How to spot a baby conservative

[Amazon 7]

Whiny children, claims a new study, tend to grow up rigid and traditional.

Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.

At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area that social scientists have been tracking for the last 20 years. The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.

The study from the Journal of Research Into Personality isn't going to make the UC Berkeley professor who published it any friends on the right. Similar conclusions a few years ago from another academic saw him excoriated on right-wing blogs, and even led to a Congressional investigation into his research funding.

But the new results are worth a look. In the 1960s Jack Block and his wife and fellow professor Jeanne Block (now deceased) began tracking more than 100 nursery school kids as part of a general study of personality. The kids' personalities were rated at the time by teachers and assistants who had known them for months. There's no reason to think political bias skewed the ratings — the investigators were not looking at political orientation back then. Even if they had been, it's unlikely that 3- and 4-year-olds would have had much idea about their political leanings.

A few decades later, Block followed up with more surveys, looking again at personality, and this time at politics, too. The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.

The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.

Block admits in his paper that liberal Berkeley is not representative of the whole country. But within his sample, he says, the results hold. He reasons that insecure kids look for the reassurance provided by tradition and authority, and find it in conservative politics. The more confident kids are eager to explore alternatives to the way things are, and find liberal politics more congenial.

In a society that values self-confidence and out-goingness, it's a mostly flattering picture for liberals. It also runs contrary to the American stereotype of wimpy liberals and strong conservatives.

Of course, if you're studying the psychology of politics, you shouldn't be surprised to get a political reaction. Similar work by John T. Jost of Stanford and colleagues in 2003 drew a political backlash. The researchers reviewed 44 years worth of studies into the psychology of conservatism, and concluded that people who are dogmatic, fearful, intolerant of ambiguity and uncertainty, and who crave order and structure are more likely to gravitate to conservatism. Critics branded it the "conservatives are crazy" study and accused the authors of a political bias.

Jost welcomed the new study, saying it lends support to his conclusions. But Jeff Greenberg, a social psychologist at the University of Arizona who was critical of Jost's study, was less impressed.



"I found it to be biased, shoddy work, poor science at best," he said of the Block study. He thinks insecure, defensive, rigid people can as easily gravitate to left-wing ideologies as right-wing ones. He suspects that in Communist China, those kinds of people would likely become fervid party members.


The results do raise some obvious questions. Are nursery school teachers in the conservative heartland cursed with classes filled with little proto-conservative whiners?

Or does an insecure little boy raised in Idaho or Alberta surrounded by conservatives turn instead to liberalism?

Or do the whiny kids grow up conservative along with the majority of their more confident peers, while only the kids with poor impulse control turn liberal?

Part of the answer is that personality is not the only factor that determines political leanings. For instance, there was a .27 correlation between being self-reliant in nursery school and being a liberal as an adult. Another way of saying it is that self-reliance predicts statistically about 7 per cent of the variance between kids who became liberal and those who became conservative. (If every self-reliant kid became a liberal and none became conservatives, it would predict 100 per cent of the variance). Seven per cent is fairly strong for social science, but it still leaves an awful lot of room for other influences, such as friends, family, education, personal experience and plain old intellect.

For conservatives whose feelings are still hurt, there is a more flattering way for them to look at the results. Even if they really did tend to be insecure complainers as kids, they might simply have recognized that the world is a scary, unfair place.

Their grown-up conclusion that the safest thing is to stick to tradition could well be the right one. As for their "rigidity," maybe that's just moral certainty.

The grown-up liberal men, on the other hand, with their introspection and recognition of complexity in the world, could be seen as self-indulgent and ineffectual.

Whether anyone's feelings are hurt or not, the work suggests that personality and emotions play a bigger role in our political leanings than we think. All of us, liberal or conservative, feel as though we've reached our political opinions by carefully weighing the evidence and exercising our best judgment. But it could be that all of that careful reasoning is just after-the-fact self-justification. What if personality forms our political outlook, with reason coming along behind, rationalizing after the fact?

It could be that whom we vote for has less to do with our judgments about tax policy or free trade or health care, and more with the personalities we've been stuck with since we were kids.

Kurt Kleiner is a Toronto-based freelance science writer.


http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1142722231554

NOTE..did anyone notice the part about China???? In no friggin way can ANYONE claim a Communist Party Memeber in China could even be considered anywhere near being a "LIBERAL"

So all you rigid anal retentive Ultra Right Hand boys can take your " Leftie Liberal" labels and shove em where the sun dont shine.

[warpedskydiver 0]

NOTE..did anyone notice the part about China???? In no friggin way can ANYONE claim a Communist Party Memeber in China could even be considered anywhere near being a "LIBERAL"

So all you rigid anal retentive Ultra Right Hand boys can take your " Leftie Liberal" labels and shove em where the sun dont shine.

[Amazon 7]

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Who is whining now?

Waaa waa waaa



FISH ON



BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[skydyvr 0]

Welcome to Cred Zero.

. . =(_8^(1)

[warpedskydiver 0]

I was merely pointing out the hipocracy in your statement...but I am sure you are used to that

[Michele 1]

So, now the argument is between free will and personalities.

Jeannie, I see many people I knew as children who were whiny, spoiled, brats - trust fund babies, too...and who vote the democratic ticket. Similarly, I know many quiet, non-demanding, poor kids who grew up to vote the republican ticket.

I'd like to see what passes for science in this study; this would take more than a brief "talk study" to determine; more likely a 40 year study following a huge number of kids, who were followed from birth through several serious election cycles, with a measurement of maturation of ideas and positions occuring along the way. At this point, I'd say that the study was flawed, and not really indicative of much else other than the studier's personal observations.

Ciels-
Michele

edited to clarify a sentence.

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[Amazon 7]

Wow... Another one...


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


2 of the 6 usual suspects.. I wonder when the rest of your crew will show up....

[gemini 0]

I'll bet there is almost to much bias in the "sample" to derive a valid conclusion. Not only is Berkley liberal, but the community is liberal, and the state as a whole is pretty liberal.

Kids growing up under those circumstances will probably be more liberal too. Especially considering the peer pressure to be "normal" as discussed in another thread. Normal will be more liberal. Abnormal will be conservative.

Hence the whiney, withdrawn kids may be the conservative kids while the popular, outgoing, successful kids will be the liberal kids.

Remember the teacher who told her class that brown eyed kids were inferior to blue eyed kids. The performance of the brown eyed kids went down measurably. Then after some time, she said she had made a mistake and the brown eyed kids were actually superior to the blue eyed kids. Brown eyed kids performance went back up and the blued eyed kids went down because one group was supposed to be better than the other.

I wouldn't trust the professor's conclusions in this one at all. But hey, that's just my personal opinion.

Blue skies,

Jim

[Amazon 7]

Oh so its just another one of those vast liberal left wing conspiracies to make conservatives feel bad about themselves.....

[gemini 0]

Nope, just a biased sample. It is difficult to get an unbiased sample most of the time.

Why did you immediately go to "conspiracy"?

Gotcha' Your bias is showing.

Blue skies,

Jim

[Amazon 7]

Ever been to Berkeley????


I think you would find quite a few people there( other than at the UC) that would identify as conservatives, especialy in the Hills.

[gemini 0]

Yep been there and have friends who went to school there. Are you saying I ummmhhh don't know what I'm talking about or somethin'? Come on spit it out.

Blue skies,

Jim

[Amazon 7]

See your bias is from UCB types....I sure seemed to run into a whole lot of sailing peeps in that area who were certainly not what I would consider to be lefties or even liberal when I used to go down there to play with some friends on thier boat.

Maybe that was just the environment I was in there.. Yacht clubs are not known for being a hotbed of liberal thinking.

[champu 1]

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Ever been to Berkeley?

I think you would find quite a few people there (other than at the UC) that would identify as conservatives, especially in the Hills.

Yes, and besides, this finding is backed up by an earlier independent study conducted all the way on the other side of...

...the bay...

In other news, insecure, defensive, and rigid liberals use Professor Block's new study as ammunition in an ongoing senseless battle over ideologies with insecure, defensive, and rigid conservatives.

Meanwhile confident, resilient, and self-reliant liberals and conservatives go about their lives unaffected, save a few good laughs.

[Amazon 7]

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Meanwhile confident, resilient, and self-reliant liberals and conservatives go about their lives unaffected, save a few good laughs.

[jenfly00 0]

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At this point, I'd say that the study was flawed, and not really indicative of much else other than the studier's personal observations.

You've reached this conclusion based on ...? Do you have experience in academic or scientific research?

-----------------------
"O brave new world that has such people in it".

[happythoughts 0]

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The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.

Self-reliant liberals... hmmmm...

So, the homeless are probably... conservatives?
Most welfare recipients are... conservatives?

Who'd a thunk it ?

[kallend 2,182]

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Quote

At this point, I'd say that the study was flawed, and not really indicative of much else other than the studier's personal observations.

You've reached this conclusion based on ...? Do you have experience in academic or scientific research?

I was wondering the same. It's a longitudinal study, basically the same methodology used to determine the health impact of diet, exercise, use of "the pill", HRT, etc. Pretty standard stuff. If there's any fault to be found it's as Gemini suggested: people extrapolating Berkeley's results to anywhere else (which the authors themselves did NOT do, I understand).

Interesting - would like to see the same study done with a more geographically diverse sample.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 3,132]

Definitely hits the top 10 of silly posts here. I bet the next one is that most criminals are democrats or something.

[Michele 1]

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You've reached this conclusion based on ...? Do you have experience in academic or scientific research?

I gave an opinion.

BTW, are you stalking me?

Ciels-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[Amazon 7]

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I bet the next one is that most criminals are democrats or something.

Based on the rates of recidivism, I would doubt that MOST criminals would not be eligible to vote.. what with that whole voting rights gone after a felony in most places

[Tink1717 2]

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...most criminals are democrats or something.

Um, most political criminal ARE democrats. At least for the last ten years.

Skydivers don't knock on Death's door. They ring the bell and runaway... It really pisses him off.
-The World Famous Tink. (I never heard of you either!!)
AA #2069 ASA#33 POPS#8808 Swooo 1717

[billvon 3,132]

>Um, most political criminal ARE democrats.

Cool! Almost missed your cue, though.

[rehmwa 2]

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>Um, most political criminal ARE democrats.
Cool! Almost missed your cue, though.

So anyway, Jane is watching TV when her husband, Rick, walks into the living room with a sheep.

Rick says, "See? This is the pig I have to screw when you're not in the mood."

Jane notes, "that's not a pig, that's a sheep"

Rick, "Quiet you, I'm talking to my sheep"

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[miked10270 0]

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So anyway, Jane is watching TV when her husband, Rick, walks into the living room with a sheep.

Rick says, "See? This is the pig I have to screw when you're not in the mood."

Jane notes, "that's not a pig, that's a sheep"

Rick, "Quiet you, I'm talking to my sheep"

Good move.

Let's all swap jokes while Amazon goes & gets her car washed...

Mike.

Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable.

Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.