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.
Can you believe some liberal jerk spent 20 years of his life on a dumb subject like that, how dim-witted, and he's a proffessor? Could he not think of a subject more pratical to study?
The "whiny" label may be a liberals view of someone asking for help from the teacher. Maybe we would describe it in a different way.
turning into bright, non-conforming unemployed
adults with wide interests. unemployed
Exactly. Do the same study in a conservative neighborhood. Opposite results will be noted. A study of 100 kids, and from one community and it will be touted as scientific!
Hmmm let's see: a study of kids was undertaken, from their infancy to their adulthood. It was found that all of them learned to speak Spanish. The results are posted on the Universidad de Madrid Psychology Department website. What an unexpected result.
Sheepocacry
My brother was the biggest whiny, wimpy brat around. He was a Young Republican in high school. After 14 years of college, he is basically a communist.
I am so confused.
Did I seriously hear yesterday that there is a film being made about Sheehan, speculating who will play her??
I heard Ann Coulter was being considered.....
- won't put a condom on his/her banana
- won't play with a doll if male or with trucks if female
- won't dress and pray as a Muslim or Buddhist
And I'm sure I missed many more!
You can recognize MY conservative baby because she sleeps with her "Help, Mom!! There's a liberal under my bed!" book and her biggest insult is "You liberal!!"
I guess I had better teach her some tact before I turn her loose on the world.... :)
Does your brother have a real job?
Well, finally. He is four years younger than me. My parents wouldn't let me go away to college. I attended the local university, and worked a full time job.
They sent HIM to Cal Poly. They bitterly regret it now. He is 35 and finally left school a couple years ago.
He is teaching Latin in a boy's prep school. He is just a weird guy. *Sigh*
The rest of us are pretty normal.
In retrospect, I agree with your assessment.
I also agree with the poster that made the comment that this is Berkley, and liberalism is tolerated better than in say, Pocatello, Idaho. If 100 kids were surveyed from there, I suspect that opposite results would be found.
Regardless, this is at best junk science with specious reasoning and should be regarded as such.
One of the most whiny, insecure, "why doesn't everything work according to my needs" type of person I know is a liberal. The most confident, cocky, intelligent, yet crazy people I know are conservatives. These are just people I have kept in touch with since college.
Did the kids who were neither whiny or self-confident grow up to be Independents?
I really don't see how this survey says anything. I was the first girl after three boys in my family and I was the darling little princess ruler of my world. I don't think a 4 year old could have been more self-confident than I was. Like others, I was a lot more liberal when I was 20, then I had kids and met the real world.
Their assessment of conservative and liberal characteristics looks like a whole big line of liberal-speak.
I am sure glad we can put people into neat little boxes: conservative / liberal and that there is clearly no abiguity between political orientation and that no Americans are apolitical or fairly center of the road.
Me too. I'd add "self-reliant" to that list of adjectives, though.
I know a lot of libs that are *very* intelligent. But - they lack self-reliance, or motivation. It's easier for them to stay in a comfort zone. I have a cousin who is brilliant - he has a double PHD from MIT, and IMHO, could do roughly anything he wants. Sky is the limit. But....he's *VERY* liberal.
He's an academic. Makes a fair wage, but nothing like he'd command in the private sector. Working for himself, or in the private sector would entail RISK, and would force him to leave the comfort zone of people that all think like him.
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