Yale experiment to turn conservatives into Liberals

[Póg mo 1,749]

When my daughter was growing up, she often wanted to rush off to do fun things with her friends — get into the water at the beach, ride off on her bike — without taking the proper safety precautions first. I’d have to stop her in her tracks to first put on the sunscreen, or her bike helmet and knee pads, with her standing there impatiently. “Safety first, fun second,” was my mantra.

Keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe from harm is perhaps our strongest human motivation, deeply embedded in our very DNA. It is so deep and important that it influences much of what we think and do, maybe more than we might expect. For example, over a decade now of research in political psychology consistently shows that how physically threatened or fearful a person feels is a key factor — although clearly not the only one — in whether he or she holds conservative or liberal attitudes.

Conservatives, it turns out, react more strongly to physical threat than liberals do. In fact, their greater concern with physical safety seems to be determined early in life: In one University of California study, the more fear a 4-year-old showed in a laboratory situation, the more conservative his or her political attitudes were found to be 20 years later. Brain imaging studies have even shown that the fear center of the brain, the amygdala, is actually larger in conservatives than in liberals. And many other laboratory studies have found that when adult liberals experienced physical threat, their political and social attitudes became more conservative (temporarily, of course). But no one had ever turned conservatives into liberals.

 

continued on link.

 

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/inspired-life/wp/2017/11/22/at-yale-we-conducted-an-experiment-to-turn-conservatives-into-liberals-the-results-say-a-lot-about-our-political-divisions/?utm_term=.96774e59092e&__twitter_impression=true

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

52 minutes ago, Póg mo said:

When my daughter was growing up, she often wanted to rush off to do fun things with her friends — get into the water at the beach, ride off on her bike — without taking the proper safety precautions first. I’d have to stop her in her tracks to first put on the sunscreen, or her bike helmet and knee pads, with her standing there impatiently. “Safety first, fun second,” was my mantra.

Keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe from harm is perhaps our strongest human motivation, deeply embedded in our very DNA. It is so deep and important that it influences much of what we think and do, maybe more than we might expect. For example, over a decade now of research in political psychology consistently shows that how physically threatened or fearful a person feels is a key factor — although clearly not the only one — in whether he or she holds conservative or liberal attitudes.

Conservatives, it turns out, react more strongly to physical threat than liberals do. In fact, their greater concern with physical safety seems to be determined early in life: In one University of California study, the more fear a 4-year-old showed in a laboratory situation, the more conservative his or her political attitudes were found to be 20 years later. Brain imaging studies have even shown that the fear center of the brain, the amygdala, is actually larger in conservatives than in liberals. And many other laboratory studies have found that when adult liberals experienced physical threat, their political and social attitudes became more conservative (temporarily, of course). But no one had ever turned conservatives into liberals.

continued on link.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/inspired-life/wp/2017/11/22/at-yale-we-conducted-an-experiment-to-turn-conservatives-into-liberals-the-results-say-a-lot-about-our-political-divisions/?utm_term=.96774e59092e&__twitter_impression=true

So basically you and Yale are trying to say that us Conservatives are scared of everything and including change?

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

In my lifetime, I have seen proof of this.  People without much intelligence aren’t scared of too many things.

Edited March 6, 2018 by IDWAF

[smilesammich 10,727]

 triggered.

 

also why people tend get more conservative as they age. things get more scary the more vulnerable you are..

more about this science in the doc "the brainwashing of my dad' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brainwashing_of_My_Dad. pretty interesting stuff.

[Póg mo 1,749]

1 hour ago, cyberfx1024 said:

So basically you and Yale are trying to say that us Conservatives are scared of everything and including change?

Aren't you?

[Póg mo 1,749]

48 minutes ago, IDWAF said:

In my lifetime, I have seen proof of this.  People without much intelligence aren’t scared of too many things.

Yes, ergo Donald J Trump supporters,  and Donald Trump himself.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Póg mo

[Steeleballz 7,550]

6 hours ago, cyberfx1024 said:

So basically you and Yale are trying to say that us Conservatives are scared of everything and including change?

 

    Have you ever read the definition of conservative? Averse to change is actually part of the definition.

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

1 minute ago, Steeleballz said:

 

    Have you ever read the definition of conservative? Averse to change is actually part of the definition.

Does being conservative mean that one is required to be averse to change?  Or is that just one characteristic among some conservatives?

[Steeleballz 7,550]

9 minutes ago, IDWAF said:

Does being conservative mean that one is required to be averse to change?  Or is that just one characteristic among some conservatives?

 

  Of course it's just one characteristic in a general definition. Just pointing it out though. I don't think suggesting that a conservative is generally averse to change should elicit a "where did that come from" response either.

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

5 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

 

  Of course it's just one characteristic in a general definition. Just pointing it out though. I don't think suggesting that a conservative is generally averse to change should elicit a "where did that come from" response either.

It’s fine, and I was asking because I don’t really identify as any of the labels I see being used today, though online testing says I am a liberal.  I just know what I believe in, and what my values are.  I don’t tend to look at any issue and decide which way I want to “lean” based on a label nor on a party.  Have never read the definition of any of those labels, to be honest.

[eieio 1,594]

The study is garbage!

 

Of course….I will wait to see what our resident "study guy" becker…thinks of the methodology and the value of the data acquired from such an incredible phone survey with predetermined outcomes desired.

[bcking 3,157]

On 3/7/2018 at 12:26 AM, eieio said:

The study is garbage!

 

Of course….I will wait to see what our resident "study guy" becker…thinks of the methodology and the value of the data acquired from such an incredible phone survey with predetermined outcomes desired.

I'll gladly give opinions, though I haven't yet obtained access to the study. I found it on Wiley but I need to pay for it. 

 

I'm checking on alternatives.

[bcking 3,157]

Apparently this study is not the first to look at this. It is an entire area of research in psychology. Here is a review from 2003 on the topic:

 

http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/jost.glaser.political-conservatism-as-motivated-social-cog.pdf

 

People have also done somewhat similar studies in reverse, showing that traditionally "liberal" thinkers can be pushed towards conservatism when the perceive their safety to be more at risk. 

 

Right away though the Wapo article gets pretty ridiculous. 

 

"But no one had ever turned conservatives into liberals. Until we did." - Dun dun duhhhhh!!! Oh the drama

 

As for the actual paper (which I found access to, but it isn't public access so I can't share it sorry) -

 

On the methods -

 - Participants were "recruited" to the study (a chance to win a gift certificate!), so right away you have selection bias. It's not clear what they told people about the study but in general you always have to ask whether there are differences between the population you are looking at, and the population as a whole. They were mostly white (75%), mostly female (66%) and the average age was 35. That's all the demographic information they give us.

- They don't state outright that participants were "randomized" to hear one of the two stories (flying vs. invulnerability). I'm assuming they were and I think this is just an error of omission on their part, but it should be clear how they were put into each group. This is a great example of a little thing that annoys me.

- They originally had 158 participants, but 13 wouldn't fully cooperate (some refused to answer the questions regarding partisanship, and 5 more didn't respond for dependent measures). You could think of that as an 8% "loss to follow-up". We don't know how those participants would have impacted the results. Though 8% isn't really an objectively bad amount (In these sorts of studies you expect to lose some people. I don't do these kinds of studies though so I don't know what is normal. My gut would say less than 10% is okay).

- 31% of participants were Republican, so 45 participants. There were no differences between the two "story groups", so we can assume then that around 22 Republicans/Conservatives were in the invulnerability group. Not a large population.

- They don't mention in their methods section what statistical tools they used to analyze their results. In their results they report p values but I don't know what statistical test they are using so I don't know if they are using the right one. I wouldn't have let that fly if I were one of the reviewers for publication.

 

As for the results -

- The main one that they are touting is that the "socially conservative" scale (1 to 9) for the Republicans who heard the invulnerable story was significant less than those that heard the flying story (mean of 5.09 vs. 6.48, p = 0.034). Both groups had a standard deviation of around 2-3 so there was a wide range of responses most likely. For something like a scale I would have linked to see a median and IQR as well, because in order to compare means like they have the results should be normally distributed. If responses aren't normally distributed then a mean doesn't adequately reflect the population (the mean and median will be significantly different from each other).

- Democrats "social conservative" scale didn't differ in the two groups (3.57 vs 3.77)

- No differences in the economic conservative scale for either groups

 

My biggest issue is my first bullet point in the results. In a study like this you should be clear what statistical tool you want to use, and many of them assume a normal distribution. They should show that it can apply to their data set. If it doesn't, they need to use another tool to compare them (the details of which would be appropriate are a bit beyond me, I would rely on a statistician). Many studies don't have statisticians involved, which is a shame. Many doctors think they can just do it themselves, and so it's amazing how many bad studies come out as a result.

[bcking 3,157]

On 3/7/2018 at 12:26 AM, eieio said:

The study is garbage!

 

Of course….I will wait to see what our resident "study guy" becker…thinks of the methodology and the value of the data acquired from such an incredible phone survey with predetermined outcomes desired.

Just rereading your post I think we should be clear on one thing -

 

There was nothing "predetermined" about the outcomes. They had a hypothesis, that is normal in science. They were testing that hypothesis.

"Desire" is a tricky term here - As I said they had a hypothesis, and they were testing the hypothesis. Did they want the hypothesis to be true? Probably but that isn't a bad thing, on its own. Most scientists care strongly about the topic they study, because they devote a large portion of their career to it. If they have a hypothesis that will help further their study, they will want that hypothesis to be true because of their interest in furthering the subject, and also for more "selfish" reasons (many scientist's careers depend on grand funding and support, which only continues to flow if you have results that are meaningful and warrant further study). That on it's own is just human nature, and it isn't automatically a bad thing. They just need to create methodology that ensures that their bias (desiring an outcome) doesn't influence the results. 

 

With that in mind a couple of other things that the writers should have mentioned would be:

 

- Who conducted the phone interviews? The investigators or othersw? Were they prerecorded? Just like with any survey, the way things are asked can impact the results so they should attempt to minimize that risk in some way. Many political surveys these days use precorded messages so that the inflection, tone and way the questions are read is consistent among all conversations. At the very least have volunteers who don't know the purpose of the study conduct the phone interviews, so their bias doesn't potentially influence how they speak and how they act on the phone

- They should have included a power analysis in their methodology, though some would say it isn't as important since their result is statistically significant. Some of their results weren't significant though, so it would be important to know if they even had the power required to find statistically significant differences based on their number of participants. It doesn't impact the finding that is significant (even if you don't have the power expected to find a significant result, a significant result is still significant. It just means your chances of finding a significant result, if it existed, was low), assuming it truly is significant (see my issue with not reporting their statistical test). But for example perhaps the differences between responses for democrats is also significant, they just don't have the power to detect it. That would change their overall interpretation of the results.

 

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

Considering that there has been at least one major shift between liberals and conservatives in the past, it’s not really that hard to see some of the stuff in this study being true.