
Is Social Psychology Biased Against Republicans? - clarkm
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-psychology-biased-republicans
======
fecklessyouth
>The N.Y.U. political psychologist John Jost made the point even more
strongly, calling Haidt’s remarks “armchair demography.” Jost wrote, “Haidt
fails to grapple meaningfully with the question of why nearly all of the best
minds in science find liberal ideas to be closer to the mark with respect to
evolution, human nature, mental health, close relationships, intergroup
relations, ethics, social justice, conflict resolution, environmental
sustainability, and so on.”

A comment meant to combat Haidt's criticism ends up embodying it.

~~~
wfo
There is something to be said for the notion that professors or any public
intellectual will bias away from conservatism -- it is the job of a public
intellectual in the humanities or social sciences (at least public
intellectuals of the past, before non-academics with business degrees took
over any and all decision-making in American research institutions) to think
critically about and challenge the status quo and the general structure of
society, and conservatives almost by definition support the status quo, so it
is altogether unsurprising to see fewer conservatives in professorial
positions in these disciplines.

However I think here the issue is that the lack of conservatives in social
psychology obscures the fact that it is a discipline with almost no real
content -- they ask questions and do studies which can provide any result they
wish, so the group of people engaged in the science just imprint their own
beliefs on it -- getting 'data' and 'studies' that exactly conform with their
worldview, not coincidentally. In order to provide basic rigor to the science
(and to provide any hope of ending the current replication crisis) there needs
to be scientists employing the same methods but who expect radically different
(socially conservative) outcomes. Currently the best way to see which method
or explanation a psychology study finds evidence for is not to read the study,
but rather to read the bio of the first author, and find his or her pet
theory. This is the problem at hand. The lack of intellectual diversity in the
discipline just allows the intellectual farce to plod along unexposed.

------
privong
> But where were the hard numbers that pointed to bias, be it in the selection
> of professionals or the publication process, skeptics asked? ... Maybe it
> was the case that liberals simply wanted to become professors more often
> than conservatives.

Interesting. I wonder if those same people would explain a lack of gender
diversity in tech as "women aren't interested in tech", or an analogous
feeling in other fields? I guess I do not have an understanding for how much
of that reaction is a general attitude towards diversity versus a reactionary
stance in regards to the suggestion of a lack of diversity in one's own domain
of work/expertise/culture/experience.

> But the percentages varied. Regarding economic affairs, approximately
> nineteen per cent called themselves moderates, and eighteen per cent,
> conservative. On foreign policy, just over twenty-one per cent were
> moderate, and ten per cent, conservative. It was only on the social-issues
> scale that the numbers reflected Haidt’s fears: more than ninety per cent
> reported themselves to be liberal, and just under four per cent,
> conservative.

Certainly the social issues are more extreme, but having a ~70% to 10% ratio
of liberal to conservative thinking for foreign policy is still very lopsided.
I think all three categories would be considered too lopsided, not just the
last one.

~~~
gizmo686
>Interesting. I wonder if those same people would explain a lack of gender
diversity in tech as "women aren't interested in tech"?

Contrary to the declaration of independence, it is not self-evident that all
people are equal. We can say that the lack of women in tech is primarily a
result of cultural reasons because we have evidence that there is minimal
innate, relevent, difference. We have not shown this to be the case with
political parties. Furthermore, we have reason to believe that this is not the
case, because political parties carry with them values and ideologies.

>Certainly the social issues are more extreme, but having a ~70% to 10% ratio
of liberal to conservative thinking for foreign policy is still very lopsided.
I think one all three categories would be too lopsided, not just the last one.

Is there a reason that 50%-50% is ideal? Consider the climate change debate; I
do not consider it a problem that the scientific community is lopsided on this
issue. Simmilarly, it may be the case that an understanding of these fields
tends to make people lean liberal.

~~~
refurb
_Is there a reason that 50%-50% is ideal? Consider the climate change debate;
I do not consider it a problem that the scientific community is lopsided on
this issue. Simmilarly, it may be the case that an understanding of these
fields tends to make people lean liberal._

You're confusing political belief with scientific opinion. There is nothing
wrong with nearly everyone holding one scientific opinion. I would say there
is something wrong with a lack of diversity (political or otherwise).

~~~
lhc-
I don't think there's necessarily a big difference. Let's take the political
belief "women should be allowed to vote". Do you truly believe that it's
valuable to have a diverse set of opinions on that subject?

False equivalence in scientific opinion isn't any different from the political
sphere, its just that many political issues are actually more highly debated
because of a lack of hard science behind them.

~~~
jerf
Strawman; it is not the "conservative" position of a significant sized group
of people that "women should not be allowed to vote". Non-zero, sure, but
before you get too excited about that "concession" bear in mind I can find
examples of people who think men should not be allowed to vote, _in academia_.

Further, still a flawed argument; part of the _main point_ of science is to
consider questions that may be emotionally loaded or painful in a scientific
manner. Forbidding certain streams of thought because it could conceivably be
used to support a politically unpopular position is unscientific. At the very
least you ought to acknowledge that is the case, rather than try to pretend
that you have not somehow left science behind, and pretend that you will
suffer no consequences from that because of the sheer, self-evident rightness
of your beliefs. (And if those last six words don't at least make you pause,
you don't have a scientific mind.)

------
gress
One could equally ask the question, "Are Republicans Biased against Social
Psychology"?

Social conservatism generally seeks to preserve existing power relationships.
Science is about discovering _new_ understanding.

Unless we've already passed the peak of understanding of the human condition
and factored that into our politics (which is an implication of conservatism),
social psychology will keep challenging conservatives.

Political views are not just different flavors. They have structural
implications about what ideas one is willing to entertain. It would be much
more disturbing if there was _not_ bias here.

~~~
JackFr
> Social conservatism generally seeks to preserve existing power
> relationships. Science is about discovering new understanding.

The lack of self awareness on HN is profound. Sure, confirmation bias exists,
but that's mostly a problem for other guys, not me.

~~~
gress
You are going to need to explain. Those statements are definitional. If you
are trying to assert that scientists also seek to preserve their own power,
this is true. However the point here is that social conservatism is opposed to
the project of social psychology, not its biases.

------
muuh-gnu
Academia _as a whole_ is biased against republicans/libertarians/capitalists
and toward the state, i.e. towards leftism, because thats where their
paychecks come from. He who pays the piper, calls the tune.

~~~
gress
What you are saying here implies that Republicans are biased against academia,
not the other way around.

~~~
muuh-gnu
Not necessarily Republicans, since they are statists too, although somewhat
less than Dems.

But for the sake of argument, yes, conservatives tend to be biased against
statist academia because they are aware that since academia wouldnt exist
without a state it is biased toward the state and against contra-statists.

The notion that conservatives would indeed be biased against an independent,
non-statist academia, simply because they are -as is often implied- biased
against knowlege itself, is not convincing.

~~~
ameister14
I think you're operating from a serious misconception about the Republican
party- they advocate and have historically voted for extremely strong State
power, just distributed for a greater degree of regional control.

~~~
JackFr
I think you're operating from a serious misconception about the Republican
Party.

~~~
ameister14
Why? What would that be?

------
ArkyBeagle
In the early 19th Century, the Unitarians "took over" Harvard from the
Congregationalists. Since a great deal of academia is path dependent, academia
has had a sort of Progressive bent, seemingly baked into the cake.

( I got this here; I forget which essay it is
[http://home.earthlink.net/~flyingdragongoddess/indexa.html#p...](http://home.earthlink.net/~flyingdragongoddess/indexa.html#peter))

Modern Movement Conservatism isn't very close to the sort of values that
academia embraces. It's not even close to what an academic might consider
Conservatism ( Burke, Oakeshott ).

A lot of Conservatives come from dealing with regulation and tax codes -
that's unlikely to happen to academics.

And I still think Arnold Kling's Three-Axis Model is fantastic.
[http://www.amazon.com/Three-Languages-Politics-Arnold-
Kling-...](http://www.amazon.com/Three-Languages-Politics-Arnold-Kling-
ebook/dp/B00CCGF81Q)

------
DanBC
Here's an alarming document that shows just how hopelessly bad some of the
science is in social psychology.

[http://wjh.harvard.edu/~jmitchel/writing/failed_science.htm](http://wjh.harvard.edu/~jmitchel/writing/failed_science.htm)

There's no hope of spotting or preventing bias if social psychologists are
working like that so the fact that many social psychiatrists are "liberal" is
going to skew the results of "experiments".

------
spindritf
Sure, social scientists are pretty open about their discrimination of
conservatives. They admitted it in a survey[1].

The bigger problem is that social science has few correction mechanism. Your
biases in computer science will usually be quickly and brutally dealt with by
an uncaring computer. Physicists have actual, definitive experiments. Social
sciences are seemingly helpless in the face of p-hacking and other
bullshittery, even outright fabrications.

Ideological bias of course makes it worse (vide Stapel's paper on racism[2])
but it's not the root cause.

[1] [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-
major...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-majority-on-
campus-yes-were-biased/?page=all)

[2]
[http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110407/full/news.2011.217.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110407/full/news.2011.217.html)

~~~
kazinator
> _Your biases in computer science will usually be quickly and brutally dealt
> with by an uncaring computer._

Unless, of course, you have a monopoly on a large desktop market. Then it will
take some time.

------
aplusbi
>a lack of political diversity that was every bit as dangerous as a lack of,
say, racial or religious or gender diversity.

The lack of young-earth creationists in science is very worrisome.

------
Xcelerate
Does anyone find it ironic how many downvotes are in this thread? An article
about how a majority with a certain viewpoint is biased against a minority
with a different viewpoint, and a comments section that's full of people
downvoting others whose opinion they personally disagree with.

------
tlogan
I don't think this is hard to understand this.

The Republican Party (as of now) is not inclusive. If you are not white, your
English is not so great, or your sexual orientation is not heterosexual, or
you are traveling and learning about other countries, or you are not born
here, or you don't believe in creationism, or your religious views are not
Christians then you are out.

And the worst thing is that they don't even notice that. Like ridiculing me
about my accent and heritage and then asking "why you are not republican - we
have similar views...". Yeah... I have a Trotsky book to sell you.

So if you are in academia you will be excluded by Republican Party because of
the following:

\- you don't believe in creationism

\- your religious views are not Christians

\- you are not born here

\- you are married with somebody who is not born here

\- you are traveling around the world

In short, Republican party is getting defined not by its policy but by its
exclusion principle (and it is defined by Fox News - which is not helping
Republican party at all).

~~~
jiggy2011
Mitt Romney was not a creationist and he won the Republican nomination in
2012. Based on my understanding you also need to be Christian and born in
America to reach the higher positions in either party.

~~~
tlogan
“I believe that God designed the universe and created the universe,” Mr.
Romney said in an interview this week. “And I believe evolution is most likely
the process he used to create the human body.” [1]

What to say here?

[1] [http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/romney-
elabora...](http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/romney-elaborates-
on-evolution/?_r=0)

~~~
jiggy2011
By that definition all christians could be called creationists. I'm not aware
of any christian sect who hold the belief that God came into existence after
the rest of the universe.

------
ldrager
My comment (also on Reddit).

The problem with our current crop of rightists and science and scholarship
(sometimes perceived as "bias") is the "Fox News effect." Scientists and
scholars wish to determine and understand reality---and reality has a well
known Liberal bias. (Think climate change, evolution, etc., etc.)

I'm willing to listen to anyone, but I am going to judge them by the standards
of science and scholarship. If they are not serious about those standards,
they are only worth listening to in order to determine the latest right-wing
myths.

Note there are certainly people on the left who are not members of the reality
based community, but at this moment those on the right are the biggest threat
to science and scholarship (I omit political topics) and, in the case of
climate change, our lives

------
tomohawk
"Liberals may be more interested in new ideas, more willing to work for
peanuts, or just more intelligent"

Nope - no bias to be found here in our neck of the woods!

Turning this around: perhaps conservatives are "more interested in new ideas"
and "more intelligent", so they choose to work in other fields?

------
MisterBastahrd
People interested in furthering human knowledge in the area of social
interaction are less inclined to be ideologically inclined to declare that the
area of research is a solved problem?

You don't say.

~~~
JackFr
You're the problem.

------
jahooma
Well, there's only one truth. It's perfectly plausible that one set of ideas
(conservative ideas) could be less scientific than another set (liberal
ideas).

However, ideology can influence us, since we are not perfect at science.
Without the strong objective feedback of the hard sciences, social psychology
is particularly vulnerable.

The bias alleged in this article actually starts to look more plausible when
you consider the history of social psychology and related fields. Back in the
1970s, it was taboo to mention ANY innate qualities of human nature. Gender
was purely a social construction. Babies were identical in every way--people
were different only because of their upbringing. Prominent biologists like
E.O. Wilson who argued genes might play a role were attacked and demonized.
Nothing could contradict this doctrine of the blank slate -- that we're born
perfectly malleable. I highly recommend Steven Pinker's 2002 book, titled "The
Blank Slate" [0] which brilliantly debunks this theory, and lays out the best
characterization of human nature I've ever come across. Seriously, read this
book, it is a masterpiece.

Anyway, from what I've read recently, it seems many fields like social
psychology are still captive to lesser versions of the blank slate fallacy.
Human nature is not as malleable as they think. Our instincts are still there
(gotta eat, sleep, procreate), and even "higher" areas of the brain for things
like language, emotion, and thought seem to be heavily innate (to think at all
requires machinery, and there are many ways to craft that machinery). Also,
genes really are more important than most seem to realize. The twin and
adoption studies show that the majority of variation among people in
intelligence and personality is due to genes. How your parents treated you and
brought you up has almost no effect by the time you are an adult in important
metrics like IQ and personality tests. Smart people are largely born smart.

These sort of "deterministic" ideas fly in the face of traditional liberal
values. Topics like gender discrimination and societal inequality are
undermined by these ideas, so that provides a reason for a liberal thinker to
push back against them.

If the gender gap in computer science is due more to innate differences in
interest than to discrimination, and if inequality of income is due more to
innate differences in talent than differences in opportunity, then that makes
it harder to argue for reform. I believe thinking along these lines is the
major cause for bias today.

So yes, I agree social psychology is quite biased. In the future, we will look
back with horror at how we let politics and ideology interfere with science.

[0][http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Slate-Modern-
Denial/dp/01420...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Slate-Modern-
Denial/dp/0142003344/)

