"Draft beer straight from the bottle!" "Brilliant!"
Posted on 03/20/2006 9:38:14 AM PST by Abathar
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestar.com ...
At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area
I would say the chances are slim to none that 95 kids picked at random from the Berzerkley area would have ever been exposed to a conservative.
"Draft beer straight from the bottle!" "Brilliant!"
It can't be done. You can be sure of it. This is what is known as "junk science".
"Every girl and every boy, who's born into this world alive,
Is either a little Liberal or else a little Conservative."
(Not sure if that's the exact wording of the first line.)
If you're studying nursery schools in Berkeley, you're studying a group of kids whose parents are probably 90 percent liberal. What he really was studying was which kids rejected the politics of their parents.
Perhaps all we can conclude from this study is that a child who comes from a bad family situation is more likely to be troublesome at school and is more likely to reject the politics of their parents.
If they studied a primarily conservative area, I expect they would get the opposite results.
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very much in favor of the distribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes for the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father.
He responded by asking how she was doing in school.
Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even have time for a boyfriend, and didn’t really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.
Her father listened and then asked, “How is you friend Audrey doing?”
She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by, college for her is a blast. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus, she’s always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.”
Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have 3.0 GPAs and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPAs.”
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired back, “That wouldn’t be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”
The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Welcome to the Republican Party.”
Post of the day!
I come from a strong democrat family, and my parents have wondered where they went "wrong" in raising me when I first voted for RR in 80, and for Repulicans ever since. We try not to talk politics, as strong disagreements will occur. I still very much love my family, despite them being "Liberal". I didn't think like them after what Jimmy Carter did to this country. Thank God for RR!
That's an awesome anecdote. I'll have to remember that one.
What they fail to point out is that the conservatives grew up and quieted down, and the lefty whackos never left their child state.
It's all in how you define the words. Liberals have been playing this game for decades now.
5K a month is some unemployment! What country?
Mrs VS
Who oddly enough come to rely on government for everything...
liberal baby? seems like a contradiction. how can pro-abortion liberals have babies?
Tits on a bull. Liberals are anything but self-reliant, instead opting to lean on Big Govt for handouts..social security, welfare, entitlements, affirmative action, etc etc etc etc etc
How about a study of the prison population? Let's ask every prisoner if they are liberal or conservative. Since they have no right to vote, their "political leanings" are irrelevant for our study, simply because we say so. We can project a conclusion that liberal leaning people are 80% more likely to become felons than consevatives because 80% of prisoners are self identified liberals.
Bulls**t!
I'm not surprised, if they mean that the class bully will likely grow up to be a liberal.
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