The Republican Brain (47 page)

In other words, even without a vast difference between liberals and conservatives in motivated reasoning, we can go a good distance in explaining why conservatives reject science and other evidence brought to bear on politics. It's because Openness is largely a measure of curiosity about the world, an eagerness to inquire and learn new things—and that obviously often means inquiry about science and what's verifiably true. It may be that in the course of reading a short essay attacking or praising some cherished idea, brand, or football team, liberals and conservatives alike can have equally strong, gut-level, emotional reactions, causing temporary denial. But over time, people who are curious about the world and more interested in learning about it are probably more likely to acquire knowledge—and, ultimately, to bring their political beliefs in line with that knowledge.

Such people are also, of course, probably more likely to wind up pursuing careers in “liberal” academia—and this book has presented much evidence showing that today's Democratic Party, much more than today's Republican Party, is brimming with intellectuals and Ph.D.s. So our study could also be said to reinforce a point made earlier in these pages—that the current, vast difference in expertise across the parties is probably closely related to their difference over what is true and false about the world. And this difference in expertise is itself surely related to Openness, and the tendency of the intellectually curious and exploratory to seek out knowledge and advanced degrees.

So it may be that greater Openness and greater interest in learning about the world in all its complexity—not a general lack of motivated reasoning—brings liberals closer to science and to the facts. And it may
appear
that conservatives are more motivated in their reasoning simply because, with policy preferences that are less likely to correspond to the kinds of knowledge that are acquired through curiosity and inquiry—and that thus are more likely to run afoul of evidence, or be oblivious to it—conservatives simply have a more frequent need to resort to
political
motivated reasoning to defend their beliefs.

Notes

241
“Everett Young
” This chapter is co-authored by Everett Young and myself, as much of the text describing the study design and its findings was originally authored by him.

242
Ph.D. dissertation
Everett Young, “Why We're Liberal, Why We're Conservative: A Cognitive Theory on the Origins of Ideological Thinking,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Stony Brook University, December 2009.

249 “
1000 samples of similar size
” This is almost like saying, regarding the correlation of .25 for Openness and ideology, that there was only a 1 in 500 (2 in 1,000) chance that we could have found that number by accident. But that is not quite right, so we can't really tell you that.

It's also similar to saying there's a 499 in 500 chance that the correlation is “real” and that there's a real relationship between liberalism and Openness, but that's even further from being right. We'll admit that, for simplicity, political scientists think of these “p-values” in these ways all the time, though we should try not to, for reasons that are beyond the scope of this book.

253 “
on a multi-item or scale
” For the pros: our 12-item scale only achieved a Cronbach's alpha of .5, and principal components analysis of the 12 items yielded 5 eigenvalues greater than one; moreover, performing factor analysis, extracting multiple factors, and performing promax rotation yielded more or less uncorrelated factors; there just wasn't a convincingly identifiable single dimension of motivated reasoning.

254
arguing in their heads
Taber & Lodge, “Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs,”
American Journal of Political Science
, Vol. 50, Number 3, July 2006, pp. 755–769.

Conclusion

Rescuing Reality

In November of 2011, as I awaited the results of our study, the following occurred:

How is all this connected?

Clearly, research on the psychology of ideology, and on the differences between liberals and conservatives, is here to stay. In fact, it is moving into a new stage, one in which these well documented differences are taken as the starting point, and then experiments are designed to figure out what they actually
mean
in different, increasingly realistic contexts. One of those contexts will of course involve the processing of inconvenient or threatening information—whether political or otherwise.

This trajectory of research cannot be stopped. It cannot be put back in the box. It is too intriguing, and too important.

Indeed, the research has already established some strong findings, such as the relationship between liberalism and Openness. And it is probing further into areas of uncertainty—for example, concerning the left, the right, and motivated or defensive reasoning.

An accurate depiction of the current state of knowledge, as it bears on the thesis of this book, might be this: We know liberals overall are more Open, and conservatives are less so, with all that entails. So we know this difference probably helps to explain much about our political battles over what's true. But at the same time, there is still a great deal to learn about how these differences play out in the real live political and media world.

In particular, following on our latest results, I wonder whether stronger group or “team” affiliations play a role in driving conservatives' biased reasoning about politics in particular. We know conservatives tend to be more intense in their loyalty and dedication to their group. And if that group is the “Republicans,” maybe this helps to explain their willingness to double down on certain wrong beliefs that are politically vital to the party. They're defending their “band of brothers,” so to speak.

It is also clearly going to be important to get a better understand of the relationship between conservatives reacting rapidly and automatically on the one hand, and their engaging in more elaborate defensive reasoning processes on the other—especially, in the latter case, when they are politically sophisticated. In other words, we need to know much more about how liberals and conservatives, respectively, rely on System 1 and System 2.

New studies can help tease this out. But of course, most of these studies will be designed by academic liberals, who naturally want to gain a better understanding of the dysfunctional nature of our politics. Consequently, there is every reason to expect that conservatives will lash out and attack these findings. They'll assume it's just another case of liberal academia bashing them—and so may dismiss a growing body of solid knowledge with a wave of the hand.

Such a defensive reaction, ironically, would be a highly
un-nuanced
way of understanding what the science actually suggests.

If anything, I come out of a yearlong immersion in this research with a newfound admiration for conservatives. No, I don't think they're very good at getting the facts right in politicized and contested areas. And I think I know a lot more about why. But the same knowledge suggests that conservatives are much
better
than liberals at other things—like, say, showing determination, leadership, loyalty, perseverance—and that liberals have a great deal to learn from them.

Despite this, however, research on the science of our politics will probably continue to be attacked by the very same people who, in a less polarized context, would make for very loyal allies, teammates, friends.

But for those who are Open to what I'm saying, I think we are now prepared to attempt—very tentatively—to sketch a “nature” meets “environment” account of the conservative denial of reality. Multiple factors seem at play; things can go very differently because of any single one of them. And by no means is our knowledge complete. But the big picture, I suspect, may ultimately look something like this.

First, there is “nature” or “psychology,” which is probably partially influenced by our genes. These, acting through individual cells (especially in our brains), help to create a variety of propensities and traits, such as personalities or dispositions. Some of these have latent ideological implications, and may predispose us towards the adoption of beliefs that “feel” right to us—religious beliefs and political beliefs, among others. We are not really aware of this happening—it just does.

Next, there is the “environment” in which we grow up. We do not enter it as a blank slate, but we're certainly influenced by it. Here, we're shaped by our families (political beliefs expressed by our parents, whether the lawn has a Republican or Democrat sign at election time), our schools, our churches, our peers. This early environment interacts with our genes and who we are, as our experiences change and shape our brains—and so we develop an identity and a view of the world.

Now, both our personalities and the context in which we've grown up have tilted us towards adopting some beliefs more than others.

Third, there is the overarching political context—the region and country in which we live, the era, the political structures in existence, the communication technologies in use. These control the kinds of ideas we're exposed to, as well as how much choice we have in the information we consume and the ideas we embrace. For instance, in some communities—the white South—there is greater social pressure to adopt a Republican ideology, whether or not one has a personality or disposition with which this ideology is very consistent. Ideological choice is thus constrained by social desirability factors imposed by the group or community, sometimes subtly, and sometimes more overtly.

Now our personalities, the context in which we've grown up, and broader societal factors have all tilted us towards adopting some beliefs more than others.

There are also large scale events—like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Great Recession—which cause powerful emotions (fear, empathy) in the population and can cause ideological shifts or conversions. Slower political changes over time can do the same. In this complex way, ideologies are formed, sets of beliefs are assembled—and
then
, sometimes, they are challenged.

At this point, our core natures or personalities once again condition how we respond. But so do all the ties and commitments we've made, the tone of conversation we've learned, the political context and the communication technologies—all of which may make it easier, or harder, for us to reinforce our beliefs. Also at play are factors like the time we have available to pay attention to a given topic or issue, and the time we've spent engaging with it in the past, getting up to speed, learning to care and to have arguments and responses.

All of this shapes whether we fight the facts, or whether we shift our views more flexibly. So in no way is it a simple story. And in no way is it determinism.

But it looks as though some of these factors, working together, have created a vast amount of ideologically driven misinformation on the political right today. Among these factors, personalities and psychological needs (authoritarianism, the need for closure) seem important, but so do levels of political engagement or knowledge, and divergent communication and information channels. And so does the tone of discourse and the standards of acceptable political behavior, which are strongly influenced by political elites.

What's new about this book is its synthesis of a large body of evidence suggesting that despite the contribution of so many disparate factors, “nature”—more specifically, psychology and personality—still seem to shine through.

But given that that is the case, how should we respond to this reality—that people are who they are, that conservatism itself is part of human nature, and that people fight back vigorously to defend their beliefs, and intellectually sophisticated conservatives perhaps most of all?

First, the very same body of science suggests a variety of interventions that actually
work
to change people's minds, at least to an extent. Recent research by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, for instance, has shown that if you want to make people less defensive and biased, a technique called “self affirmation” holds great promise. What is self-affirmation?

Before hitting people with inconvenient facts in a recent motivated reasoning study, Nyhan and Reifler first had their subjects write a short essay describing something good about themselves—a moment when their core values or identities led to a positive outcome. Something they could be proud of.

This exercise, the study showed, brought about an overall debiasing and less defensive responses. And not surprisingly: Because motivated reasoning is an emotional process, you can't expect to short circuit it with reason or arguments. Rather, only by lessening emotion and defensiveness—causing partisans to disarm—can you establish a conversation or exchange of information that is unthreatening.

On a person-to-person level, such an approach will assuredly work far better than getting into a shouting match. And that is how we ought to be having conversations—calmly and interpersonally, if honest give-and-take is the goal.

In such situations, it is also vitally important to demonstrate that there is common ground before broaching anything controversial, and to frame the information to be shared in a non-threatening manner. In another study, for instance, Dan Kahan and his colleagues found that conservatives were more open to the science of global warming if it was framed as supporting the expansion of nuclear power—but very
closed
to the science if it was framed as supporting traditional pollution controls, which fly in the face of their values.

All of this has profound implications for liberals, and scientists, who hold Enlightenment values and want to share their knowledge. These thinkers tend to be wedded to the idea that facts ought to win the day, that the truth emerges from vigorous clashes and debates of ideas. And that approach might very well work
among people who share the same Enlightenment values
, and honor and respect academic and scientific norms.