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Intriguing. Basic premise is that conservatives (operational definition lacking, but work with me here) tend to dismiss social psychology as a field - and thus

Intriguing. Basic premise is that conservatives (operational definition lacking, but work with me here) tend to dismiss social psychology as a field - and thus not enter it - because they consider the subjects of social psychologically to be fundamental to the persons affected, fixed, inherent in a person's base personality or approach to life. Liberals (ditto re op def) consider the subjects of social psychology to be amenable to study and remediation, and not fundamental to the person. Thus, conservatives do not enter the field and it becomes dominated by liberals. Intriguing approach to the question, to be sure.

cristianpascu 11y ago
Replace conservatives with women or afro-american and see if the answer still sounds legit. I think you're oversimplifying. Academia is still a social environment and social pressure still exists. I don't think it's fair to say that conservatives will dismiss social psychology as a field. Maybe certain schools of thought, but hey, that's the spirit. On the other hand, if the vast majority of scholars are white atheist/agnostic men, imagine how easy it is for certain views to prevail.
- PeterWhittaker 11y ago
  I think you're oversimplifying. I think I'm summarizing the quoted article. Whether or not said article is oversimplifying is another question altogether. (There have been a number of HN stories over the last few months re the apparent liberal bias in many fields, esp. psychology and sociology, the article in question suggests an alternative explanation of why this may be so.)
  - cristianpascu 11y ago
    Ok, my bad! I should've read more carefully!
cristianpascu 11y ago
>> Psychologists understand the biological, environmental, and social factors that affect behavior and are reluctant to label people as “evil” whereas conservatives are far more likely to adhere to a Biblical moral code where there are simply good and bad people. Wow: "there are simply good and bad people". This is utter nonsense. Such a caricature!
- gamechangr 11y ago
  I wish this could be up voted twice! I know many liberal and conservative friends. No one that I know thinks "there are simply good and bad people". It sounds very condescending and ridiculous.
elipsey 11y ago
>> operational definition lacking It's seems like the dictionary pretty much covers it: "conservative adjective con·ser·va·tive \kən-ˈsər-və-tiv\ : believing in the value of established and traditional practices in politics and society : relating to or supporting political conservatism Conservative : of or relating to the conservative party in countries like the United Kingdom and Canada : not liking or accepting changes or new ideas" In other words, the operational definition might be something like: Conservatism is a decision process that seeks to minimize changes to our societel rules and models of natural processes. E.g.: "good" and "evil" are old and well understood models for human behavior, and social psychology is new and less tested, so let's not change models too hastily. Well, this thread will be hilarious if it sticks around for more then 5 minutes. I guess I'll go make some popcorn...
- PeterWhittaker 11y ago
  Except that those are not "operational definitions" as normally used in sciences, esp. in psychology, the subject at hand, but dictionary definitions - and dictionaries being circular, well.... (The point of indicating such definitions were lacking was to illustrate an irony, apparently lost, an irony present even if the suggestion of the article is intriguing.)
  - elipsey 11y ago
    Please enlighten me, I'm not afraid to be wrong :) I thought an "Operational Definition" was "a result of the process of operationalization and is used to define something (e.g. a variable, term, or object) in terms of a process (or set of validation tests) needed to determine its existence, duration, and quantity" [1] I thought this meant a procedure who's results satisfy a set of definition criteria. So if the operational definition is "does the decision making algorithm change stuff?" that's derivative, not circular. It might also be inadequate, but you didn't argue that. So we can either chose a set of selection criteria for the results of a procedure, or chose a procedure that satisfies the selection criteria, but if neither of those is good enough, how can we operationalize the definition of anything? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_definition

cristianpascu 11y ago

Replace conservatives with women or afro-american and see if the answer still sounds legit. I think you're oversimplifying. Academia is still a social environment and social pressure still exists. I don't think it's fair to say that conservatives will dismiss social psychology as a field. Maybe certain schools of thought, but hey, that's the spirit. On the other hand, if the vast majority of scholars are white atheist/agnostic men, imagine how easy it is for certain views to prevail.

PeterWhittaker 11y ago
I think you're oversimplifying. I think I'm summarizing the quoted article. Whether or not said article is oversimplifying is another question altogether. (There have been a number of HN stories over the last few months re the apparent liberal bias in many fields, esp. psychology and sociology, the article in question suggests an alternative explanation of why this may be so.)
- cristianpascu 11y ago
  Ok, my bad! I should've read more carefully!

cristianpascu 11y ago

>> Psychologists understand the biological, environmental, and social factors that affect behavior and are reluctant to label people as “evil” whereas conservatives are far more likely to adhere to a Biblical moral code where there are simply good and bad people. Wow: "there are simply good and bad people". This is utter nonsense. Such a caricature!

gamechangr 11y ago
I wish this could be up voted twice! I know many liberal and conservative friends. No one that I know thinks "there are simply good and bad people". It sounds very condescending and ridiculous.

elipsey 11y ago

>> operational definition lacking It's seems like the dictionary pretty much covers it: "conservative adjective con·ser·va·tive \kən-ˈsər-və-tiv\ : believing in the value of established and traditional practices in politics and society : relating to or supporting political conservatism Conservative : of or relating to the conservative party in countries like the United Kingdom and Canada : not liking or accepting changes or new ideas" In other words, the operational definition might be something like: Conservatism is a decision process that seeks to minimize changes to our societel rules and models of natural processes. E.g.: "good" and "evil" are old and well understood models for human behavior, and social psychology is new and less tested, so let's not change models too hastily. Well, this thread will be hilarious if it sticks around for more then 5 minutes. I guess I'll go make some popcorn...

PeterWhittaker 11y ago
Except that those are not "operational definitions" as normally used in sciences, esp. in psychology, the subject at hand, but dictionary definitions - and dictionaries being circular, well.... (The point of indicating such definitions were lacking was to illustrate an irony, apparently lost, an irony present even if the suggestion of the article is intriguing.)
- elipsey 11y ago
  Please enlighten me, I'm not afraid to be wrong :) I thought an "Operational Definition" was "a result of the process of operationalization and is used to define something (e.g. a variable, term, or object) in terms of a process (or set of validation tests) needed to determine its existence, duration, and quantity" [1] I thought this meant a procedure who's results satisfy a set of definition criteria. So if the operational definition is "does the decision making algorithm change stuff?" that's derivative, not circular. It might also be inadequate, but you didn't argue that. So we can either chose a set of selection criteria for the results of a procedure, or chose a procedure that satisfies the selection criteria, but if neither of those is good enough, how can we operationalize the definition of anything? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_definition