Friday, June 11, 2010

ANOTHER "Conservative= Bad Person" Study?

Déjà vu... all over again.

The summary of yet another...ahem...‘study’ at this link finding correlation between one's personality and ones politics has a strangely similar feel to one that was a pretty hot topic back at Dr. Helen’s blog back in 2005 (disclosure: I was a commenter) .

From the latest:
Researchers at UofT [Toronto] have shown that the psychological concern for compassion and equality is associated with a liberal mindset, while the concern for order and respect of social norms is associated with a conservative mindset.

One wonders if the 'researchers' ever considered how their own bias may have caused them to miss a few key questions and answers, such as: What if liberals seek 'equality of outcomes' while conservatives seek 'equality of opportunity'? And how does their bias affect how they decide which philosophy is more 'compassionate' and just?

Is it just me, or are these things coming out even more frequently these days? I can hardly wait for Iron Shrink and/or Dr. Helen to weigh in on this one.

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