Liberal? Conservative? Stanford study says mental nudge can make voters flip-flop

July 2, 2009 BY ADAM GORLICK
Liberal? Conservative? Stanford study says mental nudge can make voters flip-flop

Enlarge

Christopher Bryan, a postdoctoral scholar in psychology

(PhysOrg.com) -- No doubt you’ve worked hard for your success. But chances are you’ve also had some help and lucky breaks along the way.

So are you more likely to vote for conservative or liberal politicians and causes?

A group of Stanford psychologists say most people can be swayed toward either the right or left depending on whether they’re prompted to think about the payoff of their own hard work or the good fortune that has smiled upon them.

When they’re asked to focus on the qualities of self-reliance and hard work, they’re more likely to express conservative viewpoints. And when they zero in on things like luck and opportunity, they come out more liberal.

It turns out some voters can flip-flop just as fast as any politician. All they need is a little push.

The reason, the researchers say in a paper posted online and slated for publication in the , is that most Americans can see both sides of an issue and understand that a combination of hard work and good fortune play important roles in success.

“Whether they identify themselves as liberal or conservative, many people are capable and perfectly willing to share the perspective of the other side,” said Christopher Bryan, a postdoctoral scholar in psychology who spearheaded the study. “It’s just a matter of prompting them to do so.”

In one experiment, Bryan and his fellow researchers had a group of Stanford students write short essays about how hard work, self-discipline and wise decisions helped get them into the university. Another group was told to write about the roles that chance, opportunity and help from others played in their admission.

After the two groups were prompted to think in those terms, they filled out a questionnaire gauging their opinions on welfare, education, taxes, health care, and and . Those whose essays focused on personal merit ranked more conservatively than the students who wrote about the benefits of good fortune.

A second experiment reached the same conclusion.

Although the findings don’t show that people can be pushed in a lasting manner from one end of the political spectrum to the other, the study indicates most people are flexible when thinking about social issues. And it shows how even a temporary change in mindset can make a big difference when a voter heads to the polls.

Consider a ballot measure asking for an expansion of welfare benefits. If a voter is thinking about the important role of good fortune and help from others in most people’s lives, he’s more likely to see the measure as legitimate, the findings suggest.

But present that issue to the same voter when he is thinking about the value of hard work and self-reliance and he is likely to feel differently.

“The way people think about issues at any given moment is a function of what’s salient to them in that moment,” Bryan said. “Most people realize that political attitudes change over a long period of time, but there hasn’t been as much acknowledgement in conventional wisdom or in psychology that people’s political views can change from moment to moment. But they do.”

Provided by Stanford University (news : web)

Filter


Move the slider to adjust rank threshold, so that you can hide some of the comments.


Display comments: newest first

Gammakozy
Jul 03, 2009

Rank: 2 / 5 (4)
Nothing surprising about the results - merely another validation of the effects of cognitive dissonance. What I find interesting, however, is what characeristics are viewed by the author as opposite equivalents. Pitting hard work, self-discipline and wise decisions against chance, opportunity and help from others is not a design of balanced opposites. As charitable donation statistics
consistently demonstrate, conservatives as a group appreciate their good fortune and are eager to help those who have less or have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own. What they find hard to tolerate is when individuals refuse to even try to help themselves but instead expect the government (meaning taxpayers) to look after them and/or refuse to take personal responsibility for their actions.

So the properly balanced conservative vs. liberal paradigm should be:

CONSERVATIVE: Hard work, Self-Discipline and Wise Decisions vs.
LIBERAL: Laziness, Irresponsibility and Stupidity.

Now that would make for an interesting, and telling study.
VOR
Jul 03, 2009

Rank: 3 / 5 (2)
azzhole. Conservative: Intolerant (racially, sexually, gay rights etc), paranoid (war-monger), hypocritical, selfish, pro-rich, incapable of empathy. They think people with health problems or without access to quality education 'just arent trying hard enough'.What an incredibly ignorant attitude. And then there is the ignorant righteousness of pro-life. For many years, the more corrupt and hypocritical party. Liberal: community minded (best-for-country, not just the rich), pro-education, pro-healthcare.
tamago
Jul 03, 2009

Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
From the Anti-Defamation League:



White supremacists and neo-Nazi hate groups plan to take advantage of the anti-tax "Tea Parties" set to occur in more than 1,000 cities and localities over the July 4 holiday weekend to disseminate racist fliers and other materials and attempt to recruit others to their cause, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).



ADL's Center on Extremism, which monitors extremist groups and provides information to law enforcement and the public, has released information on its Web site describing the attempt by white supremacists to co-opt the anti-tax message of the events as a means to spread racism and anti-Semitism.



On Stormfront, the most popular white supremacist Internet forum, members have discussed becoming local organizers of the "Tea Parties" and finding ways to involve themselves in the events. Many racists have voiced their intent to attend these rallies for the purpose of cultivating an "organized grassroots White mass movement," with some suggesting that they would do so without openly identifying themselves as racists.
rue
Jul 04, 2009

Rank: 3 / 5 (1)
It is frustrating to see the Liberal point of view repeatedly misrepresented by so called conservatives (see Gammakozy for example). Liberals are not for giving free rides to anyone. Liberals support a strong educational system to give everyone a chance. Liberals support full employment, and that every job should deserve a living wage. Even the most menial jobs must be done by somebody. Liberals do not support giving advantages to the wealthy and well connected through the tax code or unreasonable salary contracts, nor through their ability to buy high powered lobbyists. Furthermore, liberals are opposed to the development of and continuation of an aristocracy which is one thing our war for independence was about. Liberals believe that we each have a responsibility not only to ourselves but to the society which makes a good life possible.
Rank 4 /5 (7 votes)
Relevant PhysicsForums posts
  • The Biggest Lie Ever
    created6 hours ago
  • What are the limits of learning?
    createdFeb 06, 2012
  • Isn't that grammatically wrong?
    createdFeb 06, 2012
  • What does it mean when traders are indifferent?
    createdFeb 04, 2012
  • Peak of Our Civilization
    createdFeb 04, 2012
  • bonds and YTM
    createdFeb 03, 2012
  • More from Physics Forums - Social Sciences

More news stories

Prague gets hold of modern genetics founder Mendel's papers

Germany has handed to the Czech Republic a manuscript of Johann Gregor Mendel, founder of modern genetics, on his plant hybridization experiments, the Czech foreign minister said Thursday.

Other Sciences / Other

created 3 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

US workers are 'giving away the store,' costing firms billions

Nearly 70 percent of the nation's service employees give away free goods and services – from hamburgers to cable TV – costing companies billions of dollars a year, according to a groundbreaking study.

Other Sciences / Economics & Business

created 6 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 6

Storm warning: Financial tsunami heading this way

In today's global village, national coffers are more interconnected than ever before. And as the current economic crisis has proven, a downturn in one country can travel in a wave across the globe, like a financial tsunami. ...

Other Sciences / Economics & Business

created 7 hours ago | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 5

'Flipped classroom' teaching model gains an online community

Researchers at Harvard University have launched the Peer Instruction (PI) Network, a new global social network for users of interactive teaching methods.

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created 7 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Kids show cultural gender bias

(PhysOrg.com) -- Talk about gender confusion! A recent study by University of Alberta researchers Elena Nicoladis and Cassandra Foursha-Stevenson in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology into whether speaki ...

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created 12 hours ago | popularity 2 / 5 (1) | comments 2


'Dark plasmons' transmit energy

Microscopic channels of gold nanoparticles have the ability to transmit electromagnetic energy that starts as light and propagates via "dark plasmons," according to researchers at Rice University.

Ultraviolet protection molecule in plants yields its secrets

Lying around in the sun all day is hazardous not just for humans but also for plants, which have no means of escape. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun can damage proteins and DNA inside cells, leading ...

Anyone can learn to be more inventive, cognitive researcher says

There will always be a wild and unpredictable quality to creativity and invention, says Anthony McCaffrey, a cognitive psychology researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, because an "Aha moment" is rare and ...

Hydrogen from acidic water: Researchers develop potential low cost alternative to platinum for splitting water

A technique for creating a new molecule that structurally and chemically replicates the active part of the widely used industrial catalyst molybdenite has been developed by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley ...

FDA-approved drug rapidly clears amyloid from the brain, reverses Alzheimer's symptoms in mice

Neuroscientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have made a dramatic breakthrough in their efforts to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. The researchers' findings, published in the journal Science, show t ...

New method makes culture of complex tissue possible in any lab

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have developed a new method for making scaffolds for culturing tissue in three-dimensional arrangements that mimic those in the body. This advance, published online in ...