I confess myself unimpressed with the "confidence" of a political philosophy that has made constant attempts since the 50s to define anyone who disagrees with it as psychologically impaired.

No comment on the study, but this criticism in the article is just off-point:

He thinks insecure, defensive, rigid people can as easily gravitate to left-wing ideologies as right-wing ones. He suspects that in Communist China, those kinds of people would likely become fervid party members.

...especially given the study's use of "liberal" and "conservative," which are not precise terms but nonetheless markedly different from "left-wing" and "right-wing" in the political science sense.

Of course, I'm sure there's a contingent that insists that American liberals are akin to members of the communist party in China. But, y'know, it's not true.

The article is available on ScienceDirect, under "Articles in Press. GW doesn't have a subscription to those, only published ones...anyone else affiliated with a school with access?

It's supposed to be in Volume 40, No. 2 (April 2006), I surmise. I've pasted the abstract here (the funding part at the end is interesting):

Abstract
The present study reports on the personality attributes of nursery school children who two decades later were reliably stratified along a liberal/conservative dimension. An unprecedented analytical opportunity existed to evaluate how the political views of these young adults related to assessments of them when in nursery school, prior to their having become political beings. Preschool children who 20 years later were relatively liberal were characterized as: developing close relationships, self-reliant, energetic, somewhat dominating, relatively under-controlled, and resilient. Preschool children subsequently relatively conservative at age 23 were described as: feeling easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and relatively over-controlled and vulnerable. IQ during nursery school did not relate to subsequent liberalism/conservatism but did relate in subsequent decades. Personality correlates of liberalism/conservatism for the subjects as young adults were also reported: conservatives were described in terms congruent with previous formulations in the literature; liberals displayed personality commonalities but also manifested gender differences. Some implications of the results are briefly discussed.

Keywords: Political attitudes; Personality; Longitudinal; Q-sort assessment


This study was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH 16080 to Jack and Jeanne H. Block, now deceased. Many, many thanks to Peter Feld and Adam M. Kremen for help in computer analyses.

"But within his sample, he says, the results hold."

I thought this quote from the article was priceless.

I'm most interested in interpretation bias.

Is it true that the conservative kids were whiny or were they "have a strong sense of fairness and morality and let their impressions of injustice be known?" Likewise, were they tattletails or did they simply "believe in the importance of authority and that everyone ought to follow the rules?"

Or how about the "self-assured" and "assertive" liberal children- were they that, or were they "pushy, disruptive, insubordinate and obstinate?"

In other words, I don't doubt that there are different personality proclivities that play into later political choices. I am quite skeptical, however, that this study somehow proves that these personality differences are "good" or "bad" as, say, Jessica Wilson, blogging at Brian Leiter's website seem to take it.

I have no idea about the validity of the study, though I am sure that in time we will find that there are things that happen in our childhood that do shape our worldviews.

One thing I will say, however, is that I am inclined to take this study at least a little seriously because there is at least a strand of conservativism which, despite holding most of the levers of power, is very whiny-- and in a very silly fashion. Examples include David Horowitz, the Catholic League, the Media Research Center, Bill O'Reilly, etc. I've always assumed that the complaints are phony-- just a way of trying to make the media and commentators bend over backwards not to offend them and thus shift public discourse to the right. But perhaps there's some deeper explanation as to why some conservatives, despite the fact that their movement has never had more power and that liberals control few institutions, still act as if the world is unfair to them and that forces are conspiring to prevent them from asserting their ideas in the public sphere.

I have worked on, and done studies myself. This one is inherently flawed from the very beginning. Any researcher would realize that immedialtely. It may be that the abstract is TOO abstract, but it sounds horrible from a traditional mental health study, which according to Block, is who funded it. Basically, he has no control group. Berkeley is recognized for having very specific social traits. No need to delve into them, but they are very defined. Because of that, he needed a control. He used none. In essence, he should have taken 100 kids from Berkeley, 100 kids from Biloxi, MS, 100 kids from New York City, etc.. Given those very diverse social climates, he would have had controls in place. Secondly, he makes the most egregious error any researcher can make in that in foregoing controls, he generalizes. Although he may have based some of his results by using the DMH standards, he doesn't take into consideration the lack of controls. Better example, if I had taken the same study with purely emotionally handicapped kids in rural Kentucky, I would have come up with the same results but in different proportions. As I noted earlier, he came to basically exactly the same results comparing drug-using children as opposed to non-drug-using kids. That just proves my point. His results are too general. He is getting the result he is looking for based on the fact he knows his community and what is perceived as normal and what is not. Liberals in my community are whiny complaining wimps and conservatives are over-confident to the point of cockiness. That's because there are very few liberals here and they know every issue is a losing battle. Conservatives know every issue will unite them with a majority of the community in a love-fest. So, Block's entire project is flawed. The results are a non-issue in that his results only pertain to those kids that he researched. That is all. It has no scientific or social implications whatsoever. DMH should ask for their money back.

I've got a 4 year old daughter in pre-school. At home, I teach her to not let herself get bullied or taken advantage, and to stand up for herself, going to the teacher if necessary. She often comes home and tells me her teacher told her to "stop tattling." Often, with good reason.

I'm learning as a parent that the difference between "tattling" and "not letting yourself get taken advantage of" is a difficult one to figure out myself, let alone communicate to a four year old.

While I won't discount a study I haven't seen, even if it's right, the takeaway could just as easily be, "Stop picking on kids, and they'll stay liberal."

I want to see a study of children from different regions of the country.

A study by some Berkeley types of a limited number of Berkeley area residents? Why bother reading further. No need to get to the other obvious methodological flaws as pointed out above. They also failed to control for factors like the political leanings and whinyness factors of the children's parents, schools and colleges attended, etc.

Says the "Dog"

I confess myself unimpressed with the "confidence" of a political philosophy that has made constant attempts since the 50s to define anyone who disagrees with it as psychologically impaired.

I confess that I have no idea which political philosophy the commenter refers to ("liberals" or "conservatives") — pretty much all political philosophies are guilty of this.


As to the comment that the "liberals" control the three of four major dailies, the federal bench, etc. Laughable. I won't even bother responding to the frankly uninformed Limbaugh/Hannity/Instapundit rant that the federal courts are controlled by liberals — even the "liberals" on the Supreme Court are not that liberal; pro-business, pro-death penalty, etc. As to the hated "MSM" - again, your worldview must be highly influenced by Rush Limbaugh. Let's take one of those three major dailies — the Washington Post had an editorial page that was and remains EXTREMELY pro-Iraq war (when the majority of Americans do NOT support it and even in the runup to the war a good 40 percent were against it). They lead the charge on the inquisition impeachment of Clinton for, G-d help us all, getting a blow job, but have not even said crap about Bush's blatant violations of federal law and lies that got us into war, etc. They just hired as a blogger to "balance" out their online content the proprietor of RedState and a rabid right-winger, yet they have NO, ZERO, ZILCH, liberal bloggers there (none did not support the Iraq War for example). Give me a break. Whiny little babies can't stand any criticism of their G-d President and his chosen party. People with this Rush Limbaugh worldview are really astonishing — maybe too high on Vicodin like their other hero.

Actually, scratch my third paragraph. I didn't realize that was Clayton Cramer -- hardly a representative of mainstream conservatism. He is pretty much a religious extremist (that's not an insult, just a fact) with very bizarre and erroneous views of the federal constitution (save his work on the 2nd Amendment which although I don't agree with it all is sound analysis).

The fact is that there are people on both sides who act like whiny babies when their leaders get criticized and use that as evidence of "bias." This study is just plain ridiculous on its face for several reasons.

SenatorX asks "Who pays for this crap?"

Well, from the information provided in the abstract regarding funding, it appears that you and I do. Nice to see more of my tax dollars circling the drain before they disappear forever. Where is William Proxmire and his Golden Fleece Award at times like these? Thank you very much, NIMH, but we already seem to have more crap than any semi-sane person might ever want.

Mike, there's a difference between "prejudice" and "error"

It's not like he did the study in Berekely in order to develop bias. He piggybacked off a previous project from 20 years ago that was in Berekely.

Or is it a perfectly fair inference that when Bush made mistakes in New Orleans, its because he hates black people? Because as long as we play by consistent rules....

If you want to argue that the federal bench isn't controlled by liberals: explain Lawrence. Explain Romer v. Evans. Explain Free Speech Coalition v. Ashcroft. Explain Kelo. If you want to argue that conservative judges came to liberal results just because that was the only rational way to interpret the Constitution, well, feel free. But if the results on major hot button cases such as these are consistently on the liberal side of things, how can you tell "conservative" control of these institutions from liberal control?

Um, ok, the otherwise conservative judges (Kennedy in Lawrence) or lawyers (Roberts in Romer) came to those results because they were right. I know you want to pooh-pooh the argument, but on a stats thread I would dissuade you from making the argument that liberal outcomes indicate a liberal judge irrespective of other patterns. The Ninth Circuit is the only liberal circuit, with a bunch in the middle, and with the Fifth, Fourth, and DC circuits on the right. All four "liberal" justices would have been moderates on the Warren court. You've really got a long way to go before you make a succesful argument that the left controls the bench. I think you are confusing the judiciary's designated countermajoritarian role - which is inherently leftist - with the leftist character of the people that sit on it.

Justin, I don't think your parallel is properly drawn. I concluded that the Berkeley guy is a bigot, because he undertook a study ostensibly in order to confirm his bias. Whether the work was original, or derivative, is not of primary important.

Bush, with respect to Katrina, can be accused of, at most, an incompetent response, which as it turned out, did not even have a disparate impact on blacks. Frankly, I just don't see the parallel.

Greedy Clerk blows a fuse:

They lead the charge on the inquisition impeachment of Clinton for, G-d help us all, getting a blow job,

Uh, no, for perjuring himself about it in relation to a civil suit about what was, at best, sexual harrassment. If you honestly think that the impeachment was about sex, you weren't paying much attention.

but have not even said crap about Bush's blatant violations of federal law and lies that got us into war, etc.

What? The Washington Post hasn't provided any coverage of the NSA wiretapping controversy? Of Padilla being held in a military brig? Or the Abu Ghraib matter? Of accusations of violations of law at Gitmo? Really?

"Lies that got us into war": I presume that you mean the WMDs question. First of all, remember that there was NO serious question--even from opponents of the war--that Iraq had WMDs. If Bush had indeed "lied" (intentionally misled the American people about the prescence of WMDs) about this, then why didn't he arrange to "find" a stockpile? It would not have been that difficult for our government, about three weeks after the fall of Baghdad, to find say, 100 kilograms of mustard gas in one of the outlying military bases. Mustard gas is a simple, low technology chemical agent, impossible to prove that it wasn't Iraqi made, and it would have been a huge political win. Clearly, Bush expected to find WMDs in Iraq--or the guy is a Boy Scout of integrity (of the sort you claim that he can't be).

Secondly, it is not clear even now that the pre-war assessment was wrong. Small quantities of chemical weapon shells were recovered after the war, and Hussein's Vice Air Marshal claims that Iraq shipped its chemical WMDs to Syria in 58 airplane flights just before the start of the war--a position that seems corroborated by statements at the time by the Israeli government of unusual air traffic, and by the presence of chemical weapons smuggled into Jordan from Syria by al-Qaeda for a foiled attack on Amman, Jordan.

oy,

has anybody actually looked at the study to see what the authors say about regional bias?

Given that the subjects were residents of Berkeley, I'm inclined to chalk the results of this study up to the "whoever thinks they're not in the majority is more whiny" effect. There's an article in the latest Harvard Journal of Law &Public Policy with a data point on this. The author did a survey of hundreds of students at Harvard Law School, where liberal students are well in the majority, and found that while liberal students thought conservative students had pretty much achieved parity with liberals in terms of prominence on campus, the conservatives continued to believe that they were being persecuted and marginalized. So perhaps whininess is a matter of perception.

Clayton E. Cramer:

You forgot the public school system. The teachers’ unions always support liberal candidates. You also forgot Hollywood.

Unlike the conservatives, the liberals strongly influence (I’m not going to say “control”) institutions that exert a lasting influence on society. Moreover, their influence is also of an enduring nature. Professors and teachers have tenure; federal judges serve for life, and Hollywood is always been pretty much left of center. The grip conservatives have on legislatures, and executives could easily change in a few years with the whim of the electorate. We should not ignore the fundamental difference in the nature of the influence these two movements have.

Preschool children subsequently relatively conservative at age 23 were described as: feeling easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and relatively over-controlled and vulnerable.

Victimized; fearful; vulnerable: Sounds like a rational conservative response to living in a region that is overwhelmingly hostile toward conservatives.

Easily offended: ROTFL! The Left has a virtual monopoly on the speech code meme in the West, and Berkeley is one of its holy cities.

Over-controlled: When I think of "California" and "over-controlled," I think of suffocating government regulation. I suspect that the study has in mind something other than the Vampire L'Etat.

Rigid, indecisive: Aren't these opposites?

1. WMD's -- No. First, there were WMD's in Iraq -- there were NOT WMD's in Iraq at the time we invaded; Saddam got rid of them (thus the Daily Show excerpt is irrelevant).

Did you not show up on that day in law school when they said the thing about logical thinking? If WMD's left Iraq, because and solely because, we invaded then they would have stayed there had we not invaded. Then Saddam would have just stored them in a basement, and forgotten all about it. Or not. Or something else would happen, maybe.

i should mention that i myself was beat up a lot at recess, but that was because i wore an eye patch until an unusually ripe age.

Clayton:

1. In contested (i.e., 5-4 and 6-3) cases, Kennedy votes far more often with Scalia and Thomas than he does with Souter, Stevens, Breyer and Ginsburg. He's conservative; indeed, his deviations from conservativism are quite notable and that is what makes him the "swing" vote.

2. While the Court has modestly expanded gay rights in Romer and Lawrence (and just how modest the expansion has been is demonstrated by Boy Scouts of America v. Dale and FAIR v. Rumsfeld), in most areas, the Court is now very conservative, especially compared to the Warren and Burger courts that preceded it. For instance, we've gone from a majority that was very skeptical of the death penalty to unanimity in favor of it. We have also gone from a blank check commerce clause to one which does not extend to certain local activities. We have also gone from a Tenth Amendment that was merely rhetorical to one that prohibits federal interference with core state functions. We have also gone from an antitrust doctrine that invalidates certain anticompetitive actions on a per se basis to one that applies a deferential "rule of reason" to such activities.

Perhaps most importantly, we have gone from a court that sees it as its mandate to enforce key civil rights protections to one that often invalidates federal attempts to regulate state violations of civil rights and other protections, on the basis of a federalism principle that appears nowhere in the Constitution.

In no sense is this a "conservative" court-- indeed, it is exactly what you would expect from a court that has SEVEN Republican appointees and only two Democratic appointees.

I don't know why you seem to think that Lawrence v. Texas and Romer v. Evans are so important that their outcomes automatically make the Court "liberal"; those decisions are pretty minor compared to all the cases where the result is "conservative".

3. As for "liberals controlling the media", really, give it a rest. First, it doesn't deny that conservatives control the government-- and even you would concede, I hope, that conservatives have A LOT of power and responsibility by virtue of their control of the executive and legislative branches. Second, whatever you say about the three broadcast networks and some big city papers, there are plenty of conservative outlets-- Fox News, opinion journals, talk radio, blogs, etc.

And further, a lot of conservative media criticism IS whiny. Even if you think that the mainstream media is liberal, read some of the stuff that the Media Research Center puts out! They complain about all sorts of alleged liberal bias that, to put it charitably, is in the eye of the beholder.

And that gets me back to my point. Conservatives DO have a lot of power. We can argue about how much they have, but you can't seriously say that they don't have a lot. Yet some of them make a business out of constantly complaining that their ideas aren't taken seriously, that they can't get their message out to the public, and that everyone is out to get them. No matter where the truth lies in terms of your claims about the media and the judiciary, you cannot seriously deny that some conservatives are whining.

I'm sure everyone here would be as skeptical if the results were the reverse.

Yes, I would. Few things are as damaging in the blogosphere as making an argument or relying on a “study” to bolster your case that the other side can tear apart in five seconds. Which makes it more imperative for you to discredit and debunk this sort of nonsense before it spreads and too many people on “your side” use it in an argument.

But maybe that’s just me.

With that said, only people whose mothers drank while pregnant can be liberal.




... jk

I must admit, reading these comments on a page entitled "Whiny Conservatives" has had me laughing all through the thread.

Yeah, just three of the four major networks, all major daily newspapers (with the exception of the Wall Street Journal), effectively all universities, and the federal bench. That is, of course, just a few institutions--but the ones that exercise enormous power.

Who pays for this crap?

I want to see a study of children from different regions of the country.

They also failed to control for factors like the political leanings and whinyness factors of the children's parents, schools and colleges attended, etc.

Unlike the conservatives, the liberals strongly influence (I’m not going to say “control”) institutions that exert a lasting influence on society.

Victimized; fearful; vulnerable: Sounds like a rational conservative response to living in a region that is overwhelmingly hostile toward conservatives

Is Clayton Cramer a troll? Or is Greedy Clerk? Sometimes I find it hard to tell.

Clayton:

You seem to think that if the Supreme Court ever rules in favor of the liberal side in a dispute, it is ipso facto liberal. How else to square your views on SCOTUS with the fact that its decisions are overwhelmingly conservative, and are likely to get even more so with Alito replacing O'Connor, and yet you still think it is a liberal court. This has to be the most conservative court in your lifetime, even if you were born in the 1930's. Also, in your list of hot button cases, you left out Bush v. Gore, which I would submit had a much more significant effect on the country (like it or not) than, for example, the Court's decision invalidating a texas sodomy statute that was almost never enforced so that Texas could count the fruits of a warrantless drug search.

GC:

Clinton was impeached for perjury. He doesn't get to decide what he is entitled to lie about in a deposition or in front of a grand jury, based on his own views of inappropriate questions. Nobody cares that he got a blow job from an intern in the Oval Office; the issue was whether the chief law enforcement officer is entitled to commit perjury and to encourage others to do so on his behalf.

As for Bush, equating the exaggeration of a WMD threat (including the nuclear component of that threat) with a clear-cut statement in a court proceeding that is knowingly false - well, it does not enhance your credibility. If Bush is guilty of perjury, than every president in the last half-century would also be guilty of perjury.

you can't be guilty of perjury unless you lie under oath.

but simply becaues bush is equally not guilty of perjury it does not follow that he has not misled the public on a number of important issues.

i also meant to mention bush v. gore, and ask clayton how that fit into his model with, you know, scalia all of a sudden the champion of equal protection.

Sorry, obviously I was questioning how *liberal* Romer and Lawrence really are.

jgshapiro: "If Bush is guilty of perjury, than every president in the last half-century would also be guilty of perjury.:

Works for me...

(but one needn't be so conservative. Half century takes us back only to Eisenhower. Don't forget Truman, FDR, Wilson. It's almost a foregone conclusion that war presidents lie.)

Should have added - I'm about libertarian as one can be. Anarcho-capitalist, at times (Hi, Duncan! Care to wade in?)

All the whiny concervatives are still funny, unlike the serious ones, like Orin and Eugene (even if I find the latter profoundly wrong on punishment theory).

So there's no such thing as a conservative who is a fiscal conservative?