WP:Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases(guess who's more racist)

[Pirate Smile]

Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 30, 2006; Page A05

-snip-
The field of social psychology has long been focused on how social environments affect the way people behave. But social psychologists are people, too, and as the United States has become increasingly politically polarized, they have grown increasingly interested in examining what drives these sharp divides: red states vs. blue states; pro-Iraq war vs. anti-Iraq war; pro-same-sex marriage vs. anti-same-sex marriage. And they have begun to study political behavior using such specialized tools as sophisticated psychological tests and brain scans.

-snip-
When presented with negative information about the candidates they liked, partisans of all stripes found ways to discount it, Westen said. When the unpalatable information was rejected, furthermore, the brain scans showed that volunteers gave themselves feel-good pats -- the scans showed that "reward centers" in volunteers' brains were activated. The psychologist observed that the way these subjects dealt with unwelcome information had curious parallels with drug addiction as addicts also reward themselves for wrong-headed behavior.

-snip-
That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.

-snip-
The analysis found that substantial majorities of Americans, liberals and conservatives, found it more difficult to associate black faces with positive concepts than white faces -- evidence of implicit bias. But districts that registered higher levels of bias systematically produced more votes for Bush.
"Obviously, such research does not speak at all to the question of the prejudice level of the president," said Banaji, "but it does show that George W. Bush is appealing as a leader to those Americans who harbor greater anti-black prejudice."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/29/AR2006012900642.html

Surprise, surprise, surprise!



NOT.

[BattyDem]

1. This falls under the "No Shit, Sherlock" category!

:eyes:

Any person could spend one hour on DU and one hour on FR and come to the same conclusion. :P

Interesting article. Thanks for the link. :hi:

[Pirate Smile]

2. At least now we have documentation and research to back up

our assertions.

Heh, my brain is giving me a "little feel-good pat" for that comment.

[BattyDem]

4. You're right ... it's always nice to have documentation!

:toast:

However, I find it very amusing that psychologists had to do an organized study to find out what we already knew, LOL!

[WhiteTara]

10. not "find" what we know, but "prove" what

we know. Now it is a proven fact. That should be useful to the strategists in gaining more people of color to the democrat side.

[BattyDem]

29. Good point!

:toast:

[Pirate Smile]

3. More

"Nosek said that though the risk of bias among researchers was "a reasonable question," the study provided empirical results that could -- and would -- be tested by other groups: "All we did was compare questions that people could answer any way they wanted," Nosek said, as he explained why he felt personal views could not have influenced the outcome. "We had no direct contact with participants."

-snip-
Vincent Hutchings, a political scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said the results matched his own findings in a study he conducted ahead of the 2000 presidential election: Volunteers shown visual images of blacks in contexts that implied they were getting welfare benefits were far more receptive to Republican political ads decrying government waste than volunteers shown ads with the same message but without images of black people.

"If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial," he said. "We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, 'This takes me aback,' they are ignoring a huge volume of research."'

[Corgigal]

5. republican party knows this

and uses it. Hell, I'm a liberal living in a red state and I know it. You can find it right under the surface. White "tough guy" republicans are scared shitless of black people.

[EFerrari]

15. They not only know it, they encourage it. n/t

[Pastiche423]

18. Your comment reminded me of a scene in Bowling for Columbine

That fear has been real since our country began.

[JI7]

6. you can easily see this with the internet now also

because these fools can remain anonymous so they don't hold back. they are so hateful, bigoted, digusting.

and these are the same assholes who think Bush is some great moral leader, tough etc. and they are very religious also.

[NVMojo]

7. what a bunch of sick tickets

[newswolf56]

8. Once again, the damning relevance of this Paul Krugman essay:

http://www.pkarchive.org/column/091905.html

How closeted race hatred gave the United States the only deliberately genocidal social-service net in the industrial world. Moreover, Krugman's hypothesis -- IMO the most important piece of social journalism written in the U.S. since the Civil War (and maybe ever) -- applies equally to public transport, health care, education, jobs and housing.

[bvar22]

9. K&R

This belongs on "The Greatest"!
:dem:

[cantstandbush]

11. Yawn..... Who didn't already know this? Been saying it for years.

This is "What's Wrong with Kansas." Racism just makes people cut off their noses to spite their hateful faces.

[Straight Shooter]

12. But most of them will say, "Oh, no, not me!"

Yet they smugly dismiss the election-tampering with the purging of voter rolls in Florida in 2000, and the suppression of minority districts in Ohio in 2004. It all worked out for them, so why should they care how many thousands of blacks were disenfranchised. x(

[krkaufman]

13. The. Southern. Strategy.

[Gelliebeans]

14. Take this test at Tolerance.org

http://www.tolerance.org/hidden_bias/index.html

I do know a republican that took this test and he claimed that this was a bullshit liberal test (he wasn't happy with his results I guess.......very telling indeed) ;)

[ninkasi]

16. Almost every extremely racist person I've know has been Republican

I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist in Democrats, because it does. When I encounter this attitude in Dems, though, I feel a sense of betrayal, because it's so opposed to what I've always felt were core liberal beliefs. Although I'm white, I feel that I've been slapped in the face when I hear somebody who identifies as being a Democrat, then spouts racist crap.

When you tally up the number of people killed by, or on orders from, white leaders...Hitler, Stalin, Bush, are three who come to mind, then it's no contest at all. Yet some whtes believe that Blacks are more prone to be criminal. Witness the looting of our tax dollars and treasury, theft at unprecedented levels...it's not our Black brothers and sisters who are committing these unholy acts, it's almost exclusively white corrupt conservatives.

I have always believed that conservatives cannot survive without a race, or a class of people, to demonize. These groups have included anybody not white, any religion other than Christianity, and anybody other than heterosexuals. The heteros might cheat, commit violence, or any number of other things, but the ones demonized are the GLBT community, and unwed Black mothers. White mothers have babies out of wedlock, too, but you wouldn't know it to listen to Republican screeching.

The petty, the narrow minded, the spiteful, are all attracted to the Republican Party, because it gives a sense of acceptance for their hatred. It's ok to hate, because their leaders condone it. I've read too many idiotic letters written by conservatives, who blame the poor of New Orleans because they didn't evacuate. The fact that they lacked the transportation, or the funds to support themselves once they evacuated didn't even register on their narrow little minds.

The United States would never have become as rich and powerful as it is, if it had not been for the slave labor that toiled away to create wealth for their oppressors. Conservatives are trying to recreate slave labor by outsourcing our jobs to countries who pay slave wages.

Blacks are our fellow citizens. What they want is jobs, a decent standard of living, and education for their children. They have been remarkably patient, in my own opinion, with the white power establishment. Republicans, who have guilty feelings because they know how biased they are, live in fear that Black Americans will say "Enough!", and start mobilizing politically in far greater numbers than they do today. At some point, Black pastors, who have accepted some Republican approaches because of a shared distaste for gays, will stop using this one topic to accept conservative politicians.

Blacks are viewed by conservatives by some standard I fail to grasp, but then again, they hate us, too, regardless of our race, simply because we are Democrats. Hatred is the fuel of the Republican Party, and that is sadly one fuel source that is apparently limitless.

[Skittles]

17. easier to say I AM A REPUBLICAN than to say I AM RACIST

absolutely

[Judi Lynn]

19. Tests show political thinking is emotional

Jan. 28, 2006, 9:06PM
Tests show political thinking is emotional
Reasoning part of the brain quiet in partisan debate


By BENEDICT CAREY
New York Times

Liberals and conservatives can become equally bug-eyed and irrational when talking politics, especially when they are on the defensive.

Using MRI scanners, neuroscientists have now tracked what happens in the politically partisan brain when it tries to digest damning facts about favored candidates or criticisms of them.

The process is almost entirely emotional and unconscious, the researchers report, and there are flares of activity in the brain's pleasure centers when unwelcome information is being rejected.
(snip)

Researchers have long known that political decisions are strongly influenced by unconscious emotional reactions, a fact routinely exploited by campaign consultants and advertisers.
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/3619906.html

[Hardrada]

20. How about anarchists and socialists?

Or greens? We are not docile enought to be hooked up, I guess, but I think from the sheer anount of invective coming from our direction that we must certainly be totally IRRATIONAL and INSTITUTIONALIZABLE!! (Try that last word on for size, George Fucking Asshole Fascist Warmonger DOUCHEBAG Bush!!)

[Judi Lynn]

22. Wild, wooly anarchists, socialists, greens are just plain scary.

Very hard to control!

http://www.dollclothesstore.com/products/accessories/ACCESSORIES_PICTURES/NET%20%20$4.99.jpg

[napi21]

21. So they felt they had to do scientific test to find this out?

Any normal person has known that for YEARS!

There's never rational thought and logic in many political decisions. The other area this is true for is Religion.

Why do you think the advise "Never argue Politics or Religion with a friend or you'll loose the friendship!" survived for sooo many years?

[flordehinojos]

23. and we all know that while kerry, kennedy, howard dean, and others have

used the factual, rational side of things, to speak to a whole nation about the gangster gang now occupying the white house, but has been appealing to the emotional side of things and it seems that so far, the emotional side has prevailed...and every time people start to think rationally, he flames their passion using the emotional side of things. hitler did it, fidel castro does and bush and his poppy mon are no different from hitler or fidel castro or any other garden variety dictator or abuser...and let's not forget that jebbie does it too, though his domain, for the moment, is on a smaller scale.

[rucky]

24. Here are some tests you can take yourself:

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/backgroundinformation.html

[Starbucks Anarchist]

25. You're kidding.

And I thought the McCain "black baby" rumors only worked because of perceived infedility. :eyes:

[Ian David]

26. See also: Masculinity Challenged, Men Prefer War and SUVs

Masculinity Challenged, Men Prefer War and SUVs
By LiveScience Staff
posted: 02 August 2005
03:58 pm ET

Men whose masculinity is challenged become more inclined to support war or buy an SUV, a new study finds.

Their attitudes against gays change, too.

Cornell University researcher Robb Willer used a survey to sample undergraduates. Participants were randomly assigned feedback that indicated their responses were either masculine of feminine.

The women had no discernable reaction to either type of feedback in a follow-up survey.

But the guys' reactions were "strongly affected," Willer said today.

"I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle," said Willer said. "There were no increases for other types of cars."

Those who had their masculinity threatened also said they felt more ashamed, guilty, upset and hostile than those whose masculinity was confirmed, he said.

More:
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050802_masculinity.html

[Virginian]

27. But when the topic comes up they will point to Condi.

I'm afraid she had to turn in her AA card when she started working for the Bushies. She is no longer African American. She just looks African American.

She traded her conscience for puppet strings to Cheney.

I am curious about how an election would go if she were a candidate. The base might overlook her skin color, but could they overlook the fact that she is a woman?

I find it very strange that so many unmarried women on the Democratic side get painted with the lesbian brush but on the Republican side, they are just "Professional Women." George Allen did it to his opponent when he ran for Governor. I wonder what he would do if he ran against Condi in the primaries.

[Javaman]

28. And how would a repuke view THIS report?

"Just more of that lie-bral media bias!!"

Even if the repukes could remove their heads from their asses, they still would be cover in shit.

[VaYallaDawg]

30. Interesting information, thanks for the link!

It's sorta like hearing the other shoe fall on what most of us instinctively recognized anyway. But good to know that someone has examined its origins scientifically.