Does conflict avoidance underlie disproportionate liberal support of civility?

23Nov/10

Does conflict avoidance underlie disproportionate liberal support of civility?

I recently attended a lecture by Vivian Schiller, the CEO of NPR, where an audience member asked her insights about Roger Ailes' recent assertion (Ailes is CEO of Fox News) that NPR executives "are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view." Schiller's response was that she really had no idea where that came from, and could be perceived as conflict avoidant, in that she had an opportunity to reciprocate an allegation and did not. NPR (unlike MSNBC) doesn't appear to seek conflict with Fox News, and its "no rant, no slant" slogan would seem to differentiate itself consciously from partisanship. Similarly, Jon Stewart has sought to promote civility in a consciously non-partisan fashion, yet has drawn a lot of criticism for appealing to a disproportionately liberal audience. NPR's audience is a bit more balanced, but still with a slight liberal lean.

Some question the motivations of NPR executives or Stewart based on their audience, but what if something more basic is going on. Perhaps the concept of non-partisanship, conflict avoidance, and compromise is inherently appealing to liberal sensibilities. This can be framed as both a positive or negative trait, as being extremely conflict avoidant could relate to appeasing one's enemies or being a moral relativist. Some in the press have observed that "An endorsement of civility and reason is basically an endorsement of Barack Obama. 'Reason and civility' are practically the Democratic party's platform." Perhaps anyone with the motivation to promote reason and civility in politics would necessarily attract a liberal audience, regardless of how truly non-partisan one intended to be.

What psychological traits might relate to being conflict avoidant? The most obvious trait is Agreeableness, one of the Big Five dimensions of personality, depicted in the below graph of yourmorals.org data. As you can see, liberals do score slightly higher on measures of Agreeableness, which includes questions like not finding "fault with others" and being "generally trusting".

The effect size is fairly small though, so it might help to find some convergent evidence. I did find this paper, where a nationally representative sample was asked if people "try to avoid getting into political discussions because they can be unpleasant, whether they enjoy discussing politics even though it sometimes leads to arguments, or whether they are somewhere in between." There was a small, but significant correlation (r=.07) between being conflict tolerant and being Republican and a smaller, but insignificant correlation (r=.03) between being conflict avoidant and being a Democrat. This paper cites 6 instances where Agreeableness is negatively linked to conservativism, but also 2 instances where it is positively linked. It seems like there may be a link between being agreeable overall and being liberal (again, with both positive and negative connotations), but the link is certainly weaker than other effects (e.g. openness to experience or conscientiousness). Perhaps whatever effect exists due to differences in Agreeableness may be magnified by lower liberal perceptions of ingroup/outgroup distinctions, leading to reduced willingness to engage in conflict with out-groups, as conservatives have heightened concerns about constructs like group loyalty.

So far the data I have and research I've looked at doesn't yet paint a decisive picture as to why liberals disproportionately seem to rally around civility. I need to do more research on this and would welcome ideas that might yield cleaner data. Perhaps conservative critics are correct and the problem is the source of the message, but there does appear to be some intrinsic psychological mechanism at work that makes Fox News popular with conservatives, while liberals prefer an ostensibly neutral NPR to a more obviously partisan MSNBC.

- Ravi Iyer

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Tagged as: civility, jon stewart, partisanship Leave a comment

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wreaver
November 23rd, 2010 - 16:56

@Ravi said,
“So far the data I have and research I’ve looked at doesn’t yet paint a decisive picture as to why liberals disproportionately seem to rally around civility.”

Just a guess…. It is my impression that many liberals consider hurting someone else’s feelings as being immoral.[1] Perhaps liberals perceive a “non-civil” discussion/debate as potentially hurting someone’s feelings, and thus this drive for civility could be an attempt to stop or minimize this kind of immorality.

[1] Note, I’m speaking as a non-liberal, so I could be mistaken about this. I’ve tried to understand liberal morality, but obviously I’m someone from the outside looking in.
Benjamin David Steele
November 26th, 2010 - 17:11

I would connect this two pieces of data.

First, data shows Democrats tend to support the government more than Republicans whether or not they are in power. Supposedly, Democrats showed as much support for Reagan as they now do for Obama. Republicans tend to only show strong support for Republican administrations. Also, recent studies have shown bipartisanship is more popular with Democrats. If someone only trusts the government when their own group is in power and dislikes bipartisanship, civility would seem pointless and possibly dangerous.

Second, liberals tend to be thin boundary types. This means they tend to feel less separation from others and so feel more empathy. If you identify/empathize with someone, civility will be a natural response. This is also why to liberals the suffering of the poor and needy is a visceral reality. They actually feel it as part of their experience. To a thick boundary conservative, data about the poor and needy has less visceral reality and so demands less visceral response. If you don’t identify/empathize with those who are different than you, then there would be less psychological motivation to act with civility.
66Scorpio
February 20th, 2011 - 15:25

The general sense among right wingers is that when left wingers attempt “conflict avoidance” it is a lop-sided tool to shut down debate and leave themselves as the de facto victor of the culture wars.

Disagree with global warming? Nope, sorry, there is a “consensus” so that is the end of the discussion.

Right wing talk radio? Nope, sorry, we need the “Fairness Doctrine” (but not in television or Hollywood movies).

Don’t like Ann Coulter (here in Canada)? Let’s shut her down so she can’t have a chance to engage her critics because she is “hateful”.

Discussions of Islam are touchy? Let’s shut down the discussion by putting controversial people on trial (Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant, Geert Wilders, etc).

Gay rights? Multiple court challenges and multiple losses until there is a win, but then it is expected that conservatives will give up, roll over, or move on. Pass a referendum in a popular vote and the liberals are back in court to invalidate the results.

Here in Canada the CRTC (basically like the FCC) loosens the regulations on false or misleading news. Immediately, two left wing politicians are all over the decision saying it will lead to hateful and mendacious broadcasts like Fox News and talk radio (ie. right wing opinions are by definition hateful or lies).

Public polls in Canada find that approximately equal numbers describe themselves as pro-choice and pro-life but about 2/3rds thinks there should be some sort of regulation governing abortion. But there is no regulation whatsoever, and further polls revealed that a large majority are unaware of this. Meanwhile, the prevailing mood is that the abortion debate should not be reopened. Why? Because prochoicers would lose.

Similarly, while some opinion polls show approximately equal numbers in favour of gay marriage, when given the option of domestic partnerships, support drops to 1/3rd. The Liberal government refuses to appeal a court decision mandating gay marriage and instead passes laws allowing it. Then the Conservative government calls for a vote on whether to re-open the gay marriage debate and it is voted down by a coalition of left wing parties. Case closed.

There are calls for more bipartisanship from the left and when there isn’t, the Democrats blame the Republicans even though the Dems themselves voted en bloc as well.

Having unionists swarm the Wisconsin legislature shut down the debate, but there is no reasonable way you could say they were avoiding conflict based on some sort of benevolent principle.

So cynics are skeptical that liberal calls for “civility” are anything else but code for “shut up and do what Obama says”.
Ravi
February 21st, 2011 - 12:42

Those are fair points. I don’t think civility means not disagreeing or bipartisanship. Rather, it means not demonizing the other side. It should never mean forcing the other side to agree on policy. Right now, both sides demonize. As a liberal, I would say that there is something inherently anti-liberal in demonization of opposing sides, so I’m especially interested in getting liberals to stop demonizing conservatives.