas, they have a right to do so, but when you are basically confiscating money from taxpayers to fund left-wing rhetoric and dress it up as scientific study, I think you have a real problem with credibility."'

[cleanhippie]

23. And that demonstrates classic denialism.....

Just shows how deep into denial they are.

[Shallah Kali]

24. Why do people follow authoritarian leaders? Many were raised that way

FOR YOUR OWN GOOD: Hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence by Alice Miller
http://nospank.net/fyog.htm

Compare the popular child rearing advice reported in the above book of Germany in the 1800's with the popular (amongst fundamentalist christians) of today:

Godly discipline turned deadly
A controversial child "training" practice comes under fire -- this time from Christians themselves
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2010/02/22/no_greater_joy

Spare the quarter-inch plumbing supply line, spoil the child
Saying no to "timeouts," some fundamentalist Christians "train up" their children by carefully hitting them with switches, PVC pipes and other "chastening instruments."
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/05/25/the_pearls/index.html
More writings by Dr. Miller
http://nospank.net/milindex.htm


FLOGGING FOR GOD: Violence toward children under the guise of religion
The poisonous pedagogy of hucksters and quacks who promote the "benifits" of child beating
http://nospank.net/floggers.htm

[indepat]

26. Is an inexorably warped mind wrapped in a pile of nastiness what these traits depict?

:P

[eridani]

27. I think that the relationship between conservatism and outright sociopathology

--is analogous to the relationship between Asperger's Syndrome and autism.

[MadHound]

28. Oh good grief, let's not go there, really

You start slamming somebody's politics as "a mild form of insanity" pretty soon they'll be hammering you with the same accusation, using their own facts, figures and studies. And down that road lies things we don't even want to deal with.

Let's just stick to the basics, namely that conservative politics are destroying this country and its people and leave it at that.

[cleanhippie]

29. I see what you mean, but this is not what you describe.

This is not really opinion, but rather a plausible scientific fact. This study as well as the one completed in 2003 was scientific and had the data peer-reviewed and accepted. This is not slamming somebody's politics, this is science.

[MadHound]

30. Lots of science like that throughout history,

And some of that science was taken to some pretty horrific ends before it was shown to be bogus. Anything dealing with the human psyche, the human condition has to be taken with a huge grain of salt before being acted on.

For instance, homosexuality was thought a mental illness for a long time as well, complete with reams and volumes of peer reviewed scientific studies, and was considered established scientific fact, during my lifetime. Hundreds of thousands of people were forcibly sterilized in this country, based on scientific principles and thought, collectively known as eugenics. It had reams and volumes of scientific studies, peer reviewed and everything. Hell, it was law in some states, complete with state boards who determined who got sterilized. This occurred in my mother's lifetime.

These sorts of ideological or politically driven studies usually turn out badly, let's not go down that path again.

[cleanhippie]

33. But that is how science works.

You reach a conclusion and if it is plausible, it stands until new information disproves or reinforces it.

Again, I see your point and it is valid. You make a rational argument and generally I would agree with you. I also see you argument as a case of willfully ignoring facts and evidence because the conclusion MAY lead to a place that has uncomfortable results. I cannot do that, sorry. This study, and it is at least the SECOND one of its kind, has produced the SAME results, thus reinforcing the findings. Unless there is some flaw in the methodology or analysis of the data, why would you want to ignore it?

BTW, no one in any of the reports or articles, including myself has advocated taking any kind of ACTION based on the studies.

[pitohui]

31. how is it mild, exactly?

i'm impatient w. this step by step we have to kiss tard ass, there is nothing "mild" abt rabid race hatred, which is their prime motivation

[Karenina]

35. My daddy was a psychiatrist

who thought I should understand what his work was about when I was quite young. He came home one evening with a bandaged face. My understanding at that time was that he had been a random victim of what was known at the time as "nigger whopping." Forgive me for not censoring the word. I asked him why they were so angry at us for having brown skin and whether the description of the meanness should also be described in the DSM. He fell out laughing and called my godfather, his college roommate (long-distance, a HUGE deal at the time). Uncle Jimmy declared, "We're sending you to Vassar."

There is a seriously dangerous, sociopathic, engorged member being waved around naked in the streets and on the airwaves of America. As we say here, YOU have to know it.

[whistler162]

36. NTSA...... last time it was is Liberalism a form of insanity

stupid then and stupid now!

http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Mind-Psychological-Political-Madness/dp/097795630X

Author is even a M.D.