Social Scientist Sees {Liberal} Bias Within

The New York Times ^ | 7-Feb-2011 | John Tiernay

[Cronos]

....But the most talked-about speech at this year’s meeting, which ended Jan. 30, involved a new “outgroup.”...

It was identified by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia who studies the intuitive foundations of morality and ideology. He polled his audience at the San Antonio Convention Center, starting by asking how many considered themselves politically liberal. A sea of hands appeared, and Dr. Haidt estimated that liberals made up 80 percent of the 1,000 psychologists in the ballroom. When he asked for centrists and libertarians, he spotted fewer than three dozen hands. And then, when he asked for conservatives, he counted a grand total of three.

[Cronos]

Not really news, but at least the pyschologists now see themselves in the mirror

[Cronos]

from the article “Dr. Haidt (pronounced height) told the audience that he had been corresponding with a couple of non-liberal graduate students in social psychology whose experiences reminded him of closeted gay students in the 1980s.”

[DrC]

I’m sure the OEO is going to jump right on the problem of blatant discrimination against conservatives in academia...

[paint_your_wagon]

Not really news, but at least the pyschologists now see themselves in the mirror

---

True, but for for what good? Psychologists are the high priests of liberal lunacy. They tend to legitimize just about any type of deviant behavior while dismissing what we consider to be normal. Leftist depend on psychology to justify their own beliefs.

They are modern day phrenologists.

Oh, and they have a major influence on our educational system.

[Rashputin]

After laughing, I figured out that even if this guy has tenure he’s either one of those extremely rare folks truth as his goal or he’s terminally ill. Either way, it would be interesting to track his career before and after this paper.

[sphinx]

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

Money quote.

[originalbuckeye]

Psychologists/psychiatrists lost all credibility in the 70’s when they redefined homosexuality as a ‘variation on normal’. PC waaaaaay back then and we have been under assault ever since.

[nathanbedford]

The fields of psychology, sociology and anthropology have long attracted liberals, but they became more exclusive after the 1960s, according to Dr. Haidt. “The fight for civil rights and against racism became the sacred cause unifying the left throughout American society, and within the academy,” he said, arguing that this shared morality both “binds and blinds.”

I have argued Nathan Bedford's first Maxim of American politics on these threads ad nauseam: all politics in America is not local but ultimately racial.

It was the civil rights acts as much as the court packing scheme which distorted the American Constitution out of all its power of elasticity-regardless of how noble or merited the cause of civil rights. What it told the American body politic was that the American Constitution was no longer the sacred compact between people and government but a mere obstacle to be evaded, avoided, or disparaged until it became appropriate to deride its reading in the United States Congress. If it is okay to evade the Constitution to achieve the noble goals of civil rights, it must be okay as well to evade the Constitution in the cause of gay rights, women's rights, immigrants rights, or to defend a black occupant of the Oval Office.

Indeed, the present occupant of the Oval Office would not be there except as a guest were it not for the color of his skin. We see in that election the power of race to "bind and blind" not only the academic community but the fourth estate and, through these keepers of the information gate, the electorate at large.

The word "bind" has at least two meanings, one meaning, to tie together and the other, to tie shut. The invocation of race in America shuts down the debate and shuts down inquiry into the eligibility of Barack Obama, both constitutionally and politically, to be President of the United States.

[exDemMom]

From my experience, many psychologists choose the field because they have mental issues. Liberalism, by being rooted in emotion and the desire to eschew logic or rational thought, tends to appeal to the mentally imbalanced. So, is it any surprise that most psychologists are liberal?

[comps4spice]

bttt

[Altura Ct.]

And yet we continue to send our children into the indoctrination centers.

[WaterBoard]

From my experience, many psychologists choose the field because they have mental issues.

I believe that is true as well. In fact, I had a psychiatrist professor tell me the same thing year ago.

[RFEngineer]

“Not really news, but at least the pyschologists now see themselves in the mirror”

This guy is trying to be honest and introspective, but he can’t go the rest of the way.....Conservatives tend to be a bit brighter, harder working, and accomplished, hence their under-representation in the field of psychology.

That’s the real story, and the real reason why they are uncomfortable about it.

Psychology is for the lazy, and for those with no other option.

[rocketmag]

Did you read the comments after the article? Some scary thinking from the folks that read the Times.

[neocon1984]

Everybody has “mental issues” as you put it. Some deal with them better than others. A good psychologist can help, regardless of political persuasion. A bad psychologist is like a bad plumber - get ‘em out of there before they cause too much damage.

Most psychologists are liberal because of academic orthodoxy,and its rigorous requirements. Psychologists in the public sector (VAs, academia) are far more liberal than private sector psychologists who deal with reality on a day-to-day basis.

-25 years a conservative libertarian psychologist who mostly keeps his mouth shut in professional circles.

[Piranha]

So once again everyone is divided by Haidt speech. When will it end?

[Rashputin]

Oh, I know! They are frightening and they're exactly like the mob of elitist idiots that run the entire education system in this country as well as the entire pseudoscience extensions to everything else.

We need to destroy the democrat fascist party and the education system they've turned into an indoctrination and rewards system for the faithful. Now it's a system to provide good paying jobs and titles of nobility for the faithful with brainwashing and systematic restraint for the unfaithful. The democrat party needs to be destroyed so thoroughly that, to paraphrase Halsey, " ... democrat is only spoken in Hell".

Rid this country of the democrat party fascist eugenics driven infrastructure and oddly enough, everything else would fall into place in short order.

[Matchett-PI]

"True, but for for what good? Psychologists are the high priests of liberal lunacy. They tend to legitimize just about any type of deviant behavior while dismissing what we consider to be normal. Leftist depend on psychology to justify their own beliefs.

Not all Psychologists. Click my screen name and click on the link at the top of the page for one Ph.D Clinical Psychologist who has the leftist mind nailed to a "T". bttt

[vanilla swirl]

if you give it a name it’s not deviant

[Seruzawa]

Oh, and they have a major influence on our educational system.

Don't you dare criticize them! How else would millions of children be diagnosed with learning disabilities? These children suffer from a lack of coke and meth derivatives in their bloodstreams and need to be treated. /s