by is Mooney
But everything we’ve seen about liberal and conservative psychology suggests such disloyal behavior ought to be less common on the right, and to be punished more—and indeed, real world observations confirm that this is indeed the case. Consider not only Bartlett but Frum, who charges that he was dismissed from the conservative American Enterprise Institute and is no longer invited to appear on Fox News for his heresies, particularly on health care. As Frum put it to me, “There are real consequences in the conservative world to people’s livelihoods to being on the wrong side of some question that has become conservative orthodoxy.”
And that is one core part of the left-right difference.
But to adequately probe the problem of irrationality on the left, I need to push the argument a bit further still.
After all, I’ve clearly shown that some on the left can go emotionally astray on issues like fracking, nuclear power, and vaccination. There is a powerful counterweight to such biased reasoning in the scientific community and those allies who embrace its Enlightenment values—but the biased reasoning itself clearly does happen. That’s impossible to deny.
In fact, although many of the psychology studies that I’ve surveyed seem to capture conservatives engaging in more intense motivated reasoning, liberals have been caught in the act too. I’ve shown that the best predictor of liberal bias, in a controlled motivated reasoning experiment, seems to be egalitarianism—e.g., liberals tend to be biased in favor of disadvantaged groups.
University of California-Irvine social psychologist Peter Ditto captured this tendency in the trolley problem study discussed in Chapter 4. And he captured a more modest version of it another motivated reasoning study that involved gay rights.
In this case, subjects who either accepted or rejected anti-gay stereotypes (e.g., that gays and lesbians show cross-gender behavior, or that they have psychological problems) were shown descriptions of two fake scientific studies, one that confirmed and one that denied the validity of such stereotypes. It’s a classic design for detecting motivated reasoning, because all the studies used in the experiment were fake. And in this case, when respondents were asked to rate how convincing the studies were, the bias turned out to be slightly bigger among those egalitarians who rejected anti-gay stereotypes. These defenders of gay rights were somewhat more likely to call fake studies that supported their view convincing (and those that refuted their views as unconvincing) than those who accepted such stereotypes.
In other words, those who support gay rights on an emotional level seem to engage in motivated reasoning when confronted with evidence pertinent to this question—and may even do so a bit more than those who are anti-gay. In a controlled experiment, they appear to have strong emotional reactions that, in turn, drive their assessments of evidence—at least in one sitting or during one encounter.
So are liberals inherently more “rational” than conservatives? Certainly they’re not in this particular case. And yet they nevertheless end up more correct about science, policy facts, economics, history, and much else. How could that be?
The most minimalist explanation would simply suggest that they have the right friends. “There’s an argument you could make where liberals are right by accident, because they put their faith in the right people,” says Ditto—where the right people would be the scientists and experts who are heavily weighted towards the liberal camp. “If scientists all came out and said something crazy,” Ditto continues, “I think liberals would believe them.”
This limited explanation—liberals listen to their friends, and they just happen to have more reliable ones; or in another related version, liberal elites are far more intellectually responsible than conservative elites—might be sufficient to account for much of the divide over reality in American politics. The dramatic left-right imbalance in expertise that we see today, and that has been well documented in previous chapters, would in and of itself be enough to fuel a large reality gap.
But the view advanced in this book remains that the causes are probably deeper than that. I’ve suggested—and furnished considerable evidence to show—that there may be a reason why liberals and scientists are usually aligned. It turns on the Open personality and its curiosity, tolerance and flexibility—and conversely, on the psychological tendencies that accompany the Closed personality (need for closure, lower integrative complexity, intolerance of ambiguity, and so on). This affinity itself suggests that overall, liberals will be less likely to cling to particular cherished beliefs and argue back in defense of them—and more willing to change their minds (even if buttons can clearly get pushed in motivated reasoning studies). In sum, they will behave more like their own allies and psychological kin—scientists.
So it’s not just that liberals have trustworthy friends to listen to on complex and contested issues; it’s that there’s something about who they are that makes them less defensive and more open-minded, in general. And is that really true?
That’s what (with a massive amount of help) I set out to figure out, in the fall of 2011 at Louisiana State University.
The findings will be explained, in detail, in the next chapter.
Notes
220 feature story for Scientific American Chris Mooney, “The Truth About Fracking,” Scientific American, October 2011. Available online at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-truth-about-fracking. This book presents a much shortened and also edited version of the article. All interviews were conducted for the article.
221 enough to last for decades Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2011, April 2011. Available online at http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/pdf/0383(2011).pdf.
221 “flowback water” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Draft Plan to Study the Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing on Drinking Water Resources, February 2011. Available online at http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class2/hydraulicfracturing/upload/HFStudyPlanDraft_SAB_020711–08.pdf.
221 “This is not a risk free industry” Interview with Terry Engelder, May 22, 2011.
222 cited and fined Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Environmental Protection, Consent Order and Agreement in the matter of Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation, November 4, 2009. Available online at http://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/natural_gas/final_cabot_co-a.pdf.
222 fined Chesapeake Energy Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Environmental Protection, News Release, “DEP Fines Chesapeake Energy More than $ 1 Million,” May 17, 2011. Available online at http://www.bradfordtoday.com/local-regional-news/dep-fines-chesapeake-energy-more-than-1-million.html.
222 “weak link” Interview with Anthony Gorody, April 27, 2011.
222 “poor job of installing” Interview with Rob Jackson, April 21, 2011. All quotations of Jackson from this interview.
223 “It just goes with the territory” Interview with Anthony Ingraffea, April 20, 2011.
223 “Water doesn’t travel uphill” Interview with Terry Engelder, May 22, 2011.
223 “gas migration” Stephen G. Osborn et al, “Methane contamination of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, May 9, 2011. Available online at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/05/02/1100682108.full.pdf+html.
224 “a very good physical separation” Kevin Fisher, “Data Confirm Safety of Well Fracturing,” The American Oil and Gas Reporter, July 2010.
225 “chief report on this subject” DeSmogBlog.com, “Fracking the Future: How Unconventional Gas Threatens Our Water, Health and Climate.” Available online at http://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/.
225 fairly unlikely New York Department of Environmental Conservation, “Revised Draft SGEIS [Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement] on the Oil, Gas, and Solution Mining Regulatory Program,” September 2011. See Potential Environmental Impacts, Part A, 6.1.6.2., “Subsurface Pathways.” Available online at http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/materials_minerals_pdf/rdsgeisch6a09
11.pdf.
228 liberals, more than conservatives Hank C. Jenkins-Smith et al, “Beliefs About Radiation: Scientists, The Public and Public Policy,” Health Physics, November 2009, Vol. 97, No. 5.
229 “society has overestimated these risks” Interview with Hank Jenkins-Smith, July 14, 2011.
229 the experts are largely divided Carol Silva, Hank Jenkins-Smith, and Richard Barke. 2007. “From Experts’ Beliefs to Safety Standards: Explaining Preferred Radiation Protection Standards in Polarized Technical Communities,” Risk Analysis, Vol. 27, No. 3, 755–773
230 public policymakers should adopt a more stringent standard Carol Silva, Hank Jenkins-Smith, and Richard Barke. 2007. “From Experts’ Beliefs to Safety Standards.”
230 particulate air pollution Clean Air Task Force, “The Toll from Coal: An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease From America’s Dirtiest Energy Source,” September 2010. Available online at http://www.catf.us/resources/publications/files/The_Toll_from_Coal.pdf.
230 about four thousand cancer deaths Chernobyl Forum, Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental, and Socio-Economic Impacts, available online at http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Chernobyl/chernobyl.pdf.
231 in the neighborhood of 1,000 Frank N. von Hippel, “The radiological and psychological consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi accident,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol 67, No. 5, 27–36, 2011.
231 “small enough that you couldn’t detect them” Chris Mooney interview with David Brenner on Point of Inquiry podcast, April 11, 2011. Available online at http://www.pointofinquiry.org/nuclear_risk_and_reason_david_brenner_and_david_ropeik/.
231 absolutely eviscerated George Monbiot,“The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all,” The Guardian, April 4, 2011. Available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/05/anti-nuclear-lobby-misled-world. Mark Lynas, “Time for the Green Party—and the Guardian—to ditch anti-nuclear quackery,” April 21, 2011. Available online at http://www.marklynas.org/2011/04/time-for-the-green-party-and-guardian-ditch-nuclear-quackery/.
231 a million people Helen Caldicott, “Unsafe at Any Dose,” New York Times, April 30, 2011. Rebuttals available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/opinion/l09caldicott.html?_r=1.
231 international conspiracy theory Democracy Now, ““Prescription for Survival”: A Debate on the Future of Nuclear Energy Between Anti-Coal Advocate George Monbiot and Anti-Nuclear Activist Dr. Helen Caldicott,” March 30, 2011. Transcript online at http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/30/prescription_for_survival_a_debate_on.
232 less skeptical of nuclear power, not more Kahan et al, “The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change,” Cultural Cognition Working Paper No. 89, 2011, available online at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1871503.
232 vaccine-autism issue My reporting on this topic can be found in Chris Mooney, “Why Does the Vaccine/Autism Controversy Live On?” Discover, June 2009. Available online at http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jun/06-why-does-vaccine-autism-controversy-live-on.
233 pesky little problem called scientists Institute of Medicine, “Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism,” May 14, 2004. Available online at http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2004/Immunization-Safety-Review-Vaccines-and-Autism.aspx.
233 empediological studies For a very readable account of the epidemiological research and its findings, see Paul Offit, Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, Chapter 6.
233 polling data at the national level See Chris Mooney, “More Polling Data on the Politics of Vaccine Resistance,” Discover Magazine (“Intersection Blog”), April 27, 2011, available online at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/04/27/more-polling-data-on-the-politics-of-vaccine-resistance/.
234 it’s already happening See Paul Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All, New York: Basic Books, 2011.
235 dismissed from the conservative American Enterprise Institute David Frum, “When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality,” New York Magazine, November 20, 2011. Available online at http://nymag.com/print/?/news/politics/conservatives-david-frum-2011–11/.
235 motivated reasoning study that involved gay rights Geoffrey D. Munro and Peter H. Ditto, “Biased Assimilation, Attitude Polarization, and Affect in Reactions to Stereotype-Relevant Scientific Information,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1997, Vol. 23, pp. 636–653.
236 “real consequences” Chris Mooney interview with David Frum and Kenneth Silber, Point of Inquiry podcast, August 1, 2011. Available online at http://www.pointofinquiry.org/david_frum_and_kenneth_silber_conservatives_and_science/.
236 “I think liberals would believe them” Interview with Peter Ditto, August 26, 2011.
Part Five
The Political Laboratory
Chapter Thirteen
A Liberal Confronts New Data
with Everett Young
Over the course of this book, a large amount of evidence has been assembled suggesting that liberals and conservatives, in aggregate, are just different people. And it would be amazing if these differences didn’t have an influence on how the two groups respond to political information, or information in general.
More specifically, it is clear that conservatives being repeatedly and insistently wrong about political and scientific facts, and conservatives engaging in a lot of motivated reasoning, often go together. This naturally leads to the idea that there might be something about conservatism in general that is tied to more motivated, defensive responses—and something about liberalism that is tied to the opposite.
In particular, it may be that Openness to Experience, the leading liberal personality trait, makes one less defensive in the face of threatening information, and more tolerant of cognitive dissonance, period. That wouldn’t mean liberals never engage in motivated reasoning—just that motivated reasoning among liberals and conservatives differs in some meaningful way, due to the broad groups’ differing personalities.
That’s a scientific hypothesis—one with much evidence to suggest it, perhaps, but still just a hypothesis. In this chapter, then, I want to tell you about an attempt to put this notion to a test, through an experiment that challenged college students’ beliefs in a wide variety of areas, just to see how they would respond.
Normally, someone who attacks another’s beliefs would simply be called a jerk. But at least for a short while during this study, I suppose such a person could instead be called a “scientist.”
I would never have been involved in criticizing people’s favorite football quarterbacks—and musicians, and cities, and movies, and cars, and their alma maters—if I hadn’t fallen in with a creative young political scientist named Everett Young.
I first met Everett just as I meet all my journalistic sources: I asked to interview him by phone. I still remember where I was when we talked—holed up in a snowy hotel in Boulder, Colorado—because not all interviews go so well. Not all turn you into a collaborator with the person you set out to interview.
Everett had, just a year earlier, completed his Ph.D. dissertation at Stony Brook University under two professors of political science already much quoted in this book, Charles Taber and Milton Lodge. It’s entitled “Why We’re Liberal, Why We’re Conservative: A Cognitive Theory on the Origins of Ideological Thinking.” In it, he presents evidence suggesting conservatives are less open to persuasion; more likely to think that the fans of rival sports teams are less likeable people; more likely to prefer having friends that share their beliefs; more likely to want to keep germs out of their bodies; more likely to blame Britney Spears for her faults and troubles; more likely to elect a candidate to Congress who keeps his or her lawn neatly edged—and much, much else.
Like I said, Everett is creative.
Everett had already done much to document a variety of liberal-conservative
differences, and I suggested to him that it might be intriguing to try to go further. I asked whether he could think of any way to test this idea about conservatives engaging in more, or more intense, motivated reasoning.
And before long, he had designed a fascinating study to do just that. Indeed, by the time this book was due, the study had already been run at one university—Louisiana State—with 144 college undergraduate participants, who were about two-thirds female and completed the study for extra credit.
I was involved in helping design the study—providing feedback and acting as a kind of research assistant—and traveled to LSU twice during the fall of 2011 to observe the research. And with Everett’s permission and also his help, I’ve decided to report the first round of findings—caveats included—here.
At the outset, let me note that Everett hopes to run the study at another university in the near future, and its results have not yet been peer reviewed (something that was not really possible on a popular book’s timeline). Nevertheless, what he found was intriguing—and in one case, quite surprising. To put it bluntly: One scientific finding in particular simply leap out of the data and gave us a shake.
Let me also note that while earlier chapters of this book have provided broad discussions of the results of multiple studies, this one is different. It dives deep into the design and results of one single, new experiment. That requires providing much more detail than usual—and sometimes getting a tad technical. But considering that we’re on new ground here and readers cannot follow a reference to a scientific journal to learn further about this research, that seems appropriate.
