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To piggyback on this, one of the things Jonathan Haidt has shown in his work on ideological bias is that liberals are unable to accurately understand the conser

To piggyback on this, one of the things Jonathan Haidt has shown in his work on ideological bias is that liberals are unable to accurately understand the conservative worldview, while both conservative and moderates are able to accurately explain liberal positions. Here's an explanation of the study: >One other point that I find really interesting and important about Haidt’s work is his findings on the ability of different groups to empathize across these ideological divides. So in his book (p. 287) Haidt reports on the following experiment: after determining whether someone is liberal or conservative, he then has each person answer the standard battery of questions as if he were the opposite ideology. So, he would ask a liberal to answer the questions as if he were a “typical conservative” and vice-versa. What he finds is quite striking: “The results were clear and consistent. Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who describe themselves as ‘very liberal.’ The biggest errors in the whole study came when liberals answered the Care and Fairness questions while pretending to be conservatives.” In other words, moderates and conservatives can understand the liberal worldview and liberals are unable to relate to the conservative worldview, especially when it comes to questions of care and fairness. From: http://volokh.com/2014/01/17/jonathan-haidt-psychology-politics/ http://volokh.com/2014/01/17/jonathan-haidt-psychology-polit...

protomyth 10y ago
Part of that might be that conservatives and moderates hear the liberal opinion expressed in so many out outlets that it is fairly easy to give an accurate answer where liberals hear what liberal outlets think conservatives think which is sensationalized to gain eyeballs. I was taught to be able to argue the other sides opinion as well because then you truly understand what you believe.
- pyoung 10y ago
  Or it could be due to the fact that the current conservative movement relies on deception to push it's agenda, which makes it difficult for the average lay person to even understand what they stand for. Tax cuts marketed as economic stimulus, attacks on regulations and consumer/environmental protections marketed as 'making government more efficient', racial oppression disguised as drug/crime laws, universal health care spun as death panels, etc...
  - lintiness 10y ago
    case in point.
  - MustardTiger 10y ago
    >Or it could be due to the fact that the current conservative movement relies on deception to push it's agenda, which makes it difficult for the average lay person to even understand what they stand for. Then why do only liberals have a problem understanding it? Why are moderates and conservatives able to understand without difficulty? Are they not "lay person"s?
  - protomyth 10y ago
    Its nice to see throwit992 point proven in such close proximity to the comment. Your spin doesn't reflect the beliefs of any conservative I have met. We aren't twirling mustaches here.
    - pyoung 10y ago
      Except for the fact that I would describe myself as a moderate. I can empathize with the desire and need for sensible tax cuts and smaller government, but I can't support a platform that is incoherent and hypocritical. EDIT: To add a little more substance. I think the incoherence stems from the fact that the current conservative alliance is formed from approximately 3 distinct groups, with different priorities. You have the religious folks who care about abortion, same-sex marriage, drug laws, etc... And then you have the blue collar group that cares more about immigration, guns, etc.. And then you have the pro-business group which mostly cares about taxes and deregulation. From the outside looking in, it shouldn't be surprising that it's hard to empathize with the 'conservative' world view, because the external manifestations of that worldview are often very contradictory (i.e. why would a group that supports small-government also support the drug war, etc...)
      - protomyth 10y ago
        It isn't "incoherent and hypocritical" but gets portrayed that way. Some of that is messaging as the GOP is not very media savvy, but by and large, its people who have no desire to understand before reporting. [edit after the edit - please don't edit after someone has already replied - it makes the replier look bad] From the outside, Democrats can be viewed as a bunch of special interests under one tent. I find much of these "group slicing" to be problematic when talking about the GOP as I don't think its really those groups or the ultimate belief is what is reported. Viewing a group through another group's lens is fraught with peril.
wdmeldon 10y ago
The quote "Conservatives think Liberals are stupid, Liberals think Conservatives are evil" seems to apply here.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Jonathan Haidt has shown in his work on ideological bias is that liberals are unable to accurately understand the conservative worldview Actually (without getting into methodological issues and whether he has actually shown anything), the conclusion would be more accurately stated as that liberal are unable to accurately predict the manner in which conservatives would prefer to express their worldview, whereas the reverse is not true. I think that, to the extent this is accurate at all (and this type of research on broadly characterizing liberals and conservatives, from either side, is fraught with opportunities -- often realized -- to take broad fuzzy terms and operationalize them in ways which reinforces researchers' own ideological biases), what it really reflects is the fact that liberals in-group language is the same as the common language of the broader society and, particularly, entertainment media (to which, then, moderates and conservatives are still heavily exposed), whereas conservatives in-group language is something to which liberals are far less exposed (mainly propagated through conservative churches and similar institutions). (This is also feeds -- though its not the sole source of -- the liberal view of conservative dishonesty, in that the main context in which liberals encounter conservative in-group language is in conservative advocacy of public policy positions, where the language used to articulate conservative values is used in a way which clashes with liberals expected use of language, and seems dishonest when it comes to values.)

protomyth 10y ago

Part of that might be that conservatives and moderates hear the liberal opinion expressed in so many out outlets that it is fairly easy to give an accurate answer where liberals hear what liberal outlets think conservatives think which is sensationalized to gain eyeballs. I was taught to be able to argue the other sides opinion as well because then you truly understand what you believe.

pyoung 10y ago
Or it could be due to the fact that the current conservative movement relies on deception to push it's agenda, which makes it difficult for the average lay person to even understand what they stand for. Tax cuts marketed as economic stimulus, attacks on regulations and consumer/environmental protections marketed as 'making government more efficient', racial oppression disguised as drug/crime laws, universal health care spun as death panels, etc...
- lintiness 10y ago
  case in point.
- MustardTiger 10y ago
  >Or it could be due to the fact that the current conservative movement relies on deception to push it's agenda, which makes it difficult for the average lay person to even understand what they stand for. Then why do only liberals have a problem understanding it? Why are moderates and conservatives able to understand without difficulty? Are they not "lay person"s?
- protomyth 10y ago
  Its nice to see throwit992 point proven in such close proximity to the comment. Your spin doesn't reflect the beliefs of any conservative I have met. We aren't twirling mustaches here.
  - pyoung 10y ago
    Except for the fact that I would describe myself as a moderate. I can empathize with the desire and need for sensible tax cuts and smaller government, but I can't support a platform that is incoherent and hypocritical. EDIT: To add a little more substance. I think the incoherence stems from the fact that the current conservative alliance is formed from approximately 3 distinct groups, with different priorities. You have the religious folks who care about abortion, same-sex marriage, drug laws, etc... And then you have the blue collar group that cares more about immigration, guns, etc.. And then you have the pro-business group which mostly cares about taxes and deregulation. From the outside looking in, it shouldn't be surprising that it's hard to empathize with the 'conservative' world view, because the external manifestations of that worldview are often very contradictory (i.e. why would a group that supports small-government also support the drug war, etc...)
    - protomyth 10y ago
      It isn't "incoherent and hypocritical" but gets portrayed that way. Some of that is messaging as the GOP is not very media savvy, but by and large, its people who have no desire to understand before reporting. [edit after the edit - please don't edit after someone has already replied - it makes the replier look bad] From the outside, Democrats can be viewed as a bunch of special interests under one tent. I find much of these "group slicing" to be problematic when talking about the GOP as I don't think its really those groups or the ultimate belief is what is reported. Viewing a group through another group's lens is fraught with peril.

wdmeldon 10y ago

The quote "Conservatives think Liberals are stupid, Liberals think Conservatives are evil" seems to apply here.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> Jonathan Haidt has shown in his work on ideological bias is that liberals are unable to accurately understand the conservative worldview Actually (without getting into methodological issues and whether he has actually shown anything), the conclusion would be more accurately stated as that liberal are unable to accurately predict the manner in which conservatives would prefer to express their worldview, whereas the reverse is not true. I think that, to the extent this is accurate at all (and this type of research on broadly characterizing liberals and conservatives, from either side, is fraught with opportunities -- often realized -- to take broad fuzzy terms and operationalize them in ways which reinforces researchers' own ideological biases), what it really reflects is the fact that liberals in-group language is the same as the common language of the broader society and, particularly, entertainment media (to which, then, moderates and conservatives are still heavily exposed), whereas conservatives in-group language is something to which liberals are far less exposed (mainly propagated through conservative churches and similar institutions). (This is also feeds -- though its not the sole source of -- the liberal view of conservative dishonesty, in that the main context in which liberals encounter conservative in-group language is in conservative advocacy of public policy positions, where the language used to articulate conservative values is used in a way which clashes with liberals expected use of language, and seems dishonest when it comes to values.)