andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2012 andrew_gelman_stats-2012-1229 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: In a review of psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s recent book, “The Righteous Mind,” William Saletan writes : You’re smart. You’re liberal. You’re well informed. You think conservatives are narrow-minded. You can’t understand why working-class Americans vote Republican. You figure they’re being duped. You’re wrong. . . . Haidt diverges from other psychologists who have analyzed the left’s electoral failures. The usual argument of these psycho-pundits is that conservative politicians manipulate voters’ neural roots — playing on our craving for authority, for example — to trick people into voting against their interests. But Haidt treats electoral success as a kind of evolutionary fitness test. He figures that if voters like Republican messages, there’s something in Republican messages worth liking. He chides psychologists who try to “explain away” conservatism, treating it as a pathology. Conservatism thrives because it fits how people think, and that’s what validates it. Workers who
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1 In a review of psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s recent book, “The Righteous Mind,” William Saletan writes : You’re smart. [sent-1, score-0.066]
2 Haidt diverges from other psychologists who have analyzed the left’s electoral failures. [sent-11, score-0.306]
3 The usual argument of these psycho-pundits is that conservative politicians manipulate voters’ neural roots — playing on our craving for authority, for example — to trick people into voting against their interests. [sent-12, score-0.6]
4 But Haidt treats electoral success as a kind of evolutionary fitness test. [sent-13, score-0.326]
5 He figures that if voters like Republican messages, there’s something in Republican messages worth liking. [sent-14, score-0.253]
6 He chides psychologists who try to “explain away” conservatism, treating it as a pathology. [sent-15, score-0.169]
7 Conservatism thrives because it fits how people think, and that’s what validates it. [sent-16, score-0.252]
8 In Haidt’s words, they’re “voting for their moral interests. [sent-18, score-0.245]
9 Presumably it has something to do with economic policy, which, as we have discussed, has a moral dimension. [sent-26, score-0.344]
10 I have not seen Haidt’s book; my earlier comments on his statements are here . [sent-27, score-0.063]
11 (Before you go out and criticize me for reviewing a book I haven’t read, let me emphasize that (a) this blog post is not a book review, and (b) nobody sent me a copy. [sent-28, score-0.28]
12 ) So, without disagreeing with Haidt (whose book I have not seen) or with Saletan (who may simply be reacting to things he read in Haidt’s book), let me just point out two facts that might clarify the above-quoted discussion: 1. [sent-29, score-0.281]
13 Most working-class American voters vote for Democrats, not Republicans. [sent-30, score-0.296]
14 Richer people are more likely to vote Republican, in the country as a whole, within each racial group, and, among whites, within each level of education (except possibly at the lowest education level, where low sample sizes leave the pattern unclear). [sent-32, score-0.631]
15 Those conservative moral interests seem a lot more compelling to people who make a lot of money than to people who are just getting by. [sent-34, score-0.685]
16 Or, to flip it around, liberal moral interests seem much more salient if you’re making less than $75,000 a year. [sent-35, score-0.471]
17 This is not economic determinism; it’s poll data. [sent-36, score-0.099]
18 Our research, as well as that of Steve Ansolabehere and others, has consistently found that economic ideology—attitudes, not necessarily self-interest—predicts voting better than social ideology. [sent-37, score-0.27]
19 Social attitudes are more important than they used to be. [sent-38, score-0.086]
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Introduction: In a review of psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s recent book, “The Righteous Mind,” William Saletan writes : You’re smart. You’re liberal. You’re well informed. You think conservatives are narrow-minded. You can’t understand why working-class Americans vote Republican. You figure they’re being duped. You’re wrong. . . . Haidt diverges from other psychologists who have analyzed the left’s electoral failures. The usual argument of these psycho-pundits is that conservative politicians manipulate voters’ neural roots — playing on our craving for authority, for example — to trick people into voting against their interests. But Haidt treats electoral success as a kind of evolutionary fitness test. He figures that if voters like Republican messages, there’s something in Republican messages worth liking. He chides psychologists who try to “explain away” conservatism, treating it as a pathology. Conservatism thrives because it fits how people think, and that’s what validates it. Workers who
Introduction: Stephen Olivier points me to this horrible, horrible news article by Jonathan Haidt, “Why working-class people vote conservative”: Across the world, blue-collar voters ally themselves with the political right . . . Why on Earth would a working-class person ever vote for a conservative candidate? This question has obsessed the American left since Ronald Reagan first captured the votes of so many union members, farmers, urban Catholics and other relatively powerless people – the so-called “Reagan Democrats”. . . . Sorry, but no no no no no. Where to start? Here’s the difference between upper-income and lower-income votes in presidential elections: Ronald Reagan did about 20 percentage points better among voters in the upper third of income, compared to voters in the lower third. The relation between income and voting since 1980 is about the same as it was in the 1940s. Oh yeah, Haidt said something about “across the world.” How bout this: It varies. In mos
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Introduction: Research psychologist John Jost reviews the recent book, “The Righteous Mind,” by research psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Some of my thoughts on Haidt’s book are here . And here’s some of Jost’s review: Haidt’s book is creative, interesting, and provocative. . . . The book shines a new light on moral psychology and presents a bold, confrontational message. From a scientific perspective, however, I worry that his theory raises more questions than it answers. Why do some individuals feel that it is morally good (or necessary) to obey authority, favor the ingroup, and maintain purity, whereas others are skeptical? (Perhaps parenting style is relevant after all.) Why do some people think that it is morally acceptable to judge or even mistreat others such as gay or lesbian couples or, only a generation ago, interracial couples because they dislike or feel disgusted by them, whereas others do not? Why does the present generation “care about violence toward many more classes of victims
Introduction: Here’s some psychology research that’s relevant to yesterday’s discussion on working-class voting. In a paper to appear in the journal Cognitive Science , Andrei Cimpian, Amanda Brandone, and Susan Gelman write: Generic statements (e.g., “Birds lay eggs”) express generalizations about categories. In this paper, we hypothesized that there is a paradoxical asymmetry at the core of generic meaning, such that these sentences have extremely strong implications but require little evidence to be judged true. Four experiments confirmed the hypothesized asymmetry: Participants interpreted novel generics such as “Lorches have purple feathers” as referring to nearly all lorches, but they judged the same novel generics to be true given a wide range of prevalence levels (e.g., even when only 10% or 30% of lorches had purple feathers). A second hypothesis, also confirmed by the results, was that novel generic sentences about dangerous or distinctive properties would be more acceptable than
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Introduction: After our discussions of psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s opinions about working-class voters (see here and here ), a question arose on how to reconcile the analyses of Alan Abramowitz and Tom Edsall (showing an increase in Republican voting among low-education working white southerners), with Larry Bartels’s finding that “there has been no discernible trend in presidential voting behavior among the ‘working white working class.’” Here is my resolution: All the statistics that have been posted seem reasonable to me. Also relevant to the discussion, I believe, are Figures 3.1, 4.2b, 10.1, and 10.2 of Red State Blue State. In short: Republicans continue to do about 20 percentage points better among upper-income voters compared to lower-income, but the compositions of these coalitions have changed over time. As has been noted, low-education white workers have moved toward the Republican party over the past few decades, and at the same time there have been compositional changes
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Introduction: In a review of psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s recent book, “The Righteous Mind,” William Saletan writes : You’re smart. You’re liberal. You’re well informed. You think conservatives are narrow-minded. You can’t understand why working-class Americans vote Republican. You figure they’re being duped. You’re wrong. . . . Haidt diverges from other psychologists who have analyzed the left’s electoral failures. The usual argument of these psycho-pundits is that conservative politicians manipulate voters’ neural roots — playing on our craving for authority, for example — to trick people into voting against their interests. But Haidt treats electoral success as a kind of evolutionary fitness test. He figures that if voters like Republican messages, there’s something in Republican messages worth liking. He chides psychologists who try to “explain away” conservatism, treating it as a pathology. Conservatism thrives because it fits how people think, and that’s what validates it. Workers who
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Introduction: Stephen Olivier points me to this horrible, horrible news article by Jonathan Haidt, “Why working-class people vote conservative”: Across the world, blue-collar voters ally themselves with the political right . . . Why on Earth would a working-class person ever vote for a conservative candidate? This question has obsessed the American left since Ronald Reagan first captured the votes of so many union members, farmers, urban Catholics and other relatively powerless people – the so-called “Reagan Democrats”. . . . Sorry, but no no no no no. Where to start? Here’s the difference between upper-income and lower-income votes in presidential elections: Ronald Reagan did about 20 percentage points better among voters in the upper third of income, compared to voters in the lower third. The relation between income and voting since 1980 is about the same as it was in the 1940s. Oh yeah, Haidt said something about “across the world.” How bout this: It varies. In mos
Introduction: Here’s some psychology research that’s relevant to yesterday’s discussion on working-class voting. In a paper to appear in the journal Cognitive Science , Andrei Cimpian, Amanda Brandone, and Susan Gelman write: Generic statements (e.g., “Birds lay eggs”) express generalizations about categories. In this paper, we hypothesized that there is a paradoxical asymmetry at the core of generic meaning, such that these sentences have extremely strong implications but require little evidence to be judged true. Four experiments confirmed the hypothesized asymmetry: Participants interpreted novel generics such as “Lorches have purple feathers” as referring to nearly all lorches, but they judged the same novel generics to be true given a wide range of prevalence levels (e.g., even when only 10% or 30% of lorches had purple feathers). A second hypothesis, also confirmed by the results, was that novel generic sentences about dangerous or distinctive properties would be more acceptable than
Introduction: Conservative data cruncher Charles Murray asks , “Why aren’t Asians Republicans?”: Asians are only half as likely to identify themselves as “conservative” or “very conservative” as whites, and less than half as likely to identify themselves as Republicans. . . . 70% of Asians voted for Barack Obama in the last presidential election. Something’s wrong with this picture. . . . Everyday observation of Asians around the world reveal them to be conspicuously entrepreneurial, industrious, family-oriented, and self-reliant. If you’re looking for a natural Republican constituency, Asians should define “natural.” . . . Asian immigrants overwhelmingly succeeded, another experience that tends to produce conservative immigrants. Beyond that, Asian minorities everywhere in the world, including America, tend to be underrepresented in politics—they’re more interested in getting ahead commercially or in non-political professions than in running for office or organizing advocacy groups. La
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