Why are right-wingers so stupid?
The answer to this sensible enough question, it appears, is that many right-wingers are too scared shitless to be anything other than stupidly right-wing.
These are at least are the findings (well, alright, I paraphrase) of Hulda Thórisdóttir, of the University of Iceland, and John T Jost of New York University, in their newly published paper for the Political Psychology journal (Vol xx, No. xx).
In the article, ‘Motivated Closed-Mindedness Mediates the Effect of Threat on Political Conservatism’, the authors summarise four controlled experiments with students and political elites, in which they gave scary information to people and see measure they react, both in terms of ‘close mindedness’ and tendency towards conservatism. This is what they find:
[W]e find in Studies 1a and 1b that putting people into a highly threatened mindset leads them to exhibit an increase in motivated closed-mindedness and to perceive the world as more dangerous.
Furthermore, in Study 2 we demonstrate that a subtle threat manipulation increases selfreported conservatism (or decreases self-reported liberalism), and this effect is mediated by closed-mindedness.
In Study 3, we manipulated closed-mindedness directly and found that high (vs. low) cognitive load results in a greater affinity for the Republican (vs. Democratic) party.
Finally, in Study 4 we conducted an experiment involving political elites in Iceland and found that three different types of threat (to the self, group, and system) all led center-right politicians to score higher on closed-mindedness and issue-based political conservatism.
The authors conclude:
[T]hese findings provide reasonably strong support for Jost et al.’s (2003) theory of political conservatism as motivated social cognition and contradict the notion that threat increases individuals’ adherence to their own political ideology, even if that ideology happens to be a liberal one.
All that seems intuitively reasonable to me, and suggests, amongst others things, that if Labour keeps on trying to scare the shit out people on things like crime and immigration, as a way of getting Labour votes, it’s making a big mstake; it’s really just doing the Tories’ job for them.
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Yes, but the problem is that Labour has been taken over by right-wingers.
Maybe as much over-emotional as stupid? I remember (vaguely) a study that found that right-wingers are much more likely to suffer from bad dreams.
Coincidentally I was looking at this guy’s site just now. He wrote a book about the politics of fear a few years ago, and has an upcoming one on Conservatism more broadly. Looks interesting. And the debate he’s been having about fiscal vs monetary policy is worth reading.
Ah ha! Conservative epistemic closure is victor!
This sort of thing has been well documented for some time. Those on the right are more likely to be less trusting, more suspicious, and more fearful of change. For instance if you take two people to see the Statue of David by Michelangelo and one stares in awe where another hides a snigger because of the penis, it’s more than likely that the first person is liberal minded and the second person more conservative.
It’s these things that often lead me to label those on the right stupid (never to anyone’s face of course). But the jump from these facts to talking about stupidity is in fact an emotional one, and a fear of stagnation, which leads us centrists and left-wingers open to the same criticisms. I realise the title was intended to attract people to comment, rather than an actual accusation. But we have to be careful not to fall for these lines. After all we can’t say that those on the right are wrong to be so close-minded. For where those on the left see close-mindedness on the right, those on the right see naivety on the left. Indeed most people have some right wing leanings on certain areas, and they’re not ‘wrong’ because of this. Sanctions, deterrences, ‘tough’ action, and the need for individual responsibility are all right wing. But get rid of all of them and I guarantee that less people will take responsibility for their actions.
The difference between right wingers and left wingers. The right sees the world as it is, and has been, since life was created on earth. best of my knowledge there has never been a socialist or comy nation that has or is successful. Trust me China is not comminust but acctuly a facist country. Facism being a mixture of government controls but free enterprise. It is capitalism with the government fixing pricing paremeters. Realy kind of like here in the USA but they are not bound down with endless business killing rules and regulations, a tax system that is grinding companies into the ground. The human race excels and furthers it self thru GREED. Greed is good . leagle greed at least.I could go on on. The leftys see the world as a compassionet loving place we just need every one pitching in believing utopia will work. Well I am sorry to tell you but its not going to happen until Jesus comes back or if you are one who believes there is not a creater then it will never happen. I would never call any one stupid but the leftys have no problem with such derogotory comments.[though I must say MSNBC comes to mind] You live in a dream world or you vote demo to get all the intitelments unions well fare etc. Nancy Polosi and those other socialist promise so they can stay in office for ever by promissing free this or that. I hate to tell you but every Major city and state such as IL. NY.CA etc. that is a blue state are in serious financial trouble. Example indiana pays there correctional officers about 14$ / hour starting out. Just 40 miles away a il. prison starts out around 30$$ / hour it is a coveted blue collar job.???They both take the same risk and do the same thing.Indiana has a republican gov and a surplus IL.Is in a finacial mess. Detroit is such a wonderful democrat run city. If you are voting to get all the free goodies the demos promise up then your type of greed, somthing for nothing is going to break this country and you just dont care. Get it while you can. If you truley need help we on the right have no problems with help we just want tighter restriction such as drug test for welfare. Is that asking to much seeing you can not get a job with out passing one.If you vote demo on ideaologies what are those???? I could go on for years but being a stupid evil right winger i will stop here.Wake up nothing is free there will be a time to pay. Let God be with you all; I hate no one