Conservative Politics, 'Low-Effort' Thinking Linked In New Study
As The Huffington Post reported in February, a study published in the journal "Psychological Science" showed that children who score low on intelligence tests gravitate toward socially conservative political views in adulthood--perhaps because conservative ideologies stress "structure and order" that make it easier to understand a complicated world.
Ouch.
And now there's the new study linking conservative ideologies to "low-effort" thinking.
"People endorse conservative ideology more when they have to give a first or fast response," the study's lead author, University of Arkansas psychologist Dr. Scott Eidelman, said in a written statement released by the university.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/07/conservative-politics-low-effort-thinking_n_1410448.html?ir=Politics
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)Adam & Eve ate from the "Tree of Knowledge".
The church has been trying to wipe out thinking ever since.
psydev
(1 post)How then do we account for the low-effort thinking of those postmodern, white privilege theory-loving reactionaries?
You know, the children who never think before they speak?
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)saras
(6,670 posts)That's MY take on pomo theory being shoved down my throat by professors who still take Freud and Marx seriously for their psychology and sociology, and utterly reject neurobiology as a way of understanding mind as an "invasive white technology."
In particular, there are theories and practices that help racist people change their thinking, that create more balanced education systems, that do a better job of predicting and explaining human behavior, and don't require a mystical religious conversion of the entire planet before they can start to improve anything.
Of course, I am also a racist myself, in that if I think an activity is stupid and destructive enough that I will spend scarce resources fighting it in my own life and culture, I see little or no advantage to society in helping minorities gain access to that activity, even if it is very profitable. UNLESS they are planning on going into the system and sabotaging or monkeywrenching it, in which case I will support them no matter what color they are.
The problem with "white privilege" in theory is that whites don't exist as a race either, and so it isn't REALLY white privilege - and people who settle for this term never seem to get around to talking about whose privilege it is exactly, probably because they're a lot more interested in getting into that group than they are in dismantling the source of its power.
The problem I have with "white privilege" in practice is that around 80%-90% of the people I encounter who use the term a lot are batshit crazy. They are socially incompatible with the Tea Party, usually about gender or race issues, but emotionally and intellectually would fit in just fine.
SemperEadem
(8,053 posts)of white priviledge:
http://www.timwise.org/2011/05/trump-card-white-denial-racial-resentment-and-the-art-of-the-heel/
Never mind that according to a Century Foundation study from a few years back, for every student of color who benefitted at all from affirmative action at a selective college there are two whites with lower scores and grades than the average, but who were admitted anyway because of family connections or parental alumni status.
Never mind that even when job applicants are equally qualified in terms of experience and education, applicants with white-sounding names are 50 percent more likely than those with black-sounding names to get a callback for an interview.
Never mind that white male job applicants with criminal records are more likely to get called back for an interview than black men without one, even when all other qualifications are indistinguishable.
pscot
(21,024 posts)that explains and rationalizes your outlook?
Zoeisright
(8,339 posts)I don't know who said it, but this is certainly true: "Not all conservatives are stupid, but all stupid people are conservatives."
mac56
(17,574 posts)Bill USA
(6,436 posts)against their own self interest - e.g. voting for more advantages for the already advantaged, such as voting for those who want to give more tax cuts for the wealthy who already got tax cuts from Cheney's puppet.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Just in possession of a complete media monopoly
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)and resort to shouting matches and name-calling in order to get their point across.
caraher
(6,279 posts)What their study showed was that anyone operating under conditions that make it hard to think carefully will express increased agreement with conservative views - not just self-identified conservatives. They looked at inebriation, time pressure, distractions - situations where "low-effort thought" was essentially all that was available to subjects.
It really didn't address whether conservatives habitually engage in this kind of thought more than those on the left.
pscot
(21,024 posts)Words to live by, in a truely hostile environment.
Bill USA
(6,436 posts)Riverman
(796 posts)Newsflash! Neanderthals had no creative brain capacity and did not evolve. See Pandora's Seed