Researchers help define what makes a political conservative

[StandWatie]

BERKELEY – Politically conservative agendas may range from supporting the Vietnam War to upholding traditional moral and religious values to opposing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations?

Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

Fear and aggression

Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity

Uncertainty avoidance

Need for cognitive closure

Terror management
"From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination," the researchers wrote in an article, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," recently published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin.

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

[joeybee12]

1. They forgot severe brain damage!

That happened at a young age!!!!!!!

[IndianaGreen]

16. Oh, this is real rich!

We have always known that conservatives were sickos, now we know that it is part of their personal "orientation."

[PROGRESSIVE1]

2. Go to Virginia...

and ask David Duke what makes a conservative. He's the best expert on this subject.

;-)

[VaLabor]

4. Hey, now,

David Duke ain't ours. He belongs to Louisiana.

[joeybee12]

6. Virginia

Yeah, but you've got two nutcase senators. Though living in Colorado, I should talk. Our governor is scum, along with the senators.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

11. TO: VaLabor, I know he belongs to Louisiana...

he's obviously swamp scum. I'm just saying that he's currently in a Virginia Jail.

By the way, you are are fortunate to have a great governor such as Mark Warner. Though I'm sorry to here about the other Warner (senate) in your state. What happened to Chuck Robb? Why did Virginia reject him for an Airhead like Geoege Allen?

[sirshack]

3. To be honest....

I think that's what makes people political in general...not what defines their ideology.

[TahitiNut]

5. IOW: "Control Freaks"

:eyes: (Been there, done that, had the nightmares.)

[rfranklin]

8. Relates to severe toilet training...

Need to now when and how the next bowel movement is coming to avoid punishment. Fear and aggression a result of hostile parents.

[Sideways]

13. You May Be Right

My current narrcissitic personality disordered partner (soon to be jettisoned) claims he was toilet trained at twelve months. :wtf: I have four children and they are all quite bright but NONE of them were potty trained at twelve months.

By my understanding this would mean his mother had him on the potty all day long EVERYDAY to ensure this kind of early bowel control.

Trouble is that as an adult he shits on everything and anyone he touches. He is the most insecure arrogant person I have ever met.

I'm done bringing out the pampers for him and I'm done hiding his secrets. He claims to be a Dem but that's only because he is a biz failure and TO HIM that makes his failures more palatable.

He wants to look altruistic in his failures. As in they weren't just greedy endeavors that failed because...well he was just too kind and good.

So he claims to be a DEM. Abject hooey and bullshit. If he had been a winner he would be the most robust Repug.

So how is it that I am involved with this man at all? Real short, we met on the internet and he claimed to be divorced and a transplant to to California from New Hampshire. Nearly a year into the relationship I found he was not only NOT divorced his family was waiting in NH to move to California into his new life.

FUCK ME. This early toilet training scenario needs to be explored.

I've got a shit head of biblical proportions on my hands and this might be the underlying answer.

Actually I think he is just a SHIT HEAD. Toilet training aside.

And really DU friends this is not a laughing matter for me at this time. This really hurts and if any of you out there have been involved with a freak like this please PM me. I could use the support.

[TahitiNut]

21. In blame-addicted/habituated 'families' ...

... obsession with (the illusion of) 'control' is typical. When we're constantly programmed to think that both happiness and sadness have their genesis in exterior sources (either things or people) and that we're 'responsible' for what others think or feel, we use up in feeling blamed whatever resources we have to meet our own real responsibilities. "You make me happy!" "You make me angry!" "This widget will make you happy!" "Be the envy of your neighbors!" All these serve to erode emotional health, IMHO.

Parents, of course, have the greatest opportunity to implant these dysfunctions. "What will the neighbors think?" "You should be ashamed to make people think I'm a bad mother!" "Big boys don't cry." "Be a man!" Those are all heavy burdens -- too heavy to allow one to carry anything else.

Narcissists are almost prototypically extreme in presuming that their own very existence is dependent on how others view them and react to them. It's not just information; it's the very essence of who they are and that they are. They make themselves dysfunctionally dependent on that which they fruitlessly are obsessed with controlling -- ultimately and invariably in a destructive manner.

[salmonhorse]

7. Ee-yup, and it was all right there in Bush's SOTU address...

Buzzing pilot-less drones w/WMD over the fruited plains a mere 45min away, yellow cake uranium from deepest, darkest "Afffrrrica", a landscape strewn with Saddam/Al-Qaida/fill in the blank boogeymen, lies, deception, sickness, death, vast delusion, and astronomical tax cuts to the super rich you bet'cha. And all wrapped in the ruse of 'compassionate conservatism'.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. I have always maintained that there is one controlling factor to

conservatism:

FEAR!

[Az]

10. The difference, those who need an answer and those who see the question

Conservatives believe there is an absolute right way things ought to be. They want a hero that has no qualms with doing the right thing. They want a simple solution. One that can be summed up easily.

Liberals realise that the question is more important than an absolute answer. The question is what drives us and leads us to a better understanding of how to make a better society. We may not expect there to be a perfect answer but we struggle to make the best of what we can.

This is a complex society. The very complexity itself can stress people out. This is why the right will always have an easier time recruiting people. People become overwhelmed with trying to figure out the right thing. When someone comes along and tells them the answer they want to hear they gladdly follow along. Simpler answers gather more people. Complex answers drive many away.

Unfortunately there are no simple answers. Thus we have a society with a cyclical political nature. As those that favor the simple answers gain control their simplistic approach causes increasing social disruptions. This continues until such a point that the more complex solutions must be turned to and people look to those offereing such ideas.

[stanwyck]

34. Bertrand Russell agrees with you

he defined conservatism as the inability to understand doubt. Conservatives are fundamentalists. George W. Bush is their God. He said it. They believe it. That settles it.

[Zero Gravitas]

12. seems about rght

Fear, anger and a simplistic world view sums up the vast majority of right wingers.

[CTLawGuy]

14. Conservative =

rich + evil

or

poor + stupid

[Rich Hunt]

15. This sounds like Adorno's book

"The Authoritarian Personality".

http://www.anesi.com/fscale.htm

also:

http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap7/chap7l.htm

What kind of people would follow an aggressive, arrogant, critical, prejudiced leader? The classic book on this topic is The Authoritarian Personality. These authors (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson & Sanford, 1950) described several traits of authoritarian leaders, like Hitler, and their followers, like the German people:

1. Rigid, unthinking adherence to conventional, middle-class ideas of right and wrong. The distinction has to be made between (a) incorporating (as in Kohlberg's stage 6--see chapter 3) universal values and (b) having blind allegiance to traditional social-political-religious customs or organizations. Examples: an egalitarian person who truly values one-person-one-vote, equal rights, equal opportunities, and freedom of speech will support a democracy, not a dictatorship. A person who says, "I love my country--right or wrong" or "America--love it or leave it" may be a flag-waving, patriotic speech-making politician who is secretly an antidemocratic authoritarian (similar in some ways to Hitler). For the authoritarian the values of respecting and caring for others are not as important as being a "good German" or a "good American" or a "good Catholic" or a "good Baptist."

Important values to an authoritarian are obedience, cleanliness, success, inhibition or denial of emotions (especially anger and even love), firm discipline, honoring parents and leaders, and abhorring all immoral sexual feelings. This was the German character. Authoritarian parents tend to produce dominated children who become authoritarian parents. Egalitarians produce egalitarians.

So, I don't think this is really news.

[IndianaGreen]

17. They lumped Hitler, Mussolini, and Regan together! I love it!

Hitler, Mussolini, and former President Ronald Reagan were individuals, but all were right-wing conservatives because they preached a return to an idealized past and condoned inequality in some form. Talk host Rush Limbaugh can be described the same way.

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

This is so rich that I am beginning to think it must be an hoax. Bawahahahahahahaha!

[targetpractice]

31. Definitely not a hoax...

One of the researchers, Frank Sulloway, wrote one of my favorite books called Born to Rebel that summarizes his extensive research into how birth order and family dynamics shapes personality. His contention is that first-borns are generally conservative and resistant to change, whereas latter-borns are more open to change and rebellious. By analyzing over 4000 historical figures in science, Sulloway demonstrates that most scientific revolutions were led by latter-borns. First-borns on the other hand are champions of the status quo. Of course there are exceptions to this rule depending other family dynamics during childhood.

A definite good read:

Born to Rebel

[Proud_American]

18. The way I define conservatism

is that if you care more about your back pocket than you do about your fellow countrymen, yep you're a con!

[Character Assassin]

19. Jonah Goldberg takes aim at this 'study'

http://nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg072403.asp

Makes sense to me, in any case.

[salmonhorse]

20. You bet'cha...

If only because he, his mommy, and everyone he cares about is part of the freaking template, HA!

Oh Well!!

[TahitiNut]

23. There, in the fulfillment of academic prophecy,

Jonah of Whale Shit aptly demonstrates the homo insipiens traits of
Fear and aggression,
Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity,
Uncertainty avoidance,
Need for cognitive closure, and
Terror management.

It's ironic in the extreme that he should attempt to deride that which, in his very derision, he portrays so fulsomely.

[Character Assassin]

24. Actually, you are demonstrating what he's talking about

Jonah 'whale shit'?

How about addressing the actual points he's made, or countering them? Just making fun of his name and repeating bullet points does nothing to either justify the points in the study or contradict the criticisms he made of them.

[TahitiNut]

26. "actual points"???

I'll tell you what. Why don't you just tippy-toe through Jonah's tendentious, self-abusing Whale Shit of derision, ad hominems, cite-less assertions, and petulant sarcasm and extract those "actual point" nuggets -- and identify them for me?


Just what do you think they are?

"Cow Farts"?

Characterizing the authors' investigations as "no doubt laying their calipers to the craniums of whatever conservatives they could manage to tranquilize and tag (picture a squirrelly YAFer trying to break out of his restraints on a metal slab somewhere in the psych annex at Berkeley)"?

Pseudo-analysis including "words like gassy, insubstantial, and malodorous certainly apply to the Berkeley study"?

Strawman mischaracterizations like "conservatives like me spend most of the day opening and closing the refrigerator door applauding when the happy-fun light magically turns on"??

His confession that he's "been so exasperated with the way some academics think they can use their head for a colonoscopy and then crab-walk around expecting all the world to think their new hats make them look smart"??

His abysmal failure to comprehend that a professor under some delusion that there were "ex-slaves" present (far more than 100 years after slavery was abolished) in his class might have a mental problem??

His typical attempt to refute an academically disciplined study of the general with a few (specious) anecdotes???


Please ... do me a favor ... try to show me where he offered any "actual points" that were relevant rather than ludicrous and fallacious! I've waded through his Whale Shit twice now and find nothing that even indicates he read the paper rather than quickly skimmed it.

:puke:

[EconomicsDude]

35. Okay so you...

...can't refute any of his points.

I know it is simply easy to dismiss your opponents as nothing but simpletons and nuts, but think about this:

Those simpletons and nuts are in control of both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. If they can do that, what does that say about us on the left? Are we even stupider and nuttier?



Look at Goldberg's points about smoking. Right now there is a crusade to make smoking basically illegal. Not just ban it in certain public places but making it more and more expensive (which by the way hurts the lower incomes more than the upper incomes...geee how compasionate). This is something you tend to see those on the left side of the spectrum supporting not the right. Then there were the things like the various fat-lawsuits. Controlling what you eat. Then there are the environmentalists, aren't those a type of control, a fear of the unknown (genetically modified foods)? Then there are things like helmet laws, all the laws and regulations (like the warning on ladders not to use them when you've been drinking). The "Nanny State".



There, now one could say those various things are very controlling, avoiding of uncertainty, and gasp...dogmatic? Dogmatic that in trying to convince people who hold the above are quite resistant.

Also, there is a problem, this study isn't really a study. It is a meta-analysis and one of the problems with meta-analysis is that it looks at published research. Publish researched tends to suffer from publication bias. In searching the actual study they do not mention publication bias once. It has been shown in other studies that this can skew the results of a meta-analysis.

Finally, science by press release is one of the hallmarks of junkscience.

[geomon]

42. your points....

"Right now there is a crusade to make smoking basically illegal"

where?

"Then there were the things like the various fat-lawsuits. Controlling what you eat."

How does a lawsuit control what you eat?

" Then there are the environmentalists, aren't those a type of control, a fear of the unknown (genetically modified foods)? "

Don't quite understand your writing..but...how are the "environmentalists" using fear when they are only asking for assurances of safety of their food?

"Then there are things like helmet laws, all the laws and regulations (like the warning on ladders not to use them when you've been drinking)."

Do you understand the argument concerning helmet laws?

There are many dumbasses out there so what is wrong with a warning on a product?

So all laws and regulations are liberal?

"There, now one could say those various things are very controlling, avoiding of uncertainty, and gasp...dogmatic? Dogmatic that in trying to convince people who hold the above are quite resistant."

Dogmatic?

"Also, there is a problem, this study isn't really a study. It is a meta-analysis and one of the problems with meta-analysis is that it looks at published research. Publish researched tends to suffer from publication bias. In searching the actual study they do not mention publication bias once. It has been shown in other studies that this can skew the results of a meta-analysis."

Meta analysis is not a form of a study??? I take it you are far removed from the academic world.

Published research...that is,for the most part, peer reviewed.

"Finally, science by press release is one of the hallmarks of junkscience."

How dogmatic of you.

You are joking with your post...right???

[DoveTurnedHawk]

22. Maybe It's Just Me

But this study seems like a big waste of money and time.

:shrug:

DTH

[Redleg]

33. How much money did it cost?

Are you being facetious?

[Casper]

25. I like this part:

“low in cognitive complexity”
“it doesn't mean that they're simple-minded."

Seriously, though, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. My spouse and I have been analyzing some acquaintances we have who claim to be conservative, and this report supports some conclusions we have come to.

Furthermore, their desire for simple answers prevents them from investigating issues further to find the truth. They want someone to hand them the answers in 10 words or less and written in big letters.

We here all know that you may have to read 6 sources and pay attention to something for 6 months to begin to get a good understanding of what is really going on with any particular issue. This is why guys like Jimmy Carter and Gary Hart ultimately fail as politicians (at least as perceived by many). Conservatives don't want diplomats or smart policy guys, they want preachers, or their father..somebody who will lay it out for them.

So politically, we are in a place where we have to have candidates who are both: smart policy guys and good "messengers". Clinton was like that, and I submit that Dean fits the bill too.

[lightbulb]

27. Ever see the movie Pleasantville?

SPOILER (don't read if you haven't seen it):

At first everyone in town is completely black and white, symbolizing the distilled, simple truths so essential to the conservative mindset. As the people are introduced to new ideas and the uncertainties inherent to real life, color starts creeping in to their world. This terrifies a lot of folks and leads to social divisions and public unrest. Ultimately the "coloreds" prevail and the town accepts life for what it is: ambiguous, confusing, exhilarating, spontaneous, and ultimately thrilling.

Some of my favorite quotes from a compassionate conservative simpleton:

"...Fuzzy math..."
"Let's roll."
"Feel good."
"Fuck Saddam..."
"...plenty tough."
"Bring 'em on."

[TahitiNut]

28. Just watched it again a few nights ago.

Yes, that's a fun (allegorical) movie. What I've found funniest about it is how my more conservative friends and family seem to "get it" the least. My mother (bless her aged conservative soul) didn't get it at all -- even when carefully explained. Even the tacit "bone" offered to the more conservative viewers (the sister's deradicalization) seems to be lost on many.

It's interesting that you associated 'Pleasantville' with this particular article regarding the Berkeley study. It's clear that each and every point made in the Berkeley study is well-depicted in 'Pleasantville'.

Fear and aggression - physical assaults, smashing the window, and trashing the soda shop

Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity - the mayor, what can we say?

Uncertainty avoidance - the husband (Bill Macy?), in particular

Need for cognitive closure - most of the townfolk

Terror management - the mayor again

And those are just the more obvious (to me) depictions among many. Fascinating. Good catch!! :hi:

[hang a left]

37. And don't forget "damn good..."

[I AM SPARTACUS]

29. what makes a conservative? Start with "DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL and...

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

The Tragedy of Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1
http://eamesharlan.org/tptt/macbeth41.html

[stevebreeze]

30. my own theory is

They produce far too much testosterone for their tiny tiny penises to use. Having no other function it proceeds to their brain rendering it dull and slow-witted.

OK maybe that mean but if I told you about my weekend stint at the Democrates booth at a county fair you would understand.
:kick:

[GreenGreenLimaBean]

32. Now that we know whats wrong with them, Whats the Cure?

shock therapy?
drug therapy?
sex therapy?

Find the cure and the problems will go away.

[Julien Sorel]

36. This reminds me of William F Buckley's definition of a conservative:

Conservatives stand athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who do."

I can actually sympathize with him, considering current circumstances.

[undergroundpanther]

38. Check this link!

http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm

[neuvocat]

39. Here's a way to make it easier:

just call them sociopaths.

[Deege]

40. Yes!!!

Couldn't be said better.

[alaine]

41. So true.

Sometimes I have to remind myself about the afterlife and karma just to get through the day. It's a whole different world since 9/11, the right-wing seems to have grown bolder in it's contention that they are right and we are wrong, immoral, bad, satanic, evil, demonic, etc and we and the country are severely in need of rescue by extreme capitalism. Alice Miller has written extensively about authoritarian behavior and how it passes from one generation to the next; she also profiles the population in Germany during the third reich and interestingly enough quotes from a slew of ninteenth century German child-rearing manuals which one after another endorse shame, humiliation and physical abuse of children who are 'innately evi' and must be tamed. Her book "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child" covers these themes extensively and also goes on to talk about what behaviors children adopt in order to cope with the abuse, a list that sounds quite similar to the one above. I really appreciate the one "a need for cognitive closure" because it is a nice way of saying that conservatives simply cannot handle ambiguity, something is either right or wrong, good or bad, move on.

I blame Judeo-Christian religion with it's demonizing of sex and both female and male sexuality (the countenance of Satan is the pagan god Pan, and the hooves and horns were representative of male sexuality in pagan cultures and celebrated, not feared). I think it is the whole concept of evil SOMEWHERE that cripples people's minds and leads them on a quest to personify it insomeone or something, thus fulfilling the "need for cognitive closure", as in, it's the Dixie Chicks, or the liberals, or the Iraqis that are the bad ones. This is doubly true if the person thinks, if only subconsiously, that THEY really personify the bad, or what they have been told is bad. It's no coincidence that so many male conservatives turn out to be gay.

[T Roosevelt]

43. Don't know how I missed this

But I was gone for the weekend...

Kind of kicking this for anybody who may have missed it, and wanted to add my favorite paragraph:

Conservatives don't feel the need to jump through complex, intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their positions, he said. "They are more comfortable seeing and stating things in black and white in ways that would make liberals squirm," Glaser said.

How many of us here already knew this? ;-)