Search / 11 posts tagged politicalpsychology

Once again returning to our political theme, we have a new study that suggests that optimism is an important part of the political process.  According to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, the most optimistic candidates have won the U.S.

An interesting finding reported in Science:Although political views have been thought to arise largely from individuals' experiences, recent research suggests that they may have a biological basis. We present evidence that variations in political attitudes correlate with physiological traits.

Why Facts are Not Enough, Especially if You're Trying to Change a Conservative's Mind Shankar Vedantam had a good piece in yesterday's WaPo summarizing recent research by political scientists John Bullock, Brendan Nyhan, and Jason Reifler suggesting that debunking misinformation can sometimes have a "backlash" effect of reinforcing the misinformation: ...

Thursday, 28 August, 2008 Politics abroad | Tags: false information, media, memory, political advertising, political psychology |   Matt Yglesias has kicked off a discussion of the apparent dilemma the media comes up against when a campaign lies but rebuttal involves repeating the lie.

From Scott Stossel's review of The Big Sort (Bill Bishop & Robert G. Cushing): We can no longer even agree on what used to be called facts: Conservatives watch Fox; liberals watch MSNBC. Blogs and RSS feeds now make it easy to produce and inhabit a cultural universe tailored to fit your social values, your musical preferences, your view on every single political issue.

The remaining instalments in the ongoing review of The Political Mind on ScienceBlogs have been delayed, so here’s something on a related note. Jonah Lehrer writes about the implicit assumption we make that voting, and all other decisions we make, are rational.

Over at the eminently useful blog consortium ScienceBlogs, Chris of the Mixing Memory blog has begun reviewing George Lakoff’s The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century Politics with an 18th-Century Brain.

Research examining people's perceptions of politicians suggests voters go for candidates with similar personalities to their own. The evidence comes from studies of both American and Italian voters in recent presidential and prime ministerial elections.

I cannot be impartial when reviewing Ron Paul’s new book “The Revolution: A Manifesto“. I’ve spent over one year of my life thinking “Ron Paul” in almost every waking moment. More accurately I’ve thought about the potential for true liberty in my lifetime. As a Libertarian voter since 1996 I’ve grown accustomed to losing elections.

I’m sure many of you of a certain age and membership in the club of the elitists (college educated, basically most bloggers) recall the old joke about the Black guy who went to Harvard. I recall that there was such a joke, however I don’t remember the punch line.