Comments on: Why do conservatives become conservative? It’s not a rational choice. http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/12/02/why-do-conservatives-become-conservative-it%e2%80%99s-not-a-rational-choice/ Human Animals at the Crossroads of Culture, Science, Religion and Media Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:08:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Erich Vieth http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/12/02/why-do-conservatives-become-conservative-it%e2%80%99s-not-a-rational-choice/#comment-25813 Erich Vieth Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:57:50 +0000 http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1862#comment-25813 Study shows that conservatives are three times more fearful than liberals: The researchers, whose findings were published today in the journal Science, looked at 46 people who fell into two camps -- liberals who supported foreign aid, immigration, pacifism and gun control; and conservatives who advocated defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism and the Iraq war. In an initial experiment, subjects were shown a series of images that included a bloody face, maggots in a wound and a spider on a frightened face. A device measured the electrical conductance of their skin, a physiological reaction that indicates fear. In a second experiment, researchers measured eye blinks -- another indicator of fear -- as subjects responded to sudden blasts of noise. People with strongly conservative views were three times more fearful than staunch liberals after the effects of gender, age, income and education were factored out. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-politics19-2008sep19,0,6283617.story Study shows that conservatives are three times more fearful than liberals:

The researchers, whose findings were published today in the journal Science, looked at 46 people who fell into two camps — liberals who supported foreign aid, immigration, pacifism and gun control; and conservatives who advocated defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism and the Iraq war.

In an initial experiment, subjects were shown a series of images that included a bloody face, maggots in a wound and a spider on a frightened face. A device measured the electrical conductance of their skin, a physiological reaction that indicates fear.

In a second experiment, researchers measured eye blinks — another indicator of fear — as subjects responded to sudden blasts of noise.

People with strongly conservative views were three times more fearful than staunch liberals after the effects of gender, age, income and education were factored out.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-politics19-2008sep19,0,6283617.story

]]> By: Mark Tiedemann http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/12/02/why-do-conservatives-become-conservative-it%e2%80%99s-not-a-rational-choice/#comment-15157 Mark Tiedemann Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:52:47 +0000 http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1862#comment-15157 ---As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient. People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3. The reason for the difference, the [the researchers] hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics.---- By that reckoning, I should be right of Pat Buchanan. I fit the description of the conservative kid perfectly. In fact, I was far more conservative than my peers in high school. My "liberalization" was a process of ideological changes beginning with a dose of Libertarianism through the medium of Robert A Heinlein, which led me to a deeper analysis of history and, then, sociology, finally coming to the conclusion that conservatism was little more than elitist power-hoarding. To be fair, though, I can't claim to be a liberal, either. I find a lot of liberal thinking mushy, particularly in those areas of Realpolitik and the hard-edged "facts" of the human race's proclivities that seem to make conservative thinking so solid. Both sides, to my mind, avoid central issues by a variety of mechanisms which allow them to embrace their own vision of what ought to be at the expense of recognizing what's actually in front of them. But all in all, I would have to say that I lean more to the liberal. I like classical music and jazz, abstract art, books on a wide range of topics, and my office is a wreck. —As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient. People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3. The reason for the difference, the [the researchers] hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics.—-

By that reckoning, I should be right of Pat Buchanan. I fit the description of the conservative kid perfectly. In fact, I was far more conservative than my peers in high school. My “liberalization” was a process of ideological changes beginning with a dose of Libertarianism through the medium of Robert A Heinlein, which led me to a deeper analysis of history and, then, sociology, finally coming to the conclusion that conservatism was little more than elitist power-hoarding.

To be fair, though, I can’t claim to be a liberal, either. I find a lot of liberal thinking mushy, particularly in those areas of Realpolitik and the hard-edged “facts” of the human race’s proclivities that seem to make conservative thinking so solid. Both sides, to my mind, avoid central issues by a variety of mechanisms which allow them to embrace their own vision of what ought to be at the expense of recognizing what’s actually in front of them.

But all in all, I would have to say that I lean more to the liberal. I like classical music and jazz, abstract art, books on a wide range of topics, and my office is a wreck.

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