I don’t know whether to be amused or irked by the headline news from Berkeley that researchers there (working with Stanford and U. Maryland) have “figured out” what makes up the psychological makeup of political conservatives.
While avowing that the analysis is “not judgmental,” the list of “common psychological factors” of political conservative thinking sure sounds … well, not like anything that most folks would want describing themselves.
– Fear and aggression
– Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
– Uncertainty avoidance
– Need for cognitive closure
– Terror management
“From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination,” the researchers wrote in an article, “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition,” recently published in the American Psychological Association’s Psychological Bulletin.
In the course of being non-judgmental, they identify these traits with such well-known and -respected “political conservatives” as Hitler and Mussolini. Their tyrannical counterparts on the Left? Well, they’re really conservatives at heart, too.
The researchers conceded cases of left-wing ideologues, such as Stalin, Khrushchev or Castro, who, once in power, steadfastly resisted change, allegedly in the name of egalitarianism.
Yet, they noted that some of these figures might be considered politically conservative in the context of the systems that they defended. The researchers noted that Stalin, for example, was concerned about defending and preserving the existing Soviet system.
Looking at that list of psychological factors, frankly, they seem to define the human condition. Adherence to dogma, intolerance of shades of grey, seeking for closure, striving to deal with terror, coming up with simplistic solutions to complex problems — those seem to describe as many on the Left as on the Right.
And let’s not start with the simplicity of lumping under the “conservative” rubric everyone from Hitler to Reagan to Limbaugh to — well, as noted above — Castro.
Heck, when you get down to seeking to avoid change — well, as a software developer, I can tell you that includes everyone, not just a portion of the population. And when you look, from a poltical perspective, at the terror that those on the Left feel when programs and policies dating back five to fifty years or more are threatened with change by those on the Right, it seems that even that difference fades away.
Buried underneath those psychological factors, though, is the true indictment of “conservatism”:
Concerns with fear and threat, likewise, can be linked to a second key dimension of conservatism – an endorsement of inequality, a view reflected in the Indian caste system, South African apartheid and the conservative, segregationist politics of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-South S.C.).
Yes, that’s right: conservatives are out to impose, or reimpose, a caste/segregationist system, or certainly would endorse such a thing.
I suppose, if by “conservative” you mean those opposed to change and in favor of holding power among the elite — well, yeah, I suppose you would then find that such people are change-averse and elitist. That somehow that matches up inclusively or exclusively with just those identified as “right-wing” or Republican or some other labeled monolithic block of the body politic is itself just the sort of simple-minded thinking that the researchers identify as being … well, conservative.
The researchers do keep insisting that conservatism isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though at least the Berkeley press release seems full of damnation with faint praise:
The researchers said that conservative ideologies, like virtually all belief systems, develop in part because they satisfy some psychological needs, but that “does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled.”
[…] “In many cases, including mass politics, ‘liberal’ traits may be liabilities, and being intolerant of ambiguity, high on the need for closure, or low in cognitive complexity might be associated with such generally valued characteristics as personal commitment and unwavering loyalty,” the researchers wrote.
[…] Although they concluded that conservatives are less “integratively complex” than others are, Glaser said, “it doesn’t mean that they’re simple-minded.”
Conservatives don’t feel the need to jump through complex, intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their positions, he said. “They are more comfortable seeing and stating things in black and white in ways that would make liberals squirm,” Glaser said.
Such as seeing and stating that conservatives favor segregation, apartheid, and caste systems, I suppose.
I suppose that the press release (and the underlying article?) focus on Dubya as the archetype of conservatism shouldn’t be a surprise.
The latest debate about the possibility that the Bush administration ignored intelligence information that discounted reports of Iraq buying nuclear material from Africa may be linked to the conservative intolerance for ambiguity and or need for closure, said Glaser.
Right. Because only conservative administrations ever ignore intelligence that doesn’t align with their policies.
Getting back to that black-and-white thinking bit, the researchers use Dubya as the paradigm for conservative thinking:
[Glaser] pointed as an example to a 2001 trip to Italy, where President George W. Bush was asked to explain himself. The Republican president told assembled world leaders, “I know what I believe and I believe what I believe is right.” And in 2002, Bush told a British reporter, “Look, my job isn’t to nuance.”
Is that Bush as conservative? Or Bush as populist? And is Bush really emblematic of conservative thought? Do conservatives simply eschew nuance, and simply “believe what they believe, and believe it is right” (and, for that matter, are liberals immune to that)?
And that keeps being, to my mind, a key flaw with, if not the study, then the press release surrounding it: the idea that what’s being talked about is somehow exclusively or primarily “conservative” (self-defined) in nature.
Glaser acknowledged that the team’s exclusive assessment of the psychological motivations of political conservatism might be viewed as a partisan exercise. However, he said, there is a host of information available about conservatism, but not about liberalism.
In other words, they analyzed what was there, assumed it represented conservatism only, and drew conclusions (which may or may not have been part of their premises).
Good research there.
(via Andrea)
UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg weighs in more broadly. And the actual study, as opposed to the Berkeley press release, can be found here.