UA Study Shows Stark Differences in How Conservatives, Liberals See Data
uanews.ua.edu
uanews.ua.edu
I was intrigued by the following paragraphs from the article:
> In three separate studies, Tullett and colleagues offered participants in both the Deep South and West Coast a chance to view data on three topics: the justness of the world, the efficacy of social safety nets and the benefits of social media.
and
> Tullett said she picked political issues that were relatively broad because people’s views on specific topics – like gay marriage or abortion – might be more idiosyncratic.
(note that I haven't been able to look at the data)
The researcher says she has picked political issues that are relatively broad. But I actually do wonder if the subjects chosen are neutral enough. My intuition said these issues are the issues a college educated person with a cosmopolitan worldview would pick (saying that as someone with that worldview). I think that the different values and priorities between conservatives and republicans, and the different demographical makeups, might skew the results. So a lot would depend on how different demographical factors were controlled for.
Yourmorals.org has a load of research on different values between liberals and conservatives [1]. Liberals seem to value fairness/reciprocity more, and in-group/loyalty less [2]. Liberals are more likely to think a lack of equality is wrong [1]. I'd think these differences might cause a difference in the interest that respondents have in "the justness of the world" and "the efficacy of social safety nets". It's not that they won't be interested, but I can imagine the political priorities are different. Social Media benefits seems to me something that interests younger people more, but I'd hope those kinds of things were controlled for.
[1] See http://www.polipsych.com/2010/10/27/differences-between-whit... for a portion of the yourmorals.org research. [2] See http://www.ethicsdefined.org/the-problem-with-morality/conse... for a graph on some different values, taken from yourmorals.org