Ideological information bubbles conquer financial incentives
A new report from social psychologists at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Winnipeg suggests people on both sides of the political aisle are similarly motivated to dismiss monetary enticements in order to distance themselves from hearing or reading opposing ideals and information.
The research, published online by the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, details the findings from five studies involving liberals and conservatives who were presented with statements on issues such as same-sex marriage, U.S. and Canada elections, marijuana, climate change, guns and abortion.
Approximately two-thirds of respondents declined a chance to win extra money in order to avoid reading statements that didn’t support their position, say report co-authors Linda Skitka, UIC professor of psychology, and Matt Motyl, UIC assistant professor of psychology.
The UIC researchers and Jeremy A. Frimer, a corresponding author from the University of Winnipeg, indicate the divide goes beyond political topics.
Respondents also had a “greater desire to hear from like- versus unlike-minded others on questions such as preferred beverages (Coke vs. Pepsi), seasons (spring vs. autumn), airplane seats (aisle vs. window), and sports leagues (NFL vs. NBA),” they wrote.
The aversion to hearing or learning about the views of their ideological opponents is not a product of people already being or feeling knowledgeable, or attributable to election fatigue in the case of political issues, according to the researchers.
“Rather, people on both sides indicated that they anticipated that hearing from the other side would induce cognitive dissonance,” such that would require effort or cause frustration, and “undermine a sense of shared reality with the person expressing disparate views” that would harm relationships, they reported.
The researchers note the drawback of liberals and conservatives retreating to ideological information bubbles.
“What could ultimately be a contest of ideas is being replaced by two, non-interacting monopolies,” they said.
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This is further evidence (as if needed) that politics, ideology, and science don’t mix, and are anti-thetical to each other. Politics and ideology are all about true-believerism … science is all about challenging one’s understanding of the universe.
Doesn’t matter, left or right.
That’s why I wish wattsupwiththat would stay out of political discussions and focus exclusively on the science. The latter discussion is extremely valuable, but it is often lost in the noise over political discussions on this site (both authors and commenters). That the left mixes politics, ideology and science is both true and disgusting does not make the mixing of right wing politics and science any more palatable or useful in life.
Like almost all social psychology studies, this one is so silly as to defy comprehension. There is no attempt whatever to discover whether or not their method produces reliable, real results. They simply assume that refusing an offer to possibly win $3 extra means something …. $3 doesn’t buy a cup of Starbucks!
Again, it is a survey of people on the Internet….people with time to waste…people smoked out of their minds, small groups of uni students pretending to be one person, etc etc etc. I will admit to taking survey’s (not intended as scientific studies) with my wife, pooling our answers.
These studies can only start to possibly be valid if they involve live persons interviewing live persons whom they can actually see, and verify. Internet and telephone surveys are almost entirely invalid for this type of research.
Nonsense results from one invalid study are used as the assumptions of the next study — and this has been going on for years….utter nonsense is the result.
Social Psychology has more than just a replication crisis — it has a foundational crisis.
I agree. What evidence do they have of what they call “construct validity”–that their method measures what they intend it to, or what they advertise it does? I have read many papers by AGW enthusiasts for nothing at all. I do this because I am interested in some of their arguments, or at least interested in new arguments, but I do it when I feel I can spare the time, and there are some topics and authors which I know in advance to be a complete waste of time. In such an instance I would take the lower remuneration in order to read something with greater potential of intellectual reward. I cannot imagine what it would take to get me to read Aristotle ever again, for instance.
You used the “d” word (which if it’s part of your website and your email links to said website, everything you comment on goes to moderation…..). There seems to be a fairly long list, involving the “c” word (which the moon falls under), the “d” word and so forth. Kind of tough to keep track. Just end up in moderation if you need to use the words.
Ohferchrissakes, if someone’s paying me I’ll read almost anything.
Maybe not a compendium of gangsta rap lyrics…
Except in this study they are not “paying” anything. They are offering a chance to enter lotteries paying either $7 or $10.
I see and get offers to enter lotteries with a chance to win $1,000,000 all the time. All I have to do is subscribe to a magazine. I regularly trash those scam offers. My impression on getting such an offer in the mail is that it would be another scam.
Mosher, above, asks the question
If I were familiar with the authors of the two competing passages to read, I might, based on what I know in advance, or on the basis of titles, or on just pure cussedness, to choose ‘A’ because my utility calculation was not what Mosher assumes it is. The problem here is that unless the authors can demonstrate that their method accounts for confounding influences, then they may be measuring not just ideological rigidity, but all sorts of other things. What moron cannot understand this?
I have downloaded the PDF and from reading the introductory material I see that the authors never discuss anything like a calculation of utility. Instead they are focussed on all sorts of ideological explanations.
Okay, but what if you just want to fact check both sides in an environment of settled science and spin tactics of the Obama industrial spin complex and IPCC paragraph spin? How about some research on fact finding and the valuation of facts by different groups even when the facts start to move against held positions, especially in a less than crystal clear quasi-science field of models and scare monger tactics? There must be some research potential here where the fuzzy, slow moving accumulation of facts and good research is proportional in some way to the duration and depth of distorted debate? Case in point, think how fast stem cells research moved over, around, and past the temporary flash point of embryonic stem cell research.
This is really false equivalency. The entire consensus machine is driven by an academic left with 10 to 1 numerical superiority of political predisposition and from that base the rest of green political and populist supporters that can be neatly called the global elite.
There is no corresponding conservative academic or social coordination to equivicate in scale. There is a large base of elite climate dissent but it lack political orthodoxy that AGW advocacy shares as a general rule.
It all comes down to the avoidance of cognitive dissonance. It is a truly rare individual who is willing to even consider questioning long-held beliefs on any subject, let alone accept information that leads to the discarding of a long-held belief in favor of an opposed one – an ‘epiphany’. Such people, once convinced of the validity of the new belief, are almost immune to reversion to the original, now discarded belief.
If traditional hard science rules were applied at all times the basic AGW claim would be laughed out of public discourse as it was in the early days of the carbon targeting build up. 1960’s heading into Earthday mobilizing.
Since then science was changed to fit the agenda and society changed to accept the new science social standard. “May” and “possibly” became “likely” and “consensus” substituted for “proof”. A fantastic decline of science reasoning and climate politics are only one application. Forget X and Y chromosomes, you can pick your gender with the new science standard.
Most technically informed people realize it’s political and the science was an advocacy tool and distortion. That they choose to conceal the realization reflects tactics of advocacy or fear of being dismissed for being overtly political themselves. AGW advocates can never own up to the agenda science they are mouthing or supporting and risk losing the science authority (paycheck as well) that has taken generations of academic political inbreeding to achieve. Skeptics are so completely outnumbered in the incentive based AGW culture that is funded they are often trapped as dissenting political minorities rather than academics themselves.
Does cognitive dissonance explain this history of interacting? I don’t think so at all. It’s about a growing statist elite rooted from WW2 academic central planning and concentration of authority found in particular institutions such as media, academics, government management in alliance with the welfare state or crony capital interests it relates to. If it’s all politically coordinated by similar groups the most basic belief systems become “facts”. Science becomes political consensus in our example regarding climate war culture.
You’re looking at 50+ year decline in human reasoning that has only accelerated along the way. Earthday 1970 was a totally different statement regarding self seriousness and arrogance found at ED 2017. Now you have populations who can’t distinguish their political aspirations from a quantitative science claim. That’s a pretty profound change well beyond cognitive dissonance.
There are few things in life more frustrating than listening to a position you support argued badly.
I don’t care all that much what the conclusion is. If it’s well argued, I’d like to hear it. If it’s poorly argued, I have better things to do with my time. That may not be the majority opinion, but they say they ruled that position out. If I find time and opportunity simultaneously, I will try to see how they did that.
Earlier today I posted a ‘Greenland ice melt’ article on Facebook and tagged a couple of AGW True Believer family members. (Green Party supporters) Their response to evidence of potential data-adjustment was po-faced fury. I kid you not. Neither wanted to engage in defending or debating the new evidence AT ALL. I think they were too afraid of having to admit there could be a problem with AGW theory, in any way. Textbook cognitive dissonance reaction and an indication of how ingrained climate views have become.
I’m always amazed how these ‘think tanks’ always divide everyone else into ‘right and left’ – the ‘right’ apparently applying to everyone who is non-Progressive, providing the appropriate ‘us/them’ dynamic.
Near as I can tell, ‘skeptics’ are from many different world view points – and certainly most self-defined ‘independents’ – whereas warmists are generally Progressive ideologues (with a few opportunistic snake-oil salesmen, trying to exploit fear in order to create a market for the Emperor’s Clothes) – and frankly, with all the presumptions that must be in place, and the kind of things you have to pretend not to know, you kind of HAVE to be.
As far as this study goes, who here has the option of not being exposed to Progressive viewpoints?
I don’t mind being exposed to opposing viewpoints, as long as it is in a venue where two way communication is possible. I don’t like being “preached at”, I like being spoken with. That’s why I can’t stand newspapers and network TV. I get so frustrated when the spout their propaganda, half-truths and sometimes non-truths and there is no legitimate avenue for voicing disagreement.
I enjoy discussions with people that hold opposing viewpoints and am open to being proven wrong. Unlike the liberals I personally know, I’m willing to change my position if one can convince me that said position is based on flawed logic or incorrect data points.
But being lied to, misled or proselytized at with no avenue for response does nothing but pi$$ me off. No thanks.
The left has been trying to make the issue of climate change a non partisan affair as the deepening woes of overzealous “progressive” proponents begin to look like they are on the wrong side of the question. They were content to adjust data to fit the theory and to move goal posts until it began to seem that these rear guard actions may not tide them over until warming resumed with a vengeance.
A bevy of warming scientists have already been taken out of action by the climate blues neurosis caused by the ‘Pause’ “in T rise and the act of cooking the climate record is prima facie evidence they are beginning to worry they have been wrong after all. Perhaps the biggest sign of trouble among the whitecoats of climate oblivion is that evermore it is sociologists, social psychologists, and other long politically corrupted and terminally broken ‘sciences’ that are taking up the torch. Anyone seen a publication by Trenberth or Schmidt lately?
Now Trump has arrived on this desolate scene. Their only hope was to get big drops in CO2 and sea to shining sea windmill farms in place so they could claim the coming cooling or at best the fizzled out flattish trend was because they acted in time and saved the planet. To late now! It ain’t going to be pretty from here on in for them. Making thermageddon bi-partisan is a pathetic Plan B.
The public won’t wake up to the climate agenda until they have to start paying for it.