Understanding Other People

When worlds collide. My amateur, ongoing, reading list for understanding, and working with, those you may not agree with. My example is to look at the US political, right/left, conservative/liberal, cultural divide. Readings in no particular order. I’m also trying to strike some balance as to what to read.

Papers

A Complete Psychological Analysis of Trump’s Support, B Azarian (2018) collects a host of analysis regarding Trump supporters. Some of this is covered in other readings on my list.

Briefly,

Practicality Trumps Morality. Addresses those who dismiss some actions for prgamiatic changes brought about.
The Brain’s Attention System Is More Strongly Engaged by Trump. Notes Trump’s showmanship
America’s Obsession with Entertainment and Celebrities. He is entertaining
“Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn.” Rebellion. Love of chaos
The Fear Factor: Conservatives Are More Sensitive to Threat.
The Power of Mortality Reminders and Perceived Existential Threat. Terror Management Theory holds that when one is reminded of their mortality, they more strongly defend their tribe.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect: Humans Often Overestimate Their Political Expertise. If you are miss/under-informed, you do not realize it and may over appreciate the knowledge they have.
Relative Deprivation — A misguided sense of entitlement. Feeling they are losing out to their peers.
Lack of Exposure to Dissimilar Others. Living where there are higher numbers of minorities reduces prejudice.
Trump’s Conspiracy Theories Target the Mentally Vulnerable. Taking advantage of those who are inclined to believe things that “are actually unrelated in reality.”.
Trump Taps into the Nation’s Collective Narcissism. Defining what is the true identity of the nation, and the superiority of those who display it.

The One Trait That Predicts Trump Fever, T Carney makes the case for small towns (wealthy and not) with strong institutions supporting families which support a positive outlook that the American dream is alive in their community did not vote for Trump.

“Both villages have strong institutions of civil society—local governments, churches, country clubs, garden clubs, good public schools”

T Carney

How a liberal learned to respect conservative thinking, Caldwall-Harris, (2013) makes the case for the value and benefits of the conservative world view so as to incorporate them into one’s own life and better understand and work with “the Other Side”.

Caldwell-Harris ties Jonathan Haidt work on liberal and conservative worldviews to those from collectivist or individualist societies. Placing the view of collectivism as of a benefit to small groups (and individualism to urban environments), Caldwell-Harris posits small groups was the state throughout early human history, and thus may be more of our natural state. Caldwell-Harris also sees the importance in conservative’s desire to maintain cohesion within their in-group.

Caldwell-Harris goes on to discuss conservitive’s happier outlook on life, more in tune with their “day-to-day sociality”, and how it is important to incorprate both world views in order to be more human.

The Psychology of Belief. Kate Morgan (2019) an article for the general public goes from fundamental beliefs coming in part from our communities, bolstered by humans herd mentality, defended by mental safeguards, some created and tied to emotions causing access, and finishes with how difficult it is to change for fear of being in the out-group.

Our primary self-defense tactic is to remove the threat and avoid anything that might challenge our worldview, which is how so many of us end up living in a feedback loop, surrounded by people who share the same opinions.

Kate Morgan

Unconscious Reactions Separate Liberals and Conservatives. Laber-Warren (2012). A general article (with citations) about the psychological differences of liberals and conservatives, mostly where fear makes one more conservative. There is some continuum on where people fall and they can be be moved a bit. However, “…astute policy makers might be able to phrase their ideas in a way that appeals to different worldviews.” An example given is an issue a liberal may see as environmentalism, a conservative may see as maintaining the American way of life. Both have different sets of ethics, but the results are the same. Note: Conservatives said they were less willing to compromise on any of the moral categories. Conservatives value the rule of law and importance of democracy, where as Liberals value the importance of helping those in need.

Conservatives recognize that democracy is a huge achievement and that maintaining the social order requires imposing constraints on people. Liberal values, on the other hand, also serve important roles: ensuring that the rights of weaker members of society are respected; limiting the harmful effects, such as pollution, that corporations sometimes pass on to others; and fostering innovation by supporting diverse ideas and ways of life.

Laber-Warren

New Way to Look at the Data: Similarities Between Groups of People Are Large and Importantt Paul H. P. Hanel, Gregory R. Maio, Antony S. R. Manstead, 2018. Paper addresses analysts’ tendency to look into and publish about the differences and not similarities. By also addressing similarities readers have a more complete context as well as a more positive understanding of the out groups. This includes the choice of graphs representing data, where they find superimposed distributions gave the readers the most correct understanding. The large amount of social science on differences contributes to social polarization.

Why Trump? George Lakoff’s essay, 2016, on how people see their country as a family, with conservatives looking for a strict father and liberals the nurturing mother. Hierarchy (moral) is the rule where there are those who are supposed, to dominate. This is also tied into self-identity. White Evangelicals – Strict father morality from church. Pragmatic Conservatives – Individuals are their own moral ‘fathers’. Laissez-faire Free Marketeers – Financial success is the moral ‘father’.

Empirical research has shown that conservatives tend to reason with direct causation and that progressives have a much easier time reasoning with systemic causation.

Lakoff

The Coalition of Transformation vs. the Coalition of Restoration (2012). Ronald Brownstein introduces the view that the two parties represent the Coalition of Transformation and a Coalition of Restoration, pursuing those actions which benefit their constituents. Donald Trump’s Coalition of Restoration (2016) continues this paradigm with the restorative aspect described as those resistant a culturally diverse future, and feel under siege. In AMERICA, A YEAR LATER (2017), Brownstein more fully develops the model, including pulling in various statistics to describe the situation, and pointing out that while the cultural actions may be seen in these terms, the policy is pursuing something else.

In both presidential and congressional races, Republicans rely on what I’ve called a “coalition of restoration” that revolves around older, blue-collar, and evangelical Christian whites, mostly outside of urban areas, who feel most uneasy about these changes. Democrats mobilize a competing “coalition of transformation” centered on minority, millennial and college-educated white voters (especially women), who are mostly clustered in major metropolitan areas and the most comfortable with the changes.

Brownstein

The Nature and Origins of Misperceptions:
Understanding False and Unsupported Beliefs about Politics, Flynn, Nyhan, Reifler, ~2019. Misperceptions are believed, but not factually accurate. Some common techniques that attempt to correct these do not do so. Directionally motivated reasoning has one take on new ideas that reinforce their beliefs, sense of self. That which can moderate directional reasoning: elite’s polarization, in-group opinions, appeal to science, degree of salience. Directional reasoning can taken up by both low and high cognitive abilities. Elites and media can popularize misperceptions.

The IRA and Political Polarization in the United States Howard, Ganesh, Liotsiou, Kelly, François: Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) computational propaganda efforts in the US 2016 election. The report to the Senate. The Computational Propaganda Project. 2018.

The Last Temptation Gerson, (2018). Science’s removal of God to explain some aspects of life causes some Evangelicals to turn toward social justice and others towards anti-science Fundamentalism, or in other words, some turn towards postmillennialism (a time of christian ethics) and others toward premillennialism (pessimism, anti-progress, the chaos before the rapture.) Lacking numbers, and a notion of social theory, fundamentalist follow the political power structure’s social orthodoxy which defends them.

Building a better correction. Nyhan, (2013). Utilize voices recognized as being sympathetic to one’s own is the better way to correct. Refuting a statement as well as offering a possible alternative is more powerful than not.

How the Science of “Blue Lies” May Explain Trump’s Support. Smith (2017): A groups accepts lies against other groups when they benefit the group.

“History Will Judge the Complicit. Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?”Anne Applebaum, Atlantic 2020. Taking as its premise Trump’s different ideology from traditional Republicanism, Applebaum looks to history for examples for those that collaborated or not with political organizations that at first glance appear different from their own. Briefly –

I am afraid to speak out.
My side might be flawed, but the political opposition is much worse.
LOL nothing matters.
I must remain close to power.
I, personally, will benefit.
We can protect the country from the president.
We can use this moment to achieve great things.

Conservatives and Liberals Are Wrong About Each Other. Victoria Parker introduces the findings of their psyarxiv pre-print paper in The Atlantic. Through polling they found that what people think about others can be an exaggeration,

The gap that we identified between what partisans really think and what their opponents think they think shows up again and again—but only on a particular kind of issue. People have a more accurate view of the other side’s position on many standard policy issues, such as taxes or health care. But specifically on culture-war issues, partisans are likely to believe a caricatured version of the opposing side’s attitudes. Jan 4, 2022
Parker