Study: Conservatives More Likely To Make Up Facts In Order to Justify Their Beliefs

[PeaceNikki]

Two psychologists Brittany Liu and Peter Ditto from the University of California-Irvine conducted a study to evaluate how liberals and conservatives dealt with so called hard truths in areas that they may not be prone to believing because of their ideologies. The study looked at four areas – two of these areas are supported by liberals and detested by conservatives and two are supported by conservatives and detested by liberals:

#1 – Educating kids on condoms

#2 – Embryonic stem cell research

#3 – The death penalty

#4 – Water boarding captives

Even though both liberals and conservatives alike had a tendency to rationalize their views … conservatives created a new reality essentially in all four of these areas in order to square their thought process. The conservative movement by and large suffers from this; another term for this is cognitive dissonance. For whatever reason – the brains of conservatives just make stuff up in order to justify their support for two conflicting beliefs.

Conservatives are against “socialism” but love Medicare. They hate Obamacare but nominated a guy who created the model for Obamacare. They’re against abortion but don’t want to teach kids about condoms. They don’t like Wall Street but want fewer regulations. The list goes on. And that’s why people search for the news that reassures them that they are correct instead of simply searching for the truth; cognitive dissonance is the reason that Fox News is profitable.

Much more at link: http://iacknowledge.net/study-conservatives-more-likely-to-make-up-facts-in-order-to-justify-their-beliefsx/

In other breaking news: Water is wet!!!

[dickthegrouch]

1. Another reason why the legal sanction for lies is so f'ing WRONG

The courts have totally corrupted free speech. The courts have totally eviscerated the civilized requirement that lying always be wrong and punishable. There should be 10 fold extensions to sentences when the perpetrators are proven to have lied.

In the political arena, anyone who lies deliberately, or fails to research their claims in advance, should be forever barred from further public office. Instant by-election at the expense of the liar whenever a claim can be disproved easily.

We need integrity back before we do anything else, such as start using public money to finance elections.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

40. Dangerous, illiberal bilge.

The right to be wrong is the beginning and end of free speech.

If it were possible to infallibly and objectively determine what is and isn't a lie, you might have a case. But, of course, it isn't; what you're actually proposing is that anyone who says anything that the courts choose to claim is false be locked up.

[dickthegrouch]

44. Without trust, we are all lost

If I can't trust anyone to be telling me the truth, I might as well not exist.

If we all have to spend valuable time and resources sorting through truth from fiction we are no better than animals.

Being wrong is one thing, deliberately propagating things one knows to be false, is quite another. People in public discourse should have enough integrity and self restraint to refrain from deliberately propagating falsehoods.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

45. Read back what you just wrote to yourself!

"If we all have to spend valuable time and resources sorting through truth from fiction we are no better than animals. "

Read that again.

"If we all have to spend valuable time and resources sorting through truth from fiction we are no better than animals. "

I *have* heard dafter statements, but, even on DU, they're rare.

And, even if it were true, a law prohibiting people from lying wouldn't help in the slightest, because it still wouldn't stop people being wrong, and we'd still have to "waste" all that time.

The law can't make you infallible, sadly.

And yes, public figures should refrain from lying. That's why we have elections, to remove ones that do from office.

[el_bryanto]

46. Hmmm - if that's the standard I might as well not exist either

I don't trust many people at all.

How does one go about not-existing?

Bryant

[nyquil_man]

2. And then they hit a brick wall.

Election night 2012, anyone?

[Mr.Bill]

3. A fifteen second conversation with any teabagger will verify this.

Last edited Sun Dec 1, 2013, 05:55 PM - Edit history (1)

Ask them which two presidents have doubled the national debt while in office.

Most common first answer? Carter.

[Thor_MN]

4. IMO, the cognitive dissonance comes from trying to fit everything into a binary world view

It either 100% true or 100% false for conservatives. Black/white, no shades of gray. In order to deal with reality, they are much more facile with disregarding facts or just making them up in order to cram reality into the tidy sound bites they are fed.

[Raeshawn]

5. Facts like WMDs in Iraq?

Conservatives rarely got any facts. To them, facts are like WMDs in Iraq.

[LisaLynne]

6. They have to.

Reality is against them.

[bemildred]

10. +1. nt

[PeaceNikki]

12. plus science, math and facts, in general have a liberal bias.

[jazzimov]

14. Well, you know that

Reality has a well-known Liberal bias. (Stephen Colbert)

[Dr Hobbitstein]

7. Kind of like talking to CTers (liberal OR conservative)... NT

[MisterP]

8. that's part of the rightward canter: ever since the Powell memo

we have both Wurlitzers (Republican right) and corporate "rebels" (libertarian right) agree that guns, trans fats, nicotine, global warming, and oxycontin are Freedom

history is either constantly whitewashed (where's the CIA's support for the most conservative Muslims in Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.?) or drowned under a welter of countertheories ("if you believe we supported al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Syria, then you have to believe in Obama's tornado machine and Alaskan death camps"; "we haven't moved rightwards--gays, women, Blacks, and the Frankfurt School have taken over everything: we whites are as oppressed as the Tibetans!&quot

(of course, to parry, Dems then pretend *even harder* that we have a Pinko Prez): people say that "left and right are both guilty" when they mean "Dems and GOP"

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. Lone nut Lincoln killers

each were alone but not..... but he teaches us history and LOgic?

[marmar]

11. No sh*t. Just watch Faux News.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Electricity

[paleotn]

15. You've got to be f'n kidding me. nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. I wish I was. Here it is. You can buy it for as little as 29 cents.

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Christian-Schools-Teachers-Edition/dp/0890845697

[kristopher]

33. What's the rest of the lesson?

I heard almost exactly the same thing in 5th grade science class but it was a part of a lecture positively illustrating the way the scientific process functions.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

36. Really?

Like "a mystery"? "No one has observed it"? "Some scientists think that the sun may be the source of most electricity"? "Others think that the movement of the earth produces some of it"? You were told four bald faced lies per page? What school system lied like that?

From the publisher's website:

Explore the wonders of God’s creation with the Science 4 curriculum from BJU Press. The Science 4 Student Text is written on a fourth-grade level and covers topics such as insects and spiders, plants, electricity, the moon, digestion, bones, and more. Each topic is discussed within a biblical worldview, and students are encouraged to use science as a means of glorifying God and loving their neighbor.

I think that "loving their neighbor" gets no time given how many home-schoolers become T party zealots.

http://www.11points.com/Books/11_Eye-Opening_Highlights_From_a_Creationist_Science_Textbook

[kristopher]

37. Yes really; and it was rated the best academic school district in the nation at the time.

The presentation I heard had the same verbiage you are keying on, but the context is important. The "no one" in the lesson referred to the lay public (5th graders in this case) and was contrasted later with the way inferential data is obtained and used by those employing the scientific method.

It was an excellent lesson that I've remembered well for 46 years.

My question to you was based on the fact that I didn't see the entire presentation in the book, and the fact that I have experienced the getting essentially the same information as part of a larger lesson designed to promote exactly the opposite belief that you are charging was the intent of your posted page. That was pretty clear from my post above, I believe.

Then instead of responding to what I actually wrote, you post a series of items that would be appropriate if I had defended Christian home schooling - a point that, considering what I wrote, can only be a product of your own mind.

This is the second time you have miscast my posts and read/acted on that false reading. Perhaps your relevance meter needs to be recalibrated. And before you get all huffy again, all I'm saying is take a breath and realize that anonymous internet discussions often lead us all into exactly that trap. We experience so much subtle and dishonest opposition, that we tend to see malicious intentions in all but the most black and white of comments.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

39. There you go making it personal again.

Just like in the other thread you refer to: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024116669#post30 ; a subthread that I dropped to stop feeding your ironical trolling. When I did not respond there you looked at my profile and found my last post in this thread. So here you are.

I did respond to you as you wanted by giving you the rest of the lesson, which you could have found by looking it up just as I did. The book is chock full of lies and nonsense about scientists and evolutionists.

But you have to go injecting the personal, again. There you go with the "relevance meter" thingy you apply to me personally again, whatever that is. You add to that the "huffy" accusation. The only "malicious intentions" are the ones you are reading in that do not exist. The only reference I made to "you" was as a receiver of schooling and thus it was an impersonal reference to you as simply a reporter of what you had been told. There was no personalization or "dishonest opposition".

Second, I did not miscast your post. You wrote you "heard almost exactly the same thing in 5th grade science class". We accepted that statement, even if we were skeptical, which is why I wondered about the school system not about you. That is what I responded to. I quoted four bald faced lies from that page, lies that you say you heard almost exactly the same. They are false. Scientists and young people all over the world have observed electricity. Electricity is not a "mystery". No real scientist thinks the sun is the source of electricity, let alone "some". No "other" scientists think that the "movement of the earth" produces it.

No amount of context will turn the four falsehoods into truth. "Scientists" are not the "lay public" and should never be confused.

Now, for you, here is the rest of the page, which apparently was cut off by the cropping, but is presented here for you to save you the trouble of stumbling across it as I did while doing some searching for you.



Now, please, just leave it be.

[kristopher]

43. Wow.

If you consider my posts to be "personal attacks" while simultaneously believing your screeds are not over-the-top reactionary posts to a fellow DUer, then I don't know what to tell you.

You have repeatedly distorted and wildly misrepresent what I've written. In my responses to your writings I've explained my questions and positions (including what I meant by relevance) with a specific eye to defusing your overt hostility.

Since there is absolutely no basis for your antagonistic tone, I'll need to respond point by point.

BdLP: I did respond to you as you wanted by giving you the rest of the lesson, which you could have found by looking it up just as I did. The book is chock full of lies and nonsense about scientists and evolutionists.

No, you didn't. I asked for the remainder of that specific lesson, which you now have provided. Thanks. I went to the Amazon site and didn't see a convenient way of finding it myself before making my request to you.
As I explained in that sub-thread twice I was asking about that specific page, and was not making a comment of any kind on the validity of the entire book, the genre of Christian texts, nor the validity of Christian home schooling.
Those perceptions are products of your imagination, nothing more, nothing less; and that lead me to suggest your standards for what is relevant in the comments of other DUers is skewed.

BdLP: But you have to go injecting the personal, again. There you go with the "relevance meter" thingy you apply to me personally again, whatever that is. You add to that the "huffy" accusation.
Since you read the post you also clearly read this, "all I'm saying is take a breath and realize that anonymous internet discussions often lead us all into exactly that trap. We experience so much subtle and dishonest opposition, that we tend to see malicious intentions in all but the most black and white of comments".

If that is a personal attack to you I'd suggest your standards for what is relevant in the comments of other DUers is off target.


BdLP: The only "malicious intentions" are the ones you are reading in that do not exist. The only reference I made to "you" was as a receiver of schooling and thus it was an impersonal reference to you as simply a reporter of what you had been told." There was no personalization or "dishonest opposition".
This is what you wrote as you went off on a tangent to answer a question I didn't ask or lead into:
"Like "a mystery"? "No one has observed it"? "Some scientists think that the sun may be the source of most electricity"? "Others think that the movement of the earth produces some of it"? You were told four bald faced lies per page? What school system lied like that?

It is difficult to not read that as a hostile, over-the-top reply to the question I asked and the explanation I gave. To anyone not a novice to internet forum behavior, the hostility is a challenge to my statement that I had heard this before in different circumstances. If you didn't misread my post as one having malicious intent then why so much evident anger?

BdLP: "Second, I did not miscast your post. You wrote you "heard almost exactly the same thing in 5th grade science class". We accepted that statement, even if we were skeptical, which is why I wondered about the school system not about you. That is what I responded to.

Your disbelief went far beyond skepticism. If not for the rules of the forum I have no doubt your response would have been to directly call me a bald face liar instead of using the poorly veiled bank shot.


BdLP: "I quoted four bald faced lies from that page, lies that you say you heard almost exactly the same. They are false.

Yes, they are false. Why do you think you need to state that?

BdLP: "Scientists and young people all over the world have observed electricity. Electricity is not a "mystery". No real scientist thinks the sun is the source of electricity, let alone "some". No "other" scientists think that the "movement of the earth" produces it.
No amount of context will turn the four falsehoods into truth. "Scientists" are not the "lay public" and should never be confused.

Since I think I was pretty clear that the lesson I received 46 years ago was contrasting the way the scientific method is used to solve a problem with the way laypeople solve problems, the first sentence in this section reveals either an extreme amount of confusion or an outright deliberate distortion of what I wrote. I choose to think it is confusion.

Are you denying that somewhere along the path of developing the theories that explain electricity there were not those that we now term "scientists" who proposed some pretty outlandish explanations that gave way under the scientific method? Or are you of the opinion that "science" was birthed as the body of knowledge we now have today?

Then there is your use of the word "observed". In common lay parlance that is synonymous with "seen" or visually observed.

ob·serve verb \əb-ˈzərv\
: to watch and sometimes also listen to (someone or something) carefully
: to see and notice (someone or something)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/observe

There is also an aspect of the word that is as you use it:

ob·serve
(b-zûrv)
v. ob·served, ob·serv·ing, ob·serves v.tr.
1. To be or become aware of, especially through careful and directed attention; notice.
2. To watch attentively: observe a child's behavior.
3. To make a systematic or scientific observation of: observe the orbit of the moon.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/observe

Now, why, when you are supposedly in good faith trying to understand my side of this discussion would you exclude the obvious reading (which happens to be the one that my teacher used since he said "no one" has "seen" electricity actually moving in a wire).

As you can see my posts were not what you read them to be. You have been having an argument with yourself while using misinterpretations of my words as a launching pad.

Finally I'd like to ask two questions.
1) Who is the "we" in this sentence, "We accepted that statement, even if we were skeptical, which is why I wondered about the school system not about you"?

2) Why you think I looked at your profile; do you have admin access that would allow you to track my browsing on DU?

[jazzimov]

17. Occam's Razor proves that it's fairies.

Occam's razor states that the simplest answer is the true one. When you flip a light switch and a light bulb comes on, which is the simplest answer?
A) When the contacts are engaged in the switch, it completes a circuit of free electrons that circuit through the wires through the light bulb. The filament inside the light bulb inside the bulb contains molecules that are excited by the electrons which in turn allows them to give off photons and makes the filament to glow.

or

B) The fairy that lives in the switch yells across the lines to the fairy that lives in the light bulb to create light.

Obviously, the answer is B.

Occam's razor also proves the existence of God. Which is simpler, that the Universe was created via a complicated Big Bang that scientists are still trying to explain, or that God said "Let there be light" and there was light?

A friend of mine pointed out that according to Occam's Razor God must exist.

BTW, except for that last line:


(A friend - who actually prides himself on his scientific knowledge - actually tried to use Occam's Razor to prove the existence of a supernatural being called "God&quot

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. As you understand Occam's razor only applies when both choices fully satisfy the facts.

Just saying for the readers so that everything is clear including why your post is sarcasm.

[IDemo]

18. The tides roll in

You can't explain that.

[PeaceNikki]

21. Fucking magnets!!

[Scootaloo]

26. At least ICP has the excuse of being professional dumbfucks; this is a textbook!

[underpants]

41. Wow

so God doesn't make electricity?

[seabeckind]

16. Make up is a misleading term

I noticed what happens is that the belief comes first then any fact that conflicts with that belief is rationalized and made insignificant. Any fact that supports the belief is repeated ad nauseum.

The constant rationalization and reframing is the most infuriating.

The other thing is the absolute binarism as mentioned above. Everything is either one or the opposite. Eg, you are either opposed to abortion or in favor of it. No middle ground. You are either a capitalist or a socialist. No in between.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

22. You nailed it: Binary thinking and selective use of facts to fit beliefs.

The Binary Thinking syndrome is also know as the Fallacy that goes by various names: False Dichotomy, Bifurcation, and the Black & White Fallacy.

[RainDog]

24. perception bias

But what's interesting is that only 6% of scientists identify as conservative.

This is the most prominent intellectual field that insists upon quantifiable data, peer review for publication, and a method of examination that includes reproducible results as the standard for work in the field, ALONG WITH the understanding that all "truths" are subject to modification or change if better studies/results come along.

I think that's the basic difference - this willingness to examine evidence and change or modify a position if convincing data suggests previous ideas are not correct.

And I think this emphasis extends to other areas of work regarding research and opinion among those who i.d. as liberal because they also acknowledge a preference for empirical data as the basis for policy decisions, etc.

At the same time, yes, we are all more willing to accept information that confirms our existing views... so then the question becomes - whose existing views had more validity as a starting point.

...which is how you get to so few scientists who find value in the Republican party.

As far as the either/or thinking - that's not how things work in real life, and, again, the reality seems to be that liberals engage in less black and white and either/or thinking - but not always.

when you have one party that is exposing the most extremist and unscientific views, however, you are going to get push back from the other end of the spectrum.

Most Americans are mixed economy supporters. The terms, however, distort responses, as Dan Ariely's study about income distribution and perceptions of Americans showed.

Most American support Roe v. Wade, which creates limitations and exceptions based upon competing interests and health issues.

But those with extremist views are the ones who are going to be making an issue of the either/or end of the spectrum - while most Americans fall within the middle ground.

[MisterP]

28. "splitting": you run into it A LOT online

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)

[Bernardo de La Paz]

23. Rational argumentation and how to avoid fallacies:

Logic & Fallacies Constructing a Logical Argument: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/logic.html

A comprehensive list of fallacies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

42 fallacies: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

And here is the cutest one of all, beautifully illustrated and thus accessible to our challenged right wing citizens:
https://bookofbadarguments.com/

[kristopher]

27. One problem with the spread of this knowledge

Is that instead of using to improve accuracy in their thinking, there are some who use it as an internet forum how-to guide for disrupting discussions.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

29. Solution to bad speech is more speech, not censorship or self-censorship. - Jefferson paraphrase. nt

[kristopher]

30. You saw that as an appeal for censorship?

It was commentary on the methods of trolls.

Perhaps your relevance meter needs recalibrating.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

31. Woah there Nellie. You just made a personal attack in an anti-troll subthread.

I do not see the spread of knowledge about rational debate to be a problem. You are on record as seeing it as a problem. I did not mention you personally at all.

Relevance meter?

Wow.

[kristopher]

32. You consider that "a personal attack"?

Pointing out that you misinterpreted my post isn't "a personal attack". The "good" that goes along with wider knowledge of critical thinking skills is obvious; but the negative aspect is also there and it is having a substantial impact on public discussion.

This latest offering by you indicates your relevance meter definitely needs to be recalibrated.

We won't even go into your odd insistence that my meaning is different from what was clearly stated in both my first and second post.

[Qutzupalotl]

25. Conservative ideology itself is based on justifying selfishness

and propped up with made-up fantasies like trickle-down, cutting taxes for "job creators", ignoring the poor and the sick...

[Gothmog]

34. Water is also wet

Conservatives have trouble understanding the concept of facts and so they consider anything that supports their worldview to be a fact.

[PeaceNikki]

35. lol, that was, in fact, the last line of my OP.

[sakabatou]

38. Ya' think?!

[underpants]

42. "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox. "

David Frum

There is your answer. They have a different reality placed in front of them on a daily basis (with talk radio) and it is drilled into their heads. They have no choice in fact they think that questioning what they are told is "scientific" and is not patriotic.

[Berlum]

47. Astute Americans figured that out a long time ago

Republicons lie. It's a fact of life.