A new study has found there are physiological and cognitive differences between people of the political left and right persuasions. What's more . . . well, I'll let the news release headline tell it:
The biology of politics: Liberals roll with the good, conservatives confront the bad
Wow, liberals in their selfish hippy-trippy fashion "roll with the good," while conservatives, in their buttoned-up, business-like fashion "confront the bad."
Hmm. If "confronting the bad" means going after potential threats to national and neighborhood security . . . I guess I could see that. But what's "rolling with the good"? If liberals truly roll with the good, what's behind their concern over hunger and poverty and a slew of social inequalities? Why are they more inclined to spend money to combat the threat of global warming? How is that "rolling with the good"?
Likewise, how is the conservative's penchant for wanting to keep as much of their profits as possible not "rolling with the good"?
Fortunately I read the entire article and discovered what all the fuss was about. Little, actually.
The experiment tracked the reaction of self-reported liberals and conservatives to visual images. And the results:
While liberals' gazes tended to fall upon the pleasant images, such as a beach ball or a bunny rabbit, conservatives clearly focused on the negative images – of an open wound, a crashed car or a dirty toilet, for example.
Okay, that's interesting. The news release, however, not only failed to provide information on two important experimental elements--number of subjects and degree of difference (i.e., what "tended" means)--but it also failed to provide links to that information. Tsk, tsk.
Too often, when some study succeeds in sending a single wood chip flying from a tree of interest, there comes a yell of "timber!" While it may be exciting and entertaining to do so, exaggeration isn't good science.
February 17th, 2012 at 6:43 am
The Media could care less about “good science” — as you point out. Yet the media is the diet of the masses.
Could you imagine a newspaper publish “n” or “p” values for an experiment. I find that physicians barely understand the implication of these important statistical implications — and they are supposedly trained in it at one time. I imagine psychologists are certainly no better, yet alone, consumers of common media. Alas.
Politics is similar to religion — with stereotypes, echo chambers, confirmation bias, over simplification and all the rest. Politics, like religion, encourages allegiance — and with allegiance comes commitment to stupidity.
February 17th, 2012 at 2:17 pm
Sabio – “With allegiance comes commitment to stupidity” . . . Nice. Or maybe, “a voluntary ignorance”?