A link between ideology and interest in novel data

[Bad Penny II]

In three separate studies, Tullett and colleagues offered participants in both the Deep South and West Coast a chance to view data on three topics: the justness of the world, the efficacy of social safety nets and the benefits of social media.

Geez, those seem like three subjects designed to appeal to liberals

Moreover, conservatives were more skeptical about the value of science compared with liberals.

A conservative by definition would be less interested in new ideas.

"One reason for increases in political polarization may be that people aren't always speaking the same language," Tullett said. "There seem to be epistemological differences between liberals and conservatives. They disagree about the value of scientific evidence, and if you're relying on different types of evidence, you're less likely to come to an agreement.

Seems to be does there?  Maybe that's shown for social science but concluding it applies to "science," is a bit of leap.

Tullett said the findings are consistent with previously published studies that conservatives are less trusting of the scientific community.

Well science is a problem isn't it, nice chemicals are poisoning people, nice cars are poisoning the atmosphere, there's no genetic rational for racism, they want us to ban good old coal for windmills, the greeny weirdoes.  Science was much better when I was a boy, making better bombs and moon landings.  Since the leftists got control its become suspect.

[Dave]

Good pints, BP II.

Looks like it could be one of those studies that was not sure just what it was looking for, so they sort of bent it a bit to fit something! Not well designed.

Having said that I can well believe that the ratio of ideology to openmindedness is less than 10 : 1so there could be a good premise there, just poor choices of subject.

[Dave]

But, then, consider:

Most approaches to ideology in the social sciences negatively de-
fine it in terms of misguided beliefs, false consciousness or similar
notions that in my view are too vague for comfort (for historical sur-
veys, see, e.g., Billig 1982, Eagleton 1991, Larraín 1979). In political
science or much of social psychology, ideologies are simply taken to
be belief systems, but not systematically distinguished from other
forms of socially shared mental representations (see, e.g., Freeden
1996). That is, despite thousands of studies, the notion of ideology
remains theoretically vague, and it is even less clear how exactly ide-
ologies should be related to discourse.

Teun A van Dijk

It is a pdf and don't know how to link to those, hitting on Google opens it and can't find it on the author's web page.

But, hmm, am I, as an aspiring humanist with a belief system, an ideologue according to the above?

Slam! Bugger, me mind has just closed! Now, where's the bloody torch (of knowledge of course), it's dark in here.

[Recusant]

That appears to be a quote from "Discourse, Knowledge and Ideology: Reformulating Old Questions and Proposing Some New Solutions".

[Dave]

That appears to be a quote from "Discourse, Knowledge and Ideology: Reformulating Old Questions and Proposing Some New Solutions".

That's the one. Not sure now that it applies directly to the question Asmo posed but it would seem that "ideology" can mean what the user wishes, not sufficiently defined or described for safe general use as jargon in a academic papers.

That gets a bit like a philosophy book I once bought after hearing the author on the radio.  Seemed like every twentieth word needed to be defined, in footnotes, in the context in which it was used. More footnote than text on some pages.
Put me off philosophy, jargon and footnotes for life!

[Asmodean]

Brits, Norsemen, and Europeans may see the southern states of the US as bastions of stupidity.

Well, yes and no. Personally, I do see them as bastions of stupidity in the sense that that's where most of the civilized world's loud-mouthed-while-stupid resides. That is, however, not at all the same as saying that everyone there is stupid, or even that most Southern state residents are.

I am pleased to proclaim that Universities such as University of Alabama do indeed have admirable credentials and teaching habits that refute the general vision of southern mediocrity. The same goes for U of Texas, U of Arkansas, U of West Virginia, U of Tennessee, or colleges of other southern states.

Huntsville, AL also has that space museum thing I've always meant to visit. Indeed, there are enclaves of reasonable, nice and even knowledgable across the Southern US.

We do have some phony private colleges that are bastions of  ignorance and intolerance. They are private colleges such as Bob Jones University, Liberty U, Oral Roberts, and a few others who are champions of the irrefutable word of god as narrowly interpreted in the KJV, Book of Morman, and similarly questionable sources..

Trump U. Is that Southern-based..? Because it ought to be. If nothing else, to live up to the stereotype, you know...

[Icarus]

As much as I hate to admit it, the southern states are decidedly more heavily populated with narrow minded, ignorant, people than some of our other states. Not to say that there are not some shamefully, willfully, ignorant citizens well farther north. All the way to the Canadian border in fact. 

Meanwhile, some of the Universities in the southern states are high caliber institutions that are doing world class research and development projects.

[Dave]

xSilverPhinx's video in tbe link above (yet to learn how to embed posts from other threads) seems to support the correlation between con versus lib in tbe acceptance of new/novel data.

But I always remember the neurologist who found an apparent corrolation between psychopathy and brain structure.  He then took a scan of his own brain, as a "control", and found that he had the same type of structure. Further investigation found that nurture had as much to do with the personal outcome as nature. The genes that determined the structure determined the propensity, not the actuality.

[solidsquid]

xSilverPhinx's video in tbe link above (yet to learn how to embed posts from other threads) seems to support the correlation between con versus lib in tbe acceptance of new/novel data.

But I always remember the neurologist who found an apparent corrolation between psychopathy and brain structure.  He then took a scan of his own brain, as a "control", and found that he had the same type of structure. Further investigation found that nurture had as much to do with the personal outcome as nature. The genes that determined the structure determined the propensity, not the actuality.

Brain structure volume associated with behavior stuff is a bit all over the map if I remember correctly - I had one professor when I was in a neuroscience program in Dallas call it "modern phrenology bullshit" I think was the phrase he used.

[solidsquid]

Here's the paper if anyone wishes to read it.

Problems I see with this study:

1. Convenience sample - undergrad psych students at the University of Alabama and University of California at Berkeley; mean age of 19 years old and 21 respectively.

2. A priori power analysis yielded an effect size of rho = 0.16, indicating a correlational design yet no mention of analysis assumptions for the calculation. Although that's just nit picky really.

3. Mean response for political orientation was between "moderate" and "slightly conservative" in several parts of the study - deriving a mean from an categorical variable...frequency with rank would be more appropriate.

4. Made affirmative conclusions based upon a regression yielding a t-value of only 1.92 and technically non-significant at  p = 0.056.

5. Used a scatter plot for a categorical variable...weird

6. Part two showed a statistically significant correlation yet an r = 0.16 with a sample size of over 200 participants is questionable.  Subsequent regression did not support the correlation., beta = 0.18, t = 0.16, p = 0.541 - nothing there.

7. Another scatter plot for a categorical variable...weird.

8. Repeated similar procedures on a sample of 311 female mTurk workers (crowd sourcing marketplace). Correlations for this group were not compelling either, r = 0.11 and r = 0.08 - doesn't matter if the p-value was less than 0.05, with 311 data points it doesn't mean much. The association doesn't hold in a regression model.

9. More scatterplots for categorical variables...

10. Their conclusions don't fit their reported data analysis - "Overall, our results suggest that there is something about a conservative political outlook –rather than any extreme political outlook, or any minority political view – that is associated with relative avoidance of new empirical data".

11. I'm surprised this study was published...especially with those horrendous scatter plots.

Just to note, I'm not defending any political view, I just dislike shoddy methodology. According to the little political compass thingy online I'd be considered a libertarian-leaning centrist.

But hell, what do I know, I don't have a Ph.D.