Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/29/AR2006012900642_pf.html

Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases

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


<snip>
Emory University psychologist Drew Westen put self-identified Democratic and Republican partisans in brain scanners and asked them to evaluate negative information about various candidates. Both groups were quick to spot inconsistency and hypocrisy -- but only in candidates they opposed.

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.

"What automatic biases reveal is that while we have the feeling we are living up to our values, that feeling may not be right," said University of Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek, who helped conduct the race analysis. "We are not aware of everything that causes our behavior, even things in our own lives."

Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said he disagreed with the study's conclusions but that it was difficult to offer a detailed critique, as the research had not yet been published and he could not review the methodology. He also questioned whether the researchers themselves had implicit biases -- against Republicans -- noting that Nosek and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji had given campaign contributions to Democrats.

..more..

(and no doubt my 'bias' determined which paragraphs I picked) :-)

(and no doubt my 'bias' determined which paragraphs I picked)

...Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said he disagreed with the study's conclusions but that it was difficult to offer a detailed critique, as the research had not yet been published and he could not review the methodology. He also questioned whether the researchers themselves had implicit biases -- against Republicans -- noting that Nosek and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji had given campaign contributions to Democrats.

<snip>

"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."

The interesting thing is that many of those people who may be "taken aback" by this information are "taken aback" because of the very way their brain has been dealing with unwelcome information.

I've certainly seen the part about rejecting unpalatable information at work on both sides of the American political aisle.

What really gave me room for further thought was this:

<snip>

For their study, Nosek, Banaji and social psychologist Erik Thompson culled self-acknowledged views about blacks from nearly 130,000 whites, who volunteered online to participate in a widely used test of racial bias that measures the speed of people's associations between black or white faces and positive or negative words. The researchers examined correlations between explicit and implicit attitudes and voting behavior in all 435 congressional districts.

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.

I'm thinking about the people I know, in contrast with the images the media helps brand in people's psyche. The people I know don't match those images, yet they still lurk in there somewhere, apparently.

and when we consider how much time the average American has spent taking in images from TV news, movies etc. it becomes plain how deep those images become embedded in our brains.

I think the whole Katrina situation and reactions should be studied in this light. A lot was revealed by this tragedy.

which IMO, is just as entrenched as racism.

Perhaps even more so. There is an interconnecting relationship between racism and classism. I'd like to know if the study looked at differences between classes. When the dark skin is attached to a "middle class" or higher looking person, do positive associations come faster?

Sexism, as far as I can see, crosses class barriers without a hitch.

Democrats or Liberals in general will be much quicker to call out their own candidate than Republicans.
You will see liberals being critical of liberals where you don't see that with the right wing.

If this were not true, how would you explain republicans ever win an election past stealing it?

They pretty consistantly argue that liberals give their own guys a pass and they are tough on their guys. And then they will point to a Trent Lott or Newt Gingrich and suggest that he proves that they are tough on their guys.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

that don't support their agenda. Though the FOX people and their listeners, Rush and his listeners seem less inclined. Just my own take though, because I don't pay that much attention to those folks.

as he his propagating their agenda.

Lott was dropped at least as much because they felt he was a weak leader as his racist comments.

It was funny during that period watching them pretend that Democrats were hounding him from office, when they clearly had their knives out well before Democrats did (truthfully, had they stuck by him, I doubt we would have had the political will to oust him).

Bryant

In fact, this is one of my "big" questions that I am having trouble answering. Is the propensity of liberals to call out our own a strength or a weakness? I believe it is our strength. However, my wife believes it to be a weakness. I must say that the current political climate makes it more likely that I will be supportive of democratic politicians --- even those with whom I have sharp disagreements with.

What would happen if the media emphasized this part of the story? (I know they won't ... I'm just fantasizing. :evilgrin: )

......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.

Jon Krosnick, a psychologist and political scientist at Stanford University, who independently assessed the studies, said it remains to be seen how significant the correlation is between racial bias and political affiliation.

For example, he said, the study could not tell whether racial bias was a better predictor of voting preference than, say, policy preferences on gun control or abortion. But while those issues would be addressed in subsequent studies -- Krosnick plans to get random groups of future voters to take the psychological tests and discuss their policy preferences -- he said the basic correlation was not in doubt.

"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."

I'm glad people have looked into this further. Not so I can point my finger at Rs and say "racist!" but because racism tears apart our our society, our communities.

It is also worth noting that "liberal" implies tolerance.
The sort of person who thinks of themselves as liberal has often at least tried to get beyond the cultural racism we are all exposed to.
Not that they necessarily have overcome it, but one has to at least attempt to take a first step. The danger I think for us is that we may feel we are already 'there' without examining ourselves more closely.
Racism remains a tremendous problem and challenge for Americans (and for the rest of the world also!)

Republican are what are known as "closet racists". They hide their predjudices because it's the "politically correct" thing to do for them.