Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Whine
For those of you who have been fuming, gloating, or mehing over the study by that one dude over how conservatives were whiny growing up, The Volokh Conspiracy has been covering it pretty well. Here are my main gripes with the study:
1. Irrelevant. The authors insist that they are making no claims about people in general, but that the trends are valid within the study. Granting them this, the study becomes completely useless, and should not be published. Who cares? Who are these people in the study? Would knowing something about them help understand anything at all, if it can't be generalized? Apparently, this is a common feature of these kinds of studies, but while this is offered as a defense, it looks to me more like an indictment of the entire field.
2. Biased. This is pretty obvious just from the word choice used to describe attributes. The first comment from the link above, for instance, points this out:
"At age 23, relatively Liberal young women are assessed independently as: vital, motivationally aware, perceptive, Xuent, bright, with extensive and esthetic interests, somewhat non-conforming. Relatively Conservative young women were characterized as: conservative, uneasy with uncertainties, conventional, as sex-typed in their personal behavior and social perceptions, emotionally bland, appearing calm, and candid but also somewhat moralistic."
Every characteristic is loaded by language to sound good (if liberals have it) and bad (if conservatives have it). Uneasy with uncertainties? How about uncomfortable with moral relativity, having a defined sense of right and wrong. Emotionally bland? How about dependable, emotionally stable. On the other hand, liberals are described as vital, motivationally aware, non-conforming (but not too non-conforming!), perceptive, and bright.
It's obvious that this study is nothing more than name-calling. Yes, of course it has problems with its methodology. But, in my view, that's the least damning of its many problems.
Any one could rewrite the above list to sound negative to liberals and positive to conservatives.
Liberals were indulgent, ostentatious, hedonistic, overly sympathetic to criminals and sinners, and relatively selfish. Conservatives, on the other hand, had a defined sense of right and wrong, believed in personal responsibility and self-sacrifice, displayed emotional stability, and were more likely to appreciate the benefits of family life.
3. Opaque. The study doesn't make clear where on the political spectrum people fall. It doesn't describe how many were conservative, how many were liberal, how many were moderate, etc. It only looks at correlations, which deal with relative positions. Jim Lindgren argues that it likely is a comparison between liberals and moderates.
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