A Politics & Moral Psychology Blog Exploring Political Attitudes Through Moral Psychology

10Feb/1115

Can liberal academics study conservative ideology?

Recently, Jon Haidt gave a talk at the main social psychology conference about the statistically impossible lack of diversity in social psychology, meaning that the vast majority of social psychologists are liberal, with a smattering of libertarians or moderates and close to zero self-identified conservatives. This talk was covered in this New York Times [...]

2Dec/103

The Definition of Moral Hazard and A Review of The Big Short

Wikipedia defines a moral hazard as “when a party insulated from risk behaves differently than it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk.”  By this definition, the financial crisis is a classic tale of moral hazard.  I recently stayed up til 3am finishing Michael Lewis’ book, The Big Short, which explains the [...]

23Nov/104

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 [...]

17Nov/102

Why is Warren Buffett liberal on the estate tax? A Review of The Snowball.

I read Warren Buffett’s authorized biography recently and the fact that I finished the book (which isn’t short) is a testament to the writing of the book and to the uniqueness of Buffett himself.  I now understand why people continue to flock to Omaha for Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meetings, where Buffett gives his opinion on [...]

11Nov/101

Separating Attitudes Toward War from Attitudes Toward Soldiers on Veteran’s Day

Today is Veteran’s Day and I would like to express my profound thanks for the sacrifices that soldier’s make in service to our nation.  I may not agree with the decision to go to war in some cases or with the utility of war in general, but soldiers do not make those decisions.  Politicians do. [...]

27Oct/100

Differences between white male liberals and white male conservatives

I was recently forwarded a question about the differences that exist between Democrats and Republicans amongst white men.  The question was framed by the fact that white men appear to be leaving the Democratic party at fairly high rates and it would be useful to pinpoint the variables that lead some white men to desert [...]

24Sep/100

What is fair for migrant workers? – Stephen Colbert’s testimony to congress

My last post concerned moral maximizing and I believe the issue of migrant labor is one which relates.  As Stephen Colbert uses satire to relate in the below video, the pragmatic reality is that vegetables are not going to be picked by Americans in the United States through the invisible hand of the free market.

Want [...]

21Sep/104

Stewart/Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity and the Psychology of Moderates

As someone who is interested in promoting civility and reason in politics, I have been really excited over the past few days by Jon Stewart’s announcement of a Rally to Restore Sanity (“Million Moderate March”), coupled with Stephen Colbert’s satirical “March to Keep Fear Alive”.  The below video, where the announcement is made, is well [...]

28Aug/102

Why do we study the psychology of libertarians?

We recently submitted a paper for publication about libertarian morality, along with co-authors Spassena Koleva, Jesse Graham, Pete Ditto, and Jonathan Haidt.  The paper leverages our broad set of measures to tell a story about libertarians, which converges with previously reported findings about liberals and conservatives.  Specifically, all ideological groups demonstrate the same patterns whereby [...]

17Aug/100

Is belief in the Protestant Work Ethic related to attitudes toward rich and poor?

Recently, a call went out to people who study social psychology to examine the relationships between belief in the protestant work ethic (e.g. “I feel uneasy when there is little work for me to do.”) and measures of prejudice or political attitudes regarding poverty or HIV/AIDS. Researchers from Stony Brook University wanted to aggregate the [...]