Posted on 03/22/2006 7:00:47 AM PST by sandbar
Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.
At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area that social scientists have been tracking for the last 20 years. The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.
The study from the Journal of Research Into Personality isn't going to make the UC Berkeley professor who published it any friends on the right. Similar conclusions a few years ago from another academic saw him excoriated on right-wing blogs, and even led to a Congressional investigation into his research funding.
But the new results are worth a look. In the 1960s Jack Block and his wife and fellow professor Jeanne Block (now deceased) began tracking more than 100 nursery school kids as part of a general study of personality. The kids' personalities were rated at the time by teachers and assistants who had known them for months. There's no reason to think political bias skewed the ratings — the investigators were not looking at political orientation back then. Even if they had been, it's unlikely that 3- and 4-year-olds would have had much idea about their political leanings.
A few decades later, Block followed up with more surveys, looking again at personality, and this time at politics, too. The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.
The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.
Block admits in his paper that liberal Berkeley is not representative of the whole country. But within his sample, he says, the results hold. He reasons that insecure kids look for the reassurance provided by tradition and authority, and find it in conservative politics. The more confident kids are eager to explore alternatives to the way things are, and find liberal politics more congenial.
In a society that values self-confidence and out-goingness, it's a mostly flattering picture for liberals. It also runs contrary to the American stereotype of wimpy liberals and strong conservatives.
Of course, if you're studying the psychology of politics, you shouldn't be surprised to get a political reaction. Similar work by John T. Jost of Stanford and colleagues in 2003 drew a political backlash. The researchers reviewed 44 years worth of studies into the psychology of conservatism, and concluded that people who are dogmatic, fearful, intolerant of ambiguity and uncertainty, and who crave order and structure are more likely to gravitate to conservatism. Critics branded it the "conservatives are crazy" study and accused the authors of a political bias.
Jost welcomed the new study, saying it lends support to his conclusions. But Jeff Greenberg, a social psychologist at the University of Arizona who was critical of Jost's study, was less impressed.
Yeah - right. And then grew up to be socialist fools who expect government to do everything for them and have no problem working 80 hour weeks just so they can pay more and more taxes...
>>>How to spot a baby conservative.....? It hasn't been aborted?>>>
AHAHAHAHAHA
What a quack. "The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals." Now that is funny stuff.
I've never met a self-confident liberal. They are by nature self-doubting, self-loathing, complaining, slackers.
The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests.
No bias here. Wonder how many of my tax dollars paid for this nonsense?
Hell, I grew up to be a liberal--if you count 20 years old as "grown up." A few years into learning how the real world operates will cure that condition for most sane and rational people, however.
This Richard Cranium says the conservatives used to bitch and moan when they were little. But we observe that as adults we tend to go ut and get 'er done while the liberals runto authority to get the mommy gummint to take care of the boo boo, kiss itl and plaser some money on it.
I have obserrved since my hippie days that the left was always angrier and less peacable than the right. I concluded that we who fight our own fights can cope with anger and aggression better than the liberals who avoid it.
So maybe we got our whining dependency stuff done when it was appropriate and we were young, but the liberals never did it as kids, so they live with it all the time as adults.
The biggest piece of Bravo Sierra I have seen in many years....
"A few decades later, Block followed up with more surveys, looking again at personality, and this time at politics, too. The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity."
"The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests."
That's funny. My studies show that the stable, law abiding types grew up to be conservative, while the irrational, confused types grew up to be liberals.
It's all in the semantics.
I guess it would depend on their definition of a conservative.
A study in Idaho would probably show that the weirdos are liberals and the cool, confident kids are conservative. So?
So, the whiny kids grew up and found out that whining for help is useless and they learned to rely on their own abilities. The confident coddled were told, ever often, how wonderful the were and they grew to require emotional stroking, provided dutifully by the government.
It's as scientific as astrology and completely meaningless.
People like gender Roles. Liberals don't get that.
And the kids prancing around pretending to be someone else saying "I want to be famous" grew up to be liberal unemployed or sometimes employed actors.
AMEN, Aggie Mama! Give me a man who's a man and that's all I ask. If he spends more on haircare than I do, he's gone. More time on skin care? Outta here! Mr. trimom has calluses on his hands and I know he got them from working for us.
Pure projection on Kleiner's part. Conservatives are self sufficient an have a can do attitude. I think my grandson is going to be conservative because whiny kids irritate him and he tries to do everything for himself.
>>>Hell, I grew up to be a liberal--if you count 20 years old as "grown up." A few years into learning how the real world operates will cure that condition for most sane and rational people, however.>>>
EXACTLY!!! I was a liberal when I was 17-22. Then I grew up.
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