In Cecil’s article Are blue states smarter than red states?, the Master states:
[underlining mine]
I’m not a conservative myself, but I absolutely hate ambiguity. For example, it riles me that there are no less than four meanings of “ounce” (ounces avoirdupois, ounces troy, U.S. fluid ounces, and Imperial fluid ounces). If you ask me for “an ounce of water”, which ounce do you mean, dog gone it?!?!!!
So, what does wanting someone to be clear and unambiguous have to do with voting Republican?
Cecil said conservatives are intolerant of ambiguity; he didn’t say all those who are intolerant of ambiguity were conservatives.
If I may generalize about conservatives (not being one), they want things provable, quantifiable and settled. They prefer facts to ideas, outcomes to processes, and decision to debate. They may recognize shades of gray on any issue, but the ultimate hoped-for state of things is black and white.
Well, they like them settled, but they have very low standards of proof and quantifiability. They will settle for pretty much any explanation that fits their pre-existing ideology.
I didn’t interpret the SD column as Cecil opining that, “Conservatives are characterized by dogmatism, intolerance of ambiguity, low openness to experience, anxiety, and fear.” It appears he was paraphrasing part of a paragraph from the article* he cited by Stankov (NOTE: .pdf). The ambiguity arises from his having sandwiched his paraphrasing between two snarky opinions. To wit, “…which I suppose is something like Down syndrome.” and “In other words, if you’re conservative, you shouldn’t be voting, you need to see a shrink.”
Next, not all voters who self-identify as “Republican” are conservatives. Finally, not all voters who self-identify as “conservative” vote Republican. Some vote Independent, some vote Tea Party, some vote for candidates espousing nationalistic platforms (or even, sadly, racist ones).
I’d think wanting to categorize everything as either “good” or “bad” (i.e. black-and-white) would be an entirely different notion than being “intolerant of ambiguity.”
I think it’s fairly clear that he isn’t demeaning Conservatives, he’s reporting how Stankov’s research “characterizes” Conservatives. He obviously doesn’t think being a Conservative is like having Down syndrome or that Conservatives shouldn’t vote.
Unfortunately, the word “ambiguity” is ambiguous. (In fact, the ambiguity of “ambiguity” is itself ambiguous. Even the OED defines the word as having reference only to language, but “ambiguous” is defined far more broadly, and it were absurd to maintain that “ambiguity” can refer to only some species of the ambiguous.)
In short, the phrase “intolerance of ambiguity” is being used here to mean intolerance of all situations and substances that are neither black nor white, the view that looks at skew lines from one angle and proclaims that they self-evidently intersect.
Well, of course, the Earth is flat. I mean, just look at it! Besides, if it were round, we’d all fall off unless we were standing on the North Pole.
That logic is unassailable. But you are in California so an ounce of water is measured in US fluid ounces, as determined by the Office of Weights and Measures. You can’t argue with them. They’re Feds.
There are many leaps being made regarding alleged “conservative syndrome”. And not just by Cecil.
To start, neither Stankov nor Jost et al. claim that “Conservatives are characterized by dogmatism, intolerance of ambiguity, low openness to experience, anxiety, and fear.”
To back up further, we are dealing with an amateur analysis of a second-hand review of a meta-analysis, which itself is based on compiling data from multiple primary sources, and does not itself provide any original data.
This is not a good way to deal with a complex topic.
So, Stankov. Stankov uses weasel words to induce readers to arrive at an unwarranted conclusion. Stankov claims that Jost et al’s research “suggest that it is time to re-examine the links between political conservatism and a host of individual difference variables.” (p.1, italics mine) Ok, we have a suggestion.
Stankov goes on to say that “a constellation of these individual variables may be called Conservative syndrome.” (p.1, first italics mine). Ok, they may. If you’re trying to be misleading.
A syndrome is not “a constellation of individual variables” as studied in personality and social psychology. It is a clinical/medical term. It refers to a set of symptoms that patients present with that are frequently correlated with each other, for which no organic cause is known (e.g. neurotransmitter imbalance, bitten by a rabid dog, crushed under a shipping crate). A syndrome in an individual is not diagnosed unless the person seeks clinical attention because the symptoms they are experiencing are negatively impacting their lives strongly enough to get them to seek professional assistance, or allow the use of force to make them do it.
So Stankov hints slyly at making political conservatism a mental health problem and Cecil bites at it, by comparing it to Down syndrome. But this research is being done on mostly college students, and other people from the general population, not from people seeking professional assistance. It is not a syndrome. And Stankov lacks the relevant knowledge with regard to clinical diagnostics, or he’s trying to medicalize political conservatism for his own agenda.
And this is the root of the problem with the discussion here- relying on multiple paraphrasings and distortions of research, and then deciding that these paraphrasings and distortions are of limited use because they are ambiguous. Of course they’re ambiguous - no one is looking at the actual analyses.
If you want to know what is meant by “intolerance of ambiguity” Jost et al discuss some of the ways that some of the studies used in their analyses to operationally define “intolerance of ambiguity” (p. 353).
With regard to their findings, Jost et al are much more reticent than Stankov, pointing out that “there is a strong need to go beyond purely correlational research designs, which limited the validity of the earlier personality research on authoritarianism, dogmatism, and the origins of political ideology and contributed to its eventual obscurity” (p. 367) and go on to question whether “psychological motives cause the adoption of specific ideological beliefs concerning resistance to change and support for inequality, or do these ideological commitments carry with them psychological consequences, or both? Our review has presented consistent correlational evidence linking the psychological and the political…but direct causal investigations are needed in the future to substantiate the particulars of our theoretical perspective.” (p. 368)
In brief, cause and effect relationships are unknown at this time.
And importantly, unlike Stankov, Jost et al do not claim that conservatism is a “syndrome” but are examining it as an expression of motivated cognition - a tendency to seek evidence and draw conclusions that serve your psychological interests (or economic, etc.). They point out that “conservative ideologies, like virtually all belief systems are adopted in part to satisfy various psychological needs. To say that ideological belief systems have a strong motivational basis is not to say that they are unprincipled, unwarranted, or unresponsive to reason or evidence.” (p. 369).
So, to sum up:
Conservatism is not a mental health syndrome. It is a correlated pattern of thought, just like every other ideology.
Conservatives are motivated to find evidence of their beliefs, and so are everybody else. For example, many liberal minded people inflated the strength and completeness of the research analyzed by Jost et al to provide evidence to justify their beliefs that conservatives are not as smart as they are (both meanings of “they” intended).
If you want to know what an ambiguous term means, look at what is said in the source of the ambiguous term for clarification. Batting it around without reading the primary source is just going to make things more ambiguous. Looking into how the ambiguous term was operationalized for the research will provide assistance, but it may also make you decide that the data set is irrelevant due to the measurement method used. For example, you may wonder why Stankov coded questions relating being accepting of the paranormal and mystical as evidence of conservatism, rather than evidence against conservatism (p. 303). Sound like these people are accepting ambiguous phenomena and open to new experiences.
Correlation is not causation. And correlations vary in strength (aka effect size). And this strength is generally measured by statistically averaging results over a number of individuals, or a number of data sets. So all that can be concluded is that conservatives as a group have a greater tendency to exhibit certain beliefs than non-conservatives. It doesn’t mean they all do.
It is difficult for non-psychologists to know these types of things, but Jost et al are far more highly respected researchers and are at much better universities than Stankov the Syndrome-Maker. And Psychological Bulletin is one of the most highly respected journals in the field. Intelligence, not so much.
Finally, why should you care what I have to say?
Because I have conducted some of the relatively few experimental studies of authoritarianism (p. 362-3 in Jost et al) though I am not so comfortable with Jost et al deciding that measurements of authoritarianism are essentially measurements of conservatism.
I have also worked extensively on the nature and validity of the mental health diagnostic process in general and on the abilities of specific mental health care providers, and know what kind of evidence is necessary to determine that a syndrome exists in either an individual or in the general population (unpublished private consulting work).
I guess it’s a throwback to Mark 9:23. If one has an unwavering fealty to the Pope, one is supposed to believe that he’s literally capable of exorcising demons that cause poor behaviour for example.
I’d agree that such coding would be flawed though, there was an illustrative quotation that I lost about how one is capable of believing in anything if one believes nothing.
As for whether conservatism should be considered separately from authoritarianism, I’m unsure as to whether the distinction is necessary. I suppose it’s a political question, where the dichotomy in most industrial countries is between state conservatism and state progressivism. While it’s true one could be an authoritarian progressive (perhaps classifying various types of speech as hate-speech would be an example), I’d say that both stateless and state conservatism would be quite authoritarian, given that stateless conservatism would indicate that one has to be obedient to market principles.
In the study “Conservatism, Dogmatism and Authoritarianism in British Police Officers” by Colman and Gorman (1982) the terms are used essentially interchangeably. Authoritarianism is to be expected though, since the police force is a (gasp!) socialised branch of the public sector rather than the mercenary group of a stateless conservative society. Their conservatism was to be demonstrated.
Your final statements struck me as (appropriately) an appeal to authority. I think your post was excellent and informative and while I appreciate that your work on the subject has led you to the knowledge that you’ve shared with us, it would have been a great post independent of that fact.
Or numbers. They like numbers. Even wrong ones.
gamerunknown, I am not sure exactly what portions of what I said at the end were considered to be part of an appeal to authority, but indications of authority are considered highly useful in the disciplines I’ve worked in, so I’m not sure what point would be served by leaving them out (which seems to be what you are implying should have been done). But the terms “expert” and “expertise” are preferred, as “authority” tends to imply binding decision-making power.
One of the first things that would be mentioned about new scientific research when introducing it to other scientists would be the names of the authors and the journal published in. These are essentially indicators of quality control- how much experience with the subject do the authors have, how well-founded have their past claims been, how strict is peer review for the journal, and what is the acceptance rates for submissions. Same with university- to get a job at the psychology department at Stanford or U Cal Berkeley is very difficult compared to many other places.
So this is why some of the most prominent information in a published research paper is the names of the authors and their organizational affiliations. And why the research is referred to as “Jost et al. (2003)” rather than by the running head on the pages of the article (Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition).
And with regard to my own statement of qualifications, this would be expected in the second area I’ve worked in- law. If I were to be presented as someone to provide information about a specific area of expertise, from neurosurgery to plumbing, the first questions would be along the lines of “why are you qualified to speak on these topics?” Which would be based on my past experience with the subject matter. And if these were found wanting, I would not be permitted to speak on the subject. (if I were discussing a topic with other psychologists, we would already know who each other was, or go through a brief exchange along the lines of “wrote that paper about X in journal Y”)
Expertise and experience are important factors when evaluating claims.
And we are discussing this in a forum that exists because people believe that Cecil has the authority to make intelligent statements on just about anything, based on our past experience with Cecil’s statements, and Cecil’s claim to be the “World’s Smartest Human”.
Do conservatives hate ambiguity? Maybe.
All this discussion about authoritarianism and not one mention of Bob Altemeyer’s book (PDF) on the subject?
A couple excepts from the first chapter:
I call these followers *right-*wing authoritarians. I’m using the word “right” in one of its earliest meanings, for in
Old English “riht”(pronounced “writ”) as an adjective meant lawful, proper, correct,
doing what the authorities said.
In North America people who submit to the established authorities to
extraordinary degrees often turn out to be political conservatives, so you can call
them “right-wingers” both in my new-fangled psychological sense and in the usual
political sense as well. But someone who lived in a country long ruled by Communists
and who ardently supported the Communist Party would also be one of my
psychological right-wing authoritarians even though we would also say he was a
political left-winger. So a right-wing authoritarian follower doesn’t necessarily have
conservative political views. Instead he’s someone who readily submits to the
established authorities in society, attacks others in their name, and is highly
conventional. It’s an aspect of his personality, not a description of his politics.
The degree of tolerance or intolerance of ambiguity was one of the cultural markers devised by the Dutch sociologist, Geert Hofstede. Think of it as a continuum, with “high tolerance” at one end and “high intolerance” at the other, and individuals tend to come out at some point along the continuum (which can vary slightly by circumstances.) For example, the Japanese as a group tend to have high level of intolerance of ambiguity/uncertainty, while the Brits and Swedes tend to have a high level of tolerance.
The underlying assumption is that these cultural traits are TAUGHT, passed on from parent and social norms to children over generations. It would not therefore be surprising that political views might be related to these cultural traits.
Who the hell has ever asked for an ounce of water?
Reminds me of Isaiah Berlin’s work on politics. He distinguishes between foxes and hedgehogs, between the open-minded and the ideologue. There are plenty of people on the left who are totally intolerant of ambiguity: I’ve spoken with more than one lefty in my political circles who is convinced that No Child Left Behind is a deliberate plot to destroy public education, which is a totally insane idea but one that supports a general thesis of Republicans=Evil. And there are plenty of Republicans who basically say that the world is too complicated to be left to the control of a central bureaucracy, whose discomfort with simple answers extends to a generalized mistrust of government.
I’m definitely pretty far to the left, but I’d far rather talk with a self-questioning conservative than with a zealous liberal.