Epic Correction of the Decade - I'm not Psychotic ... But You Might Be

Remember this study?

Guess what? It was wrong. It seems they got something wrong when coding their data.

The basic gist of the study in question was to try to find out of certain character traits matched with political ideology, a correlative rather than causative relationship.

Work in psychology, behavioral genetics, and recently political science, however, has demonstrated that political preferences also develop in childhood and are equally influenced by genetic factors. These findings cast doubt on the assumed causal relationship between personality and politics. Here we test the causal relationship between personality traits and political attitudes using a direction of causation structural model on a genetically informative sample. The results suggest that personality traits do not cause people to develop political attitudes; rather, the correlation between the two is a function of an innate common underlying genetic factor.

Basically, what they showed originally (or so they thought) is that higher marks for psychoticism related to social conservatism and conservative military attitudes. While neuroticism seemed to correlate with seemed to correlate with being more economically liberal, although the study authors seemed a bit surprised by that.

People higher in Neuroticism tend to be more economically liberal. What is intriguing about this relationship is that it is in the opposite direction of what past theories would predict. . .

Well, it turns out there was a reason why the authors seemed a but surprised. Here is the correction. It seems that due to an error, you can reverse their results. What they thought was conservative ... in actually liberal and vice versa.

The authors regret that there is an error in the published version of “Correlation not Causation: The Relationship between Personality Traits and Political Ideologies” American Journal of Political Science 56 (1), 34–51. The interpretation of the coding of the political attitude items in the descriptive and preliminary analyses portion of the manuscript was exactly reversed.

...

Thus, where we indicated that higher scores in Table 1 (page 40) reflect a more conservative response, they actually reflect a more liberal response. Specifically, in the original manuscript, the descriptive analyses report that those higher in Eysenck’s psychoticism are more conservative, but they are actually more liberal; and where the original manuscript reports those higher in neuroticism and social desirability are more liberal, they are, in fact, more conservative.

So basically, according to this study. Conservatives are more likely to just want to get along, and the liberal attitudes correlated more closely with degrees of authoritarianism. But anyone who has been following the protests outside Trump rallies and what has been going on when someone of the other viewpoint comes to campus is familiar with this.

I think this whole thing deserves:

I tnink there are extremists and phycos both sides of the political spectrum.

a reply to: ketsuko
A complete reversal.
It was a minor error, I take it?
Pardon me for not taking the time to read it now.

a reply to: ketsuko

The study said conservatives are psychotic and liberals neurotic.

Now they flipped it.

Still not seeing any winners.

a reply to: daskakik

I believe the correction of the study simply reflects accurately now what many of us already knew

Since pretty much all studies are paid studies or sponsored studies correlative is pretty much a given... why people pay them any mind without at least 3 independent verfications Ill never know... they only ring true to someones bias unless confirmed with proper verfications... but even then cherry picked variables and samples often skew results.

Just look at how the meat and dairy industry are back and forth on its good now its bad every so often... stocks are down? Time for a "study" to change public perspective to boost sales.

Studies are basically commerical or agenda in nature so its definitely one of those areas to follow the money to source whos propaganda it belongs too.

a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness

Acknowledgments

The data for this article were collected with the financial support of the National Institute of Health AA-06781 and MH-40828 (PI: Eaves). Data analysis was supported by NIH Grant 5R25DA026119 (PI: Neale). To obtain a copy of the data for replication, please go to polisci.la.psu.edu... The authors would like to thank John Jost and the members of his lab for useful comments in the preparation of this manuscript. Any errors of interpretation are, of course, our own.

The source has the exact methods and every variable they considered.

a reply to: daskakik

Then there is the C group that never bought into such a thing as Conservative or Liberal- We are the ones that get to lead after we banish the ones that have been ruling this planet the last 120,000 years or so to the phantom zone for a few 100 thousand years.

a reply to: ketsuko

Conservatives are more likely to just want to get along, and the liberal attitudes correlated more closely with degrees of authoritarianism.

?? But doesn't liberal kind of mean free? If you apply something liberally, you're applying freely....I'm a supposed liberal, and I hate authority, and I hate telling people what to do....I just want everyone to get along...
😕 Life is getting more confusing by the day, makes me want to stop overthinking....

a reply to: butcherguy

They are assuming it was an error in tabulation somewhere.

originally posted by: snowspirit
a reply to: ketsuko

Conservatives are more likely to just want to get along, and the liberal attitudes correlated more closely with degrees of authoritarianism.

?? But doesn't liberal kind of mean free? If you apply something liberally, you're applying freely....I'm a supposed liberal, and I hate authority, and I hate telling people what to do....I just want everyone to get along...
😕 Life is getting more confusing by the day, makes me want to stop overthinking....

It is supposed to. Here in the states, it has been co-opted by a whole lot of people who say they want to "free you by force for your own good." That's where the authoritarian side of things come in.

a reply to: ketsuko

Here, when we had our old conservative government (the "Harper" government), he wanted to be a dictator.
Now that we're liberal, we haven't had them in power long enough to know what we have yet. Except that they're very environmentally green, which is going to cost us in carbon taxes 🙄

a reply to: snowspirit

Every single word has a meaning... string them together and it can be an equation that ones audience can agree or disagree with based on that subsets bias. Its basically a pander to an audience, so looking at all the websites something is found can show you the target audiences for such.

In the US our internet isnt exactly controlled but that cookie, ad opt in, and internet history business will return results that appeal to your likes or bias... not good at all for research when it returns nothing but skewed returns based on sites that meet your expected bias based on this browsing history.

People can be psychologicaly profiled all Vanilla Sky or Batman computer styled Alfred warned him it was unethical to do when finding the Joker. But the ration was programming for all that saw it to associate Batman with the sacrifice to save many is ok to comprimise a few so that when it happens IRL most that saw that movie will have no issues with such occurring.

Seeing beyond such social programming I suppose takes understanding the mind itself... of course, some may say this falls into conspiracy but as Mulder said if anyone cares 'The truth is out there' if you want to compile it. I dont see the illegality in that... but hey, not asking for belief so dont ask for cites... it is what it is, and Im not going to make anything out of it... theres reasoning and ration and intent and purposes for it. Its ones personal choice in how to take it... no different than the topic at hand.

There will naturally be bias to this as mentioned and in that vocabulary equation someone that reads this will make up their own mind and take it to mean what it means to them like abstract art with commonly known shapes of some form... doesnt bother me which way one chooses to take it or decides to leave it... its any wonder that we can communicate anything at all with just about every word holding specific meanings and conceptual attachments of bias that forms the equation to begin with.

The nice thing about a forum, is its rare to know ones audience... the not so nice about a forum is all the assumptional bias that pegs someone or something as something else by a tiny fragment based on limited experience... whos experience is deemed most limited I suppose is how the victor of how some debates are decided.

Ive no horses in any race.

a reply to: superluminal11

Yeah but the OP makes it sound like the correction leaves concervatives looking good when both the original and the correction sling poo in both directions.

a reply to: snowspirit

The ptb use these labels to further confuse us. I'm liberal too in that sense but I am neither a liberal party supporter nor conservative. I have conservative ideas too but don't call me a supporter of the conservative party. Here the liberals are red....I like red but I don't like the party red in North America nor the blue...... Left, right; red, blue; liberal or conservative.....either or. Well 99% I would guess are NONE OF THE ABOVE....most of us are somewhere between.....we like some things from both sides and mostly a whole lot of the middle ground.

liberal attitudes correlated more closely with degrees of authoritarianism

Absolutely. Don't need a study to see that. Large parts of the liberal base wants more government control, they want to government to enforce "social justice" by any means necessary

a reply to: snowspirit

We're going to get a lot of the same old with some new same olds shoved up our arse. The system is rigged and all we got was a pretty boy and nothing more.

Yayy....enough divide and conquer for everyone!!!!!!

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
Yayy....enough divide and conquer for everyone!!!!!!

I know, too funny.

'I'm not as crazy as you thought I was but you are!'

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
Yayy....enough divide and conquer for everyone!!!!!!

I know, too funny.

'I'm not as crazy as you thought I was but you are!'

politics has gotten to where the insults and jokes just write themselves.