C H R I S M A R T I N

A P R I L 2 4 , 2 0 1 3

Why Sociology Needs More Ideological Diversity

Sociology is Partisan

This is Not News

Ladd (1969) examined a list of scholars who signed an anti-Vietnam war ad in the New York Times.

More of them came from sociology than any other field.

-Lipset (2001) in The State of American Sociology

It Raises Issues of Discrimination

Evidence for and against discrimination: self-selection, social exclusion

For Example…

“[At graduate school] people were really, really intolerant of any other view besides their own--meaning specifically far left-wing academic was the only way to think.

And anyone who thought differently … was shut up immediately.

And it just drove me nuts to see people so closed-minded in graduate school. “

Christian Lander

Christian Lander Built This

But More Importantly, It is Bad for Science

Because it keeps social scientists from relevant information.

The relevance paradox: An attempt to gather relevant information fails, because seeming irrelevant information turns out to be critical.

Limitations on the Data We Use

Data Censoring: A Familiar Graph

An Unfamiliar Graph: Asians Since 1987

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to ask questions, look for evidence, filter data, interpret findings to confirm one’s preferred viewpoint.

Found correlation between anti-Black racist web searches and drop in Obama vote

-Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

Ignored this Gallup Poll:

About 6 percent [of Americans] they were less likely to vote for Obama because of his race. However, they also found that 9 percent said they were

more likely to vote for Obama because of his race; and that 6 percent said they were less likely to vote for McCain because of his race (they also found that 7 percent said they were more likely to vote for McCain because of his race).

-Lee Jussim

Confirmation Bias: Cheney

I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators [by the Iraqi people]. – Dick Cheney

Confirmation Bias: Marx

Bakunin: And from the heights of the state [the rulers] begin to look down upon the whole common world of the workers. From that time on they represent not the people but themselves and their own claims to govern the people. Those who can doubt this know nothing at all about human nature.

Marx: If Mr Bakunin were familiar just with the position of a manager in a workers’ co-operative, he could send all his nightmares about authority to the devil. He should have asked himself: what form can administrative functions take, on the basis of this workers’ state – if he wants to call it that?

Limited Understanding of Ideologies

The Curse of Knowledge

The difficulty of knowing the perspective of someone who does not know something you know…more broadly the difficulty of taking a different perspective despite one’s best efforts.

Claimed that the economic policies of Republicans do not benefit Kansans, but Kansas is majority Republican.

Thus something is the matter with Kansas.

--

But perhaps Kansans are not strange. Rather they are merely basing their decisions on a different data.

Actor/Observer Bias & Reductionism

The tendency to attribute one’s own behavior to circumstances, but the behavior of another person to an internal motive

Is there an internal trait called social dominance?

Or is SDO along with other social attitudes explained by social identity and conflict?

Framing Effects

The main difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals focus on progress towards egalitarianism whereas conservatives show resistance to change and tolerate inequality (Jost, 2006; Jost et al.,2003).

The main difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives show respect for inherited wisdom whereas liberals show a preference for social volatility and tolerate profligacy.

Can be framed as…

In general, liberals are more open-minded, creative, curious, and novelty seeking, whereas conservatives are more orderly, conventional, and better organized (Gosling et al.)

Framing Metaphors: Social Issue Literature

Structure and constraints are metaphorical.

Suggest a hindrance to modern ideas of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Implication: constraints should be removed.

Thus

Fixed constraints are taboo: genes, ancestry, sex, age.

Threats to individuality are taboo: stereotype accuracy.

However other metaphors are possible. And metaphors impose order where order is absent.

Limitations on the Topics We Choose

Limited Moral Dimensions

People from one particular culture are outliers: people from societies that are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD): they think more analytically than holistically.

Liberals are also WEIRDerthan conservatives.

-Talhelm, Haidt, Oishi et al (2012)

“Morality binds and blinds.” – Haidt(2011)

Marginalization of Taboo Topics

When people form a tribal, moral community, they form taboos. These are non-negotiable.

The problem of "tribalism" affects research only in areas related to sacred values, such as race and gender, and also moral and political psychology.

Alternative Arguments

A. Liberals are more intelligent than conservatives

Response: The evidence is mixed. Social conservatives seem to be less intelligent than liberals, whereas libertarians seem more intelligent. In any case, these traits are normally distributed, so one would expect a higher percentage of liberals, but not to the current degree

B. People are mostly accurate, not biased.

Response: This does not fix the problem of data censoring.