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Researchers Claim To Be Able To Determine Political Leaning By How Messy You Are
According to a study to be published in The Journal of Political Psychology, you can tell someone's political affiliation by looking at the condition of their offices and bedrooms. Conservatives tend to be neat and liberals love a mess. Researchers found that the bedrooms and offices of liberals tend to be colorful and full of books about travel, ethnicity, feminism and music, along with music CDs covering folk, classic and modern rock, as well as art supplies, movie tickets and travel memorabilia. Their conservative contemporaries, on the other hand, tend to surround themselves with calendars, postage stamps, laundry baskets, irons and sewing materials. Their bedrooms and offices are well lit and decorated with sports paraphernalia and flags — especially American ones. Sam Gosling, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, says these room cues are "behavioral residue." The findings are just the latest in a series of recent attempts to unearth politics in personality, the brain and DNA. I, for one, support a woman's right to clean.
Ayn Rand is one for the liberals how?
Libertarian, sure. But liberal... not so much.
The rest of the world dont use.
Trying to be social determinismts, you must use the most general and stereotypical easy deffinition, that's so broad contradictions don't got something to grab on.
On my course about writing papers, the lecturer warned us about using generalities.
This is beyond stupid.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
You know this is probably true because if you think about it, people leaning towards liberalism are more free spirited, going on vacation, listening to music, doing what makes them feel good, having the attitude of a college student, and whatever they have in their homes is going to reflect that. Conservatives are more about responsibility, working hard, living below your means, advancing your family, being proud of America, and what they put in their homes will also reflect that. In all this is an interesting study.
Conservatives surround themselves with irons? :looks around:
C'mon, is my web cam on? Nobody I've ever known surrounds themselves with irons.
I've got a messy desk, though I try to keep it organized every few days, I've got music on my drive from Flowing Waters to ragas to Beethoven to Miles Davis to trash pop, all my books are on shelves unless I'm using them, and, yes, I have an alligator head from Louisiana nearby, as well as a Voltron, but my workspace is well-lit and I have some postage stamps in this desk's hutch. No flags or sports memorabilia are in sight.
I suspect that my mess's characteristics don't fit their model because the Liberal/Conservative single-political-dimension model is wildly oversimplistic. Trying to draw any conclusions based on it is just going to give you bad ideas.
In the real world most people would think I'm a conservative, though people who actually know me would think I'm a Classical Liberal. I know, I'm off-axis, for shame.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
As opposed to your boy hero who just nationalized the banks.
If I'm not mistaken, as Milton Friedman put it, the world liberal has been washed out by modern politics...modern "liberals" are no more liberal than "conservatives." I think the true modern liberal is actually now defined as "Libertarian." Which is now termed "fiscally conservative" and "socially liberal" ...but generally "libertarians" are economically liberal...but in modern terms are economically "conservative." It makes no sense...but it's true in actual definitions of the word instead of the political label thrown around. Anyhow, I would somewhat agree with this finding
Those on the right have books about feminism. Those on the left have feminist books.
Boy Hero? Bush is not a conservative...socially yes (which is stupid) fiscally...not....so....much. Calling Bush a real conservative is about as realistic as their being a pro-Microsoft article on Slashdot followed by pro-Microsoft comments, completely unrealistic. But thanks for identifying yourself as a "liberal" who can't take a joke. Perhaps they should add that characteristic to the study
All sides have dirty hands in that, from the very beginning.
This meltdown has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans failing us. It has to do with the black-box government as a whole failing us.
Perhaps our representatives could, at some point, get back to the job of representing us.
It would get me exactly backwards! Sounds more like stereotyping than research.
OH FUN jedi MIND games!
No, because i almost have to deduce what the persons meant by "Leftist"
I've seen people throwing socialists and social-liberals into the same hole called leftism.
Now were do i go from there?
My definition of leftism(which i dont use) range from socialism(communism, social democracy, etc) to syndicalism, and there is a wide conditions that tells me what he actually means not just (cold, warm, HOT HOT HOT)
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
Oh ok, i will try to keep our discussions as simple as a single boolean.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
I wonder if:
1. younger people tend to have messier rooms than older people (age correlates with political identity)
2. military people tend to be neater than non-military people
3. poorer people tend to be messier than richer people (again, correlation)
I'd like to see the actual report when it comes out to see which variables they're controlling for.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
modern "liberals" are no more liberal than "conservatives."
You know what the word means these days, so does everyone else. How come every time someone uses "Liberal" with the current, widely accepted use, someone on /. inevitably pipes up about how it used to mean something else? Words change, that one changed. Come on out of the 18th century already.
Seriously though these kinds of analysis of political leaning toward behavior seem as silly as the easily startled tend to be more conservative.
Sille as it may seem when presented like this, it is not as stupid as that. In recent years there has been a lot of research into how mental processes relate to brain physiology, body chemistry etc, and in that context it isn't unreasonable to hypothesize about why people lean one way or another, politically.
Also, please note that this a statistical result - there is a apparent correlation between political leaning and the way you keep order. This can be seen as just a special case of the idea that the way you live your life influences your political opinion - IOW nothing surprising there.
What they don't say is that "if you are messy, you are always liberal".
How much of this do you folks in the Slashdot community out there really buy into?
Oh, every word, certainly. This is about critical thinking - it doesn't mean that you have to reject everything with scorn, out of hand, it just means that you don't accept things without first thinking about how they add up. It is surprising how often critical thinking leads you to accept and understand what others tell you.
Someone tagged that with "correlationisnotcausation." Yeah. Great. Really insightful there. Clearly no claim of causation was made, but it's important to remind us of that bumper-sticker bit of wisdom. Anything else? Can we get a "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag in there? Because really, something could ALWAYS unexpectedly go wrong. Maybe some more basic logic, like "adhominemattacksdontproveyourpoint?"
Hey asshole, when i post:
"No, because i almost have to deduce what the persons meant by "Leftist"
I've seen people throwing socialists and social-liberals into the same hole called leftism.
Now were do i go from there?
My definition of leftism(which i dont use) range from socialism(communism, social democracy, etc) to syndicalism, and there is a wide conditions that tells me what he actually means not just (cold, warm, HOT HOT HOT)"
I thought i would be met with something worthwhile.
but instead i get trapped in some bizarre world where discussions is facilitating your terms only.
So really, i made arguments, you dropped the ball, and i became victim of your trolling.
So its clear to me that you are not after a reasonable discussion and thus really aren't worth my time.
Either you a malevolently being an asshole or you are a big enough idiot that you thought:
"So you did understand what I meant.. that's all I wanted."
would be a great way getting across a point.
So respectfully....
FUCK OFF
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
I guess this means I'm somewhere in the middle since my interests would indicate I'm a liberal but I have a tendency to want things neat and organized.
I have to say, it's quite obnoxious how utterly polarized politics has become in the US. It's basically all or nothing with too many people on both sides, to the point where a potentially sound idea is completely dismissed because it might have hints of being conservative or liberal. Instead of fixing existing systems too many people are intent on completely trashing it and replacing it with whatever conforms to their worldview. I don't even bother trying to discuss politics with some people I know because it results in them becoming openly hostile. They wont even take the time to consider my viewpoint and argue it. Instead I'm dismissed as a shill for one entity or another. The friends I do get into interesting discussions with are the ones who are legitimately moderate.
And this is amongst people who are somewhat informed, although some might draw all their news from one side of the aisle. Unfortunately, I encounter far too many people who don't know what the hell is going on beyond what they hear in sound bites. I find that overseas people seem to be better informed about politics. And their opinions seem to be more balanced. They seem inclined to side with parties based more on specific issues. And there's much less of this notion that one side has to take one stance on issues and the other side has to adopt the opposite stance.
What troubles me is that this is basically using science to reinforce stereotypes. Maybe someday someone will come along and tell us we can be cured of our political affiliations.
This article just blithely assumes personality traits are fixed at birth and then determine political beliefs, and makes essentially arbitrary value judgements on those traits.
Positive personality traits associated with liberalism (self-reliant, resilient, dominating and energetic) and negative ones attributed to conservatism (easily victimized or offended, indecisive, fearful and rigid) appear as young as nursery school-age kids--and correlate with those children's political beliefs in adulthood, according to a 20-year study published in 2006 in the Journal of Research in Personality. More recently, scientists linked the strength of a person's startle response to their political leanings: conservatives tended to scare easier, blinking harder than liberals when they heard a loud noise.
Now that thing about the startle response is interesting, especially because it's a simple enough trait that one can easily imagine it really is just genetics. On the other hand what's the point in describing personality traits as positive or negative here? Why not just say these traits were more common in liberals, and these over here were more common in conservatives? What purpose is served by mixing value judgements in with the attempted science like that? What kind of messed-up person describes 'dominating' as a positive trait in a political context, anyway?
A simpler way of looking at it is small 'l' liberalism, as in the liberal arts and a more enlightened approach. A big L liberal, as in libertarianism combined with conservatism, basically government should not interfere in private ownership, except to enforce it though force of arms, private ownership would extend to slavery or the pretence where it is acceptable for a minority to own access to all natural resources and to lock up ownership of those resources upon an hereditary basis, basically excluding the majority from anything other than servitude (closet royalists).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The current, widely accepted IN THE US use. In the UK, it still retains much of it original meaning.
The distinction that I came across between liberals and libertarians, which I think has some value, is that the liberal, while believing in personal freedom, also believes in social constructs, whereas the libertarian believes in rugged individuality. So a libertarian shoots trespassers on his first land and asks questions later, whereas a liberal checks if they are lost, ill, or some other socially acceptable reason, and only shoots when they are proved to be aggressors. The libertarian accepts that he will occasionally kil the innocent, the liberal that he will occasionally be to slow and get hurt himself.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Either way this upcoming election should mean the final retirement of the corrupt Nixon cronies that came with Bush. so you might see a return to the traditional party line instead of this stupid "child molesters for the family" type of hypocritical representation with one financial/sexual/security scandal after another. You need representatives that don't have hands out for bribes and don't have their hands in the pants of "pages" while telling everybody how Christian they are. Take a look at some overseas press to see how these "patriots" are actuallly ruining the declining reputation of the USA.
>>>... and if you got no books at all, you might just be Republican :)
You know I'm sick of these prejudices (yes that is the correct word). I'm a Republican, I read lots of texts, and my room is about as messy & colorful as any liberal room.
Furthermore, I'm sick of the label "conservative". The idea that man should rule himself (not be ruled by politicians) is about as liberal as can be. I support legalization of marijuana (inside your own home) and same-sex marriages (it's your bedroom; do whatever you want). I'm as liberal as any Democrat, I just don't think having my government act like my daddy is the answer.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I'm sick of you people misappropriating the word 'liberal'.
That's just plain wrong. Liberal means minarchist with various opinions on exactly how much the state should be allowed to do. Libertarian includes both anarcho-capitalists and various flavors of minarchists. Neither term has anything to do with with how social the individual should or can be.
Like many other research, this is just an example of someone who has a belief and only uses examples that support that belief to justify that belief, while ignoring everything else.
No. Replace "trespassers" with "entering my house". I don't know any libertarians which shoot before determining the actions are malicious. You do them a disservice to say they're too stupid to think about their actions. Even the guy in Texas waited at least 5 minutes before being absolutely sure they were robbing his neighbors house.
The liberal, will not be able to shoot because the "common sense gun control" laws (what a doublespeak term that is, ha) he voted for have removed his right to own a gun for self defense (only for shooting animals!).
Two Englishmen got drunk in Texas, got lost and walked up the path to a front door to ask the way - at 2am. The owner shot them dead without asking questions. He was acquitted in court. About five years ago.
In the UK, "liberal" does not equal gun control. Many UK liberals also want gun control, but in your parlance the two are not the same, which is my point. On the contrary, a true liberal wants the freedom to have guns - balanced by the requirement to keep your guns safe. It is US parlance that a liberal is one who restricts the freedom to own guns.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Here's the problem, sir: you're using the old definition of Republican. The party doesn't stand for that anymore.
Hey, look! It's Bono's brother.
It seems to me that you would need larger samples in more life/professional areas to draw reasonable conclusions. Could the tendency to be more or less organized also be attributable to one's profession or current life circumstance?
My room is full of trinkets and mementos, three guitars, a set of congas, clutter, and colorful trinkets from friends in other countries, and colorful gifts from friends who have traveled where I have not had the opportunity to go. You'll find evidence of my hobby of dabbling in foreign languages. You won't find a single American flag, sport poster, or banner, yet the majority of my political views are squarely conservative. While it is an interesting topic of study, the sample will need to be much larger, and the demographic divisors much more granular, before onclusions may be extended to the general population.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
The Republican party hasn't stood for your values in decades. The size of government balloons under Republican administrations, they spend money like there's no tomorrow, they push through draconian legislation like the PATRIOT Act, and they don't support legalization of marijuana or same-sex marriages. Why do you continue to identify yourself as a Republican when it's obvious that they don't stand for anything you believe in?
Why would I switch to Democrat when *they* don't stand for anything I believe either?
They talk about freedom, and yet they want to add even more taxes to my paycheck. I'm already losing 40% of my pay in automatic deductions. We don't need more taxes.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Guess what? You probably shouldn't be a Republican.
Just about the only thing that Republicans will do that you approve of, is cut taxes. They've shown they won't cut spending to match either so it's inevitable that that bill has to come due and taxes will rise even higher than they were before they were cut. You just might want to vote differently.
And to answer the follow up, people aren't prejudiced against Republicans. They're upset with the behaviour of Republican Politicians, Republican Pundits, the Republican Party and the voters who seem to excuse any amount of insanity as long as it comes with tax cuts.
Personally, I want my government to be based on reason and best practices, not faith and war and that's why I can't vote for the current Republican party. And if you're an objectivist, you just might want to think a little more closely about what steps are actually a good idea to get better government (even if better for you is only less) and which are not. "Starving the Beast" isn't working.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
First of all, who said anything about switching to Democrats? Secondly, Republicans would eventually be forced to raise taxes because they run up massive deficits and their spending sprees can't continue indefinitely without someone footing the bill. As pathetic as this is... Democrat administrations typically cut the budget and begin reducing the massive deficits created by Republican spending sprees.
Personally, I wouldn't vote for either of them, but if I was forced to pick one it would definitely be the Democrats. Republican fiscal policy in the last few decades has been terribly irresponsible.
That's easy. Poorly designed electoral systems which lead to a 2 party duopoly. The U.S. needs massive electoral reform and the rise of some additional parties to diversify the real choices offered to voters. Having only 2 parties to choose from leads to voters having to choose the least corrupt party every time they vote, but the 2 party system makes it easy to subvert a large portion of voters by constantly campaigning against "the other guys". It's really just a big mess.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
It seems that the one group it's OK to be prejudiced against is the Republicans, and I'm sick of it too
Ah yes, because it's Republicans who get called traitors and asked questions like why you hate America. *rolls eyes*
This conservative persecution complex is really laughable.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Nobody's forced to pick either, but you'd think they were. There are plenty of third party candidates, but as long as "third party" = "wasted vote" in the majority of people's minds, nothing with ever change. We keep voting for the lesser of two evils, and every election, both choices get just a bit worse. It's never enough to inspire revolt, but it's been going on so long that government no longer has interest in anything but maintaining power.
FTA: "It's pleasurable for liberals to think more. They gravitate toward art, to things that are not as concrete," says Carney. "Conservatives have a need for order, for there not to be ambiguity. There you see that expressed by being more orderly, having more cleaning supplies, needing to have everything lined up and organized so that one feels one's environment is predictable and therefore safe."
Who wants to bet that the person who made that comment is a messy liberal? "Liberals like thinking"? Even if there is a strong correlation here, how does having more books mean you like thinking more. Maybe "liberals like reading" would have made more sense. Then they go on to make being neat sound bad -- like it's some obsessive need based on insecurity. As for myself, I'm a very messy conservative who reads a lot and likes art.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
As long as you vote Republican they have no incentive to do anything differently.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
> I support [...] same-sex marriages (it's your bedroom; do whatever you want).
No, marriage has nothing to do with who you screw. It is a public, not a private, function. In fact, it relates to the regulation of reproduction and responsibility for produced or adopted children.
As such, ideally, one should be able to file taxes as Married *only* if one has also had deductions for Dependents in that or previous years, or have a certificate from a doctor that the woman is currently pregnant. Good luck getting *that* through, though.
.
BTW, I am a Republican, what I consider reasonably conservative, both economic and social, and my office and bedrooms are notoriously messy. Friends refer to my looking for old documents as "conducting an archeology expedition."
In short, I call BS on the article.
It is also hilarious how conservatives claim to be the majority, and a persecuted minority at the same time. It is as if all concepts exist as discrete, disconnected entities in conservative minds. In this way of thinking, the fact that one is in the majority simply has no bearing on the fact that one is a minority. Both can be true. Beliefs are held because they are convenient, not because they are supported by and support other beliefs.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
They talk about freedom, and yet they want to add even more taxes to my paycheck. I'm already losing 40% of my pay in automatic deductions. We don't need more taxes.
Why do you believe that "freedom" must mean "less taxes".
Do you work for someone making more than $250k? Yes? Then your pay / benefits will be lowered caused by their increase in taxes.
Do you work in an industry that caters to people working for people making more than $250k? Yes? Then your pay / benefits will be lowered caused by their increase in taxes.
Do you work in an industry that caters to people making more than $250k? Yes? Then your pay / benefits will be lowered caused by their increase in taxes.
Do you work in an industry that caters to people who work in industries that cater to people making more than $250k? Yes? Then your pay / benefits will be lowered caused by their increase in taxes.
878659 - yep its prime.
If ownership of natural resources is predicated on adding value through labor, by what right does one add labor in the first place? Without adding the labor, one does not own the resource, therefore, one is stealing by adding one's labor to a resource one doesn't own.
Fair exchange? Is it fair exchange to hire a hit man to kill you? Is it fair exchange to hire a thief to steal your things? If I buy a bicycle from someone who stole it from you, to whom does the bike rightfully belong? Why is it fair exchange to purchase stolen land?
So, what moral excuse did Jack use to appropriate the land in the first place?
What happens when one individual wields more power through financial gamesmanship than any group can defend against?
No individual has any inherent rights. In fact, the concept of rights only exists in a social context. Without that context, one should more properly speak of power.
Rights derive from agreements between individuals. Specifically, rights come from an agreement to uphold and defend the right, and an agreement to punish those who would infringe the right. You can bleat on and on about your property rights, or your right to be free from attack, but without a group willing to back you up, or the power to defend yourself, your rights are meaningless to those who would take them from you.
What I'm hearing from you in regard to Nozick is, "I don't understand these ideas well enough to put them in my own words. I believe them because I like the consequences of believing them, not because I understand them." If you can't make the case yourself, you don't understand the concept, and I'm not going to go read someone you claim understands it better.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
This to me is plenty of evidence that everybody's irrational, particularly when it comes to people they don't identify or agree with, and belies motives other than seeking the truth and solving real problems.
Love, Squeedle
Internal consistency (between moral concepts) is something Conservatives are *not* good at. If you try to argue with a Conservative and convince them your argument is right they'll simply switch arguments. The best way to argue with a Conservative is to ask questions (as though you are simply curious) about their point of view. Continue to ask questions and compare their answers to their previous answers for consistency, and then ask questions about that. Do not try to argue your point of view.
I like how you can be so dismissive about my capacity because I can't fully regurgitate several chapters of complex concepts that somebody could give lectures on for weeks into a few digested paragraphs in a matter of minutes between all the other crap I have to work on all day. That's extremely condescending and disingenuous. It's one thing to counter the points within and understand limitations that should be assumed in good faith, and under other circumstances I might have found some time to offer a more coherent rebuttal when more pressing matters were out of the way, but your attitude gives no benefit of the doubt and no good faith. Probably stems directly from your low opinion of the value of individuals. In any case, I'm glad that such an early showing of your true colors has given me sufficient demonstration of your relative value that I can avoid any later significant effort in more detailed argument.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Do you work for someone making more than $250k? Yes? Then your pay / benefits will be lowered caused by their increase in taxes. Do you work in an industry that caters to people working for people making more than $250k? Yes? Then your pay / benefits will be lowered caused by their increase in taxes. Do you work in an industry that caters to people making more than $250k? Yes? Then your pay / benefits will be lowered caused by their increase in taxes. Do you work in an industry that caters to people who work in industries that cater to people making more than $250k? Yes? Then your pay / benefits will be lowered caused by their increase in taxes.
This will all, of course be offset by the fact that, if you're not making $250k/year, YOU will pay less in taxes. Fuck the rich, they have it well enough already.