Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous assertion that “You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts” seems increasingly quaint today, at a time when one person’s self-evident truth is dismissed by another as fabrication or myth. New research provides a sobering reason why we can’t even agree on what we’re arguing about: We align our perception of reality to comfortably coexist with our moral convictions. “In the realm of moral reasoning, at least, a clean separation of opinion and fact may be difficult to achieve,” write psychologists Brittany Liu and Peter ... Read More
Red States, Blue States, Gray Matter
August 10, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Ever wonder why your stance on such hot-button issues as immigration or gay marriage feels so self-evident, while someone else finds the opposite opinion so obviously correct? There are various reasons for this, but researchers have just documented a startlingly basic one: Your brain is different from his brain. A research team led by Gary Lewis, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Sage Center for the Study of the Mind, has found structural differences between the brains of individuals who have different moral values. We’re not just ... Read More
Explaining Liberals to Conservatives, and Vice-Versa
February 22, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Pleas to tone down the heated political rhetoric in America tend to suffer the same fate as sensible-eating guidelines: endorsed in principle and ignored in practice. It’s clear enough why. The views of liberals and conservatives rest on fundamentally different foundations, making it difficult to locate common ground. Lacking a basic understanding of their opponents’ motivations, partisans view those on the other side of the ideological divide warily, often assuming the worst. In his essential new book, The Righteous Mind, psychologist Jonathan Haidt offers no easy way out of this ... Read More
Scandals Do Drive Voters — When Abuse of Power Is Involved
November 7, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Political scandals are, in a sense, like car crashes: They attract our attention because they bring out our morbid curiosity. Will this be the end of a big-time politician’s career? Or will the voters simply shrug? Newly published research suggests the answer depends upon the type of misbehavior that has been uncovered. It finds that while sex scandals tend to get the most media coverage, they have the least impact on voters’ views. “On average, financial scandals are worse than moral ones, and abuses of power amplify the negative effects,” said University of Illinois political ... Read More
Cleanliness Cues Activate Conservative Attitudes
April 4, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
They may not know it, but Republicans have a secret weapon in their attempt to convince Americans of the correctness of their cause: hand sanitizers. Such commonplace reminders of the concept of physical cleanliness can influence moral and political attitudes. That’s the conclusion of Cornell University psychologists Erik Helzer and David Pizarro, who report this effect is particularly strong in the arena of sexual morality. Their study, just published in the journal Psychological Science, brings together three interesting threads of recent psychological research: 1. The notion that ... Read More
Anti-Gay Attitudes Undeterred by Golden Rule
September 13, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
It seems, on the face of it, a clever retort to conservative Christians who express prejudicial attitudes toward gays and lesbians. Respond by quoting the words of Jesus Christ — specifically, his admonition, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” There’s just one problem: According to a new study, such reminders of the golden rule are utterly ineffective at changing minds or hearts. And if you emphasize the universality of this message of tolerance by quoting the leader of a different religion, anti-gay attitudes actually harden. That’s the conclusion ... Read More
Morals Authority
April 27, 2009 • By • 15 Comments
Jonathan Haidt is hardly a road-rage kind of guy, but he does get irritated by self-righteous bumper stickers. The soft-spoken psychologist is acutely annoyed by certain smug slogans that adorn the cars of fellow liberals: "Support our troops: Bring them home" and "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." "No conservative reads those bumper stickers and thinks, 'Hmm — so liberals are patriotic!'" he says, in a sarcastic tone of voice that jarringly contrasts with his usual subdued sincerity. "We liberals are universalists and humanists; it's not part of our morality to highly value ... Read More
