> In some cognitive tasks, participants were asked to respond as quickly and as accurately as possible. People who leant towards the politically conservative tended to go for the slow and steady strategy, while political liberals took a slightly more fast and furious, less precise approach.
> “What we found is that demographics don’t explain a whole lot; they only explain roughly 8% of the variance,” said Zmigrod. “Whereas, actually, when we incorporate these cognitive and personality assessments as well, suddenly, our capacity to explain the variance of these ideological world-views jumps to 30% or 40%.”
This says nothing about the direction of cause and effect.
No, and if you click through to the publication, the authors to not assert a causal relationship is demonstrated by their findings. Instead they suggest that rigidity of thought and interpretation may be a tool useful for identifying individuals at risk for radicalization. If replicated, such an association could be useful, irrespective of causality.
I'm curious why you are attempting to hold the authors to a standard that they do not claim themselves is supported by their data.
That in itself is evidence of their progressive bias.
If academia was dominated by those of the opposite persuasion, this study might conclude with suggestions that individuals who are more suggestible and impulsive are prone to having their malleable minds contorted towards progressive radicalisation.
It's also evidence that they're doing science properly. You don't declare causation until you have reason to believe the arrow of causality goes a certain way. You can distinguish between “doing science properly” and “progressive bias” by seeing how the authors treat papers where the conclusion could be spun “progressively” via unscientific conclusion-jumping… of which this is one, I think.
It would make sense though. Extremist views tend to be very simplistic black&white, this = good; not this = evil. Someone less capable of complex thought would find the simpler messages more appealing, and thus be more susceptible to them. Fur = murder. Immigrant = criminal.
The study is actually rather neutral. All the study says is that people who are less adept at complex mental tasks are more likely to follow authoritarians.
It doesn’t say anything to the effect of people on the left or right are more intelligent than one another.
Given how right-shifted politics are these days, the "liberal left" is authoritarian right wing, too. So no, if this is liberals attacking conservatives, they've discovered another footgun.
It's kind of intuitive, isn't it? There is a certain category of people who understand only simple explanations and don't like complexity, whereas most phenomena in our lives have several layers of complexity. It's natural these people are attracted to those who can provide false but simple explanations of reality.
Certainly a big part of the comfort of religion for me was making a monstrous, unknowable world (which had been poorly explained to me as a kid) easier to understand. I built up a number of mental barriers to shield myself from inconvenient facts. When I went through a real bad time, it gave me simple axioms and stories that seemed to help me persevere.
Stepping away from that comfort was difficult and took time. It's also isolating. Nonetheless, I could no longer make extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. I'd rather know the truth of things the best I can, while I can.
"People with extremist views less able to do complex mental tasks, research suggests"
≠ "Cambridge University team say their findings could be used to spot people at risk from radicalisation"
Correlation implies causation?
I have to read the rest. But this article starts of promising.
What exactly is an extremist view? I wonder if the taking away of professional sports from "fanatical" viewers, or fans may also result in more people joining extremist political and religious tribes regardless of their intellect. Of course maybe sports fans are also "less able to do complex mental tasks" or is that just what the "nerds" would have us believe?
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 50.7 ms ] thread> In some cognitive tasks, participants were asked to respond as quickly and as accurately as possible. People who leant towards the politically conservative tended to go for the slow and steady strategy, while political liberals took a slightly more fast and furious, less precise approach.
> “What we found is that demographics don’t explain a whole lot; they only explain roughly 8% of the variance,” said Zmigrod. “Whereas, actually, when we incorporate these cognitive and personality assessments as well, suddenly, our capacity to explain the variance of these ideological world-views jumps to 30% or 40%.”
This says nothing about the direction of cause and effect.
I'm curious why you are attempting to hold the authors to a standard that they do not claim themselves is supported by their data.
If academia was dominated by those of the opposite persuasion, this study might conclude with suggestions that individuals who are more suggestible and impulsive are prone to having their malleable minds contorted towards progressive radicalisation.
It doesn’t say anything to the effect of people on the left or right are more intelligent than one another.
No surprises here, is there?
There is a reason for a:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
Stepping away from that comfort was difficult and took time. It's also isolating. Nonetheless, I could no longer make extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. I'd rather know the truth of things the best I can, while I can.
Correlation implies causation?
I have to read the rest. But this article starts of promising.