Political Ideology Shapes How People Perceive Temperature

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."

Comments

The next question is...

[SpryGuy]

...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?

Re:The next question is...

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

What do you think you're doing! This article is about an inflammatory correlation. If you don't limit your observations, you might be in danger of committing Science!

Re:The next question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans: "It can never be warm enough, as long as it's profitable."
Democrats: "It's already way too warm."
Libertarians: "Don't worry about how warm it is at my house, just worry about your own house."

Re:The next question is...

[Baloroth]

To quote TFA:

In fact, the actual trends in temperatures had nothing to do with how people perceived them. If you graphed the predictive power of people's perceptions against the actual temperatures, the resulting line was flat—it showed no trend at all. In the statistical model, the actual weather had little impact on people's perception of recent temperatures. Education continued to have a positive impact on whether they got it right, but its magnitude was dwarfed by the influences of political affiliation and cultural beliefs.

And those cultural affiliations had about the effect you'd expect. Individualists, who often object to environmental regulations as an infringement on their freedoms, tended to think the temperatures hadn't gone up in their area, regardless of whether they had. Strong egalitarians, in contrast, tended to believe the temperatures had gone up.

So nope, no matter what your political beliefs, your perception of the temperature is wrong (unless, possibly, you have neutral beliefs, I don't see anything that mentions that).

Re:The next question is...

[BStroms]

Skimming the article, it doesn't even seem they considered a very real possibility. That political bias doesn't affect how people perceive temperature, but that people tend to answer polls in a way that reflects well on their personal beliefs even if they know that answer isn't entirely truthful.

Re:The next question is...

[jeffmeden]

...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?

They gracefully side-stepped this in the Ars article: "And those cultural affiliations had about the effect you'd expect. Individualists, who often object to environmental regulations as an infringement on their freedoms, tended to think the temperatures hadn't gone up in their area, regardless of whether they had. Strong egalitarians, in contrast, tended to believe the temperatures had gone up."

Basically, the temperature is what you think it is. If you don't believe in global warming then it isn't getting warmer. If you do believe in global warming then it is getting warmer. The thing is, global warming over the past few years is very real, and only one group acknowledged that. The study did not explore the possibility that global warming believers might think that the temperature is going up even if it isn't..

Re:The next question is...

[dyingtolive]

This would not get upmodded enough if it went to 11.

Re:The next question is...

[Greenspark]

That kind of bias is present in any self-reported survey. The findings should discuss what the population 'reported' and not what they 'believe.' Obviously, the article is also biased in it's title -- declaring that ideology shapes perception. It could also be concluded that perception determines ideology. In one paradigm, your affiliations warp what you perceive, and in another paradigm, you chose to affiliate with those who share your perceptions-- accurate or otherwise. So they need to remember that correlation doesn't imply causality.

Re:The next question is...

[slew]

My personal opinion is that this whole exercise isn't much different than asking a person if they thought the price of milk or the price of gas went up more in the last decade (or similar question).

I'd wager that most people wouldn't have any clue because the random person doesn't pay any attention to these things, so they would guess. That guess would likely not depend at all on any variable except their political beliefs.

Re:The next question is...

[IndigoDarkwolf]

The abstract concludes that talking about changes in precipitation are more likely to convince people of climate change.

Sure it will. Until their favored politicians tell them one way or the other, at which point I'll bet dollars to yuan that the same statistical anomaly appears for perceptions in precipitation change.

Re:The next question is...

[Quirkz]

That's not certain groups, that's almost universal. It takes a certain enlightenment to be able to understand people you disagree with or explain their positions without demonizing them. Very few people seem to be able to do that.

Re:The next question is...

[joocemann]

People with higher education, especially in sciences, tend to be more left/liberal/democrat/socialist. This is common knowledge.

Re:The next question is...

[hajus]

When it's the only person that responds, then it is 100% of your data. :)

This doesn't surprise me

[dkleinsc]

Basic cognitive dissonance modelling has demonstrated repeatedly that when a person encounters incontrovertible facts that contradict deeply held beliefs, the facts are discarded.

Re:This doesn't surprise me

[rrohbeck]

I've noticed recently that many people who have kids don't believe in climate change or Peak Everything.
Of course, the idea that your kids or grandkids will have a much worse life than yourself is intolerable for many.
Me, I have no children so I can think freely.

Re:This doesn't surprise me

[Hatta]

True, but it's worth pointing out that this effect is larger in conservatives. The more a conservative learns about a topic the stronger his preconcieved beliefs are.

The result was stunning and alarming. The standard view that knowing more science, or being better at mathematical reasoning, ought to make you more accepting of mainstream climate science simply crashed and burned.

Instead, here was the result. If you were already part of a cultural group predisposed to distrust climate scienceâ"e.g., a political conservative or âoehierarchical-individualistââ"then more science knowledge and more skill in mathematical reasoning tended to make you even more dismissive.

Contrast liberals, where learning more about a topic is more likely to change his belief.

Nuclear power is a classic test case for liberal biasesâ"kind of the flip side of the global warming issueâ"for the following reason. Itâ(TM)s well known that liberals tend to start out distrustful of nuclear energy: Thereâ(TM)s a long history of this on the left. But this impulse puts them at odds with the views of the scientific community on the matter (scientists tend to think nuclear power risks are overblown, especially in light of the dangers of other energy sources, like coal).

So are liberals âoesmart idiotsâ on nukes? Not in Kahanâ(TM)s study. As members of the âoeegalitarian communitarianâ group in the studyâ"people with more liberal valuesâ"knew more science and math, they did not become more worried, overall, about the risks of nuclear power. Rather, they moved in the opposite direction from where these initial impulses would have taken them. They become less worriedâ"and, I might add, closer to the opinion of the scientific community on the matter.

Re:Where's the data?

[TheSpoom]

The data is behind a paywall (click the PDF link in the abstract). Welcome to the world of scientific journals.

Another possibility

[Nidi62]

Look at a political map of the US, and what's the first thing that pops out at you? A lot more conservatives live in the southern US. Most of the places where conservatives tend to live are warm, while liberals tend to live in cooler areas. People in areas that are normally cooler would be more likely to notice an increase in temperature than people in areas that are generally warmer. Personally, I'm used to 80%+ humidity and upper 90s-low 100s myself, so this summer has actually seemed pretty mild in comparison to what I'm used to. But that has nothing to do with whether or not I believe in global warming. It has more to do with the kind of weather I am acclimated to.

Conservatives think it's cooler?

[Eevee]

It seems the other way for me. I'm a rather left-leaning type and I say it's 33 right now, but the conservative in the next cube over keeps saying it's 97.

Re:Belief will make it so.

[fahrbot-bot]

From what I've read, the global-warming theories call for unpredictable temperature swings - hot and cold - as the planet adjusts, so extreme cold at times is expected...

Re:Belief will make it so.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Any particular year could just be a fluke. Anyone who claims a hot/cool year is evidence for/against climate change is completely ignorant of basic climate science and/or thinks you are.
2) "So maybe we're experiencing both global warming and cooling at the same time!" -- That is exactly correct -- the climate is changing. Parts will get hotter, parts will get cooler. The overall trend is up, hence the name "global warming". We're going to lose some arable land but we'll gain some as well. What scares me is sea level rise -- take a look at population density maps over the world to see what I mean.
3) There is no good faith debate on whether the climate is changing, and practically none on whether it is the result of human activities. But that doesn't mean that every climate scientist with a model knows the future, or that any particular prediction is correct. What we do know for sure is that human activities are having measurable effects on a highly chaotic system on which we depend for the survival of our civilization. I like to keep my experiments in the lab.

Save on energy costs, by changing my ideology?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

So can I save on air conditioning, by having a cold political ideology in the summer?

And save on heating costs, by having hot political ideology in the winter?

In other news...

[CCarrot]

Chronological Age Shapes How People Perceive Temperature

"You just don't get the summers we used to get when I was a lad..."

Financial Circumstances Shape How People Perceive Temperature

"Almost froze my ass off last winter, didn't have enough newspapers stocked up since everybody's reading the bloody online bloody news these days..."

and

Number of Children / Grandchildren / Pets Shape How People Perceive Temperature

"Well, Susie has her skating class, then Molly has her hockey game, but Andy and Billy were invited to that Winter Festival / tobogganing birthday party at the same time...oh, and could you walk Rover when you get home?"

Face it, 'perception' of temperature is a pretty worthless measure overall. Stick with the measurements, assign a margin of error (note: not 'corrections') suitable for the technology / location, and go from there.

Re:How does this support my theory

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yeah. That Heritage Foundation are CRIMINALS for designing such a policy!