Matthew Sheffield3d ago

Voting and ideologies are byproducts of cognitive styles and deeper values

Issues only matter to authoritarian people who are directly harmed by a position. Conservative-inclined people do not care about evidence when it comes to shaping their opinions:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decision-making/article/on-the-belief-that-beliefs-should-change-according-to-evidence-implications-for-conspiratorial-moral-paranormal-political-religious-and-science-beliefs/254C6EF93A5E037998EB7E1003627CB6?utm_source=chatgpt.com

On the belief that beliefs should change according to evidence: Implications for conspiratorial, moral, paranormal, political, religious, and science beliefs | Judgment and Decision Making | Cambridge Core

On the belief that beliefs should change according to evidence: Implications for conspiratorial, moral, paranormal, political, religious, and science beliefs - Volume 15 Issue 4

Cambridge Core
Show threadStargeezer Smith

@mattsheffield
I offer an addition to that analysis. It's nerdy, but I'm credentialed in nerdism.

Jim Al-Khalili, a British-Iraqi physicist and science teacher made some popular TV science shows. One showed how birds fly in formation, with a slight delay as the flock swerves to seemingly follow the leader.

Jim said models show that this kind of flock behavior can happen if birds only pay attention only to a half-dozen neighboring birds. They aren't following the leader at all, just following their neighbors, who follow their neighbors, and so on.

I see peer pressure as akin to this. The leader isn't the thing, it's being accepted by peers that's the guiding influence.

I think conservatives tend to follow the "flock" model. Policy isn't in their thinking, just what their neighbors are doing.

Apr 3 at 10:10pmWeb
Show threadMatthew Sheffield3d ago

@stargazersmith I think there's something to that analysis. Research does show that right-leaning people have hierarchical views of the world, and that they support "doing things the way it's always been done," even if they cannot explain or defend it.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/primal-world-beliefs-unpacked/202210/we-thought-conservatives-saw-the-world-more-dangerous-we

We Thought Conservatives Saw the World as More Dangerous, We Were Wrong

For decades, research showed that conservatives see the world as a more dangerous place. Our new research shows otherwise.

Psychology Today