Political Ideology Shapes How People Perceive Temperature

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 19, 2012 @08:37AM from the and-who-wants-t'-know? dept.

benfrog writes "In what likely isn't that much of a surprise, a study has shown that political ideology shapes how we perceive temperature changes (but not drought/flooding conditions). (An abstract of the study is here. 8,000 individuals were asked about temperatures and drought/flood events in recent years, then their political leanings. Answers regarding drought/flood events tended to follow the actual changes in conditions, while answers regarding temperature tended to follow people's political beliefs."

1 of 193 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

The next question is... by SpryGuy · 2012-07-19 08:41 · Score: 5, Interesting

...when looked at by political groupings, did any particular political grouping's perceptions of the temperate correlate more closely to reality than the others?
i.e. was there one or more political ideologies that was more divorced from reality than the others, by any meaningful statistical deviation? Or were they all off, just in different directions based on political ideology?

--

- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't