I don’t think Howard Stern has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but this piece was pretty well done. He had one of his guys interview Harlem voters asking first who they were voting for. They would say Obama. Then, the interviewer mentioned McCain’s policies, pretended they were Obama’s, and the interviewees thought these were great ideas. That is, they would ask questions like this: "Are you more for Obama’s policy because he’s pro-life, or because he thinks he our troops should stay in Iraq and finish this war?" And they would say something like, ‘because he’s keeping the troops in Iraq’.
"for whatever reason, are singularly turned off by the Republican party."The reason is pretty obvious when you think about it for more than a few seconds. The Republican strategy has, since 1966, been the "Southern Strategy", by which I mean the sort of people who put Confederate flags out their window.
Expert mythmakers in battle (Stern and Obama). Yudkowsky and Hanson are frequently mythmakers (rather than empiricists) too, but don't play at this level.
Check out the Newsweek article from a couple years ago. http://www.newsweek.com/id/.... It pretty much says that no one really votes based on logic or reasoning, but because of emotional responses the candidate gives them
This is described as "rationalization", that is, irrationality.
Politics wonks have a hard time sympathizing with people who favor candidates without knowing the issues well. However, it's perfectly reasonable to say "I like and trust my friend, who is similar to me and has the same values as me, but pays more attention to politics. My friend says I should vote for So-and-So, so I will.".
If you favor a candidate, and don't know the issues well, taking your candidate's positions is reasonable.
Of course you could find the same phenomenon among McCain supporters. Does anyone seriously think for a moment that the point of this post was "look how ignorant Obama's voters are!"?
The defensive reactions of some commenters are very telling -- particularly in light of all the whining that we have heard from intellectuals about people voting for Republicans despite "agreeing" with Democrats' policies. The point is, people are clueless about policy, period. Politics isn't about policy -- you might have heard?
>Some of the comments in this post are pretty ironic, given that this is a site dedicated to overcoming bias. Are some of you even aware of your own?
Well gee, it wouldn't be a bias then now would it? A bias that you're aware of is like a measurement error that you know exactly. Heh.
For anyone who thinks they might have a noticed a hint of bias, Eliezer has something to say: "When you notice an error in yourself, this signals your readiness to seek advancement to the next level." You should be happy if someone accuses you of being biased, not sad. There might be an opportunity for you to reach a more advanced level!
Whenever I read something about some or other bias, there is often some part of my brain that says "Ooooh! But I'm not like that, I swear!" So it's always great to be put in a situation where I can learn if I am like that. I would love to be part of a study like the one Unnamed mentioned, just because I'm so convinced that I wouldn't succumb to group influence. And if I did? Well, I'd laugh at myself and think about how I can improve.
There's a reason why this country's congress isn't composed by the entire population. The reason is that average people aren't informed enough to know what's important in politics. This is not a bad thing--if you're not a politician or a talking head, thinking about campaign finance reform is probably a waste of time. Ultimately, we elect politicians for superficial reasons, and it's up to the politicians, not the people, to improve things.
(If you're a person who wants to improve things, and you either lack strongly-held political beliefs or have a history of changing yours, please become a politician!)
"does anyone doubt that we could just as easily find three white mccain supporters in rural 'Merca who would enthusiastically back obama's policies if they were labeled as mccain's?"
Where did he single out black or pro-Obama voters? If you want to see bias, maybe you should look into the mirror.
"nor did they ask other 'races' the same question."
Again, where did the post's author mention race? Yet that's what you read into it.
Some of the comments in this post are pretty ironic, given that this is a site dedicated to overcoming bias. Are some of you even aware of your own?
It seems that many of the commenters are complaining that McCain voters are stupid to and for that reason this is a bad post.
I think this is a bad comment! Nowhere in the post does Falkenstein say "look how stupid Obama voters are!" If you feel this is the critique he is making, then you are merely trying to react to feeling attacked. The title of the post is "Voter Rationaliation" not "Anyone Who Votes For Obama is Stupid, whereas No One Who Votes for McCain is".
Yudkowsky wrote about what is happening here over a year ago. Political examples of bias are necessarily distracting. It is unlikely that a similar post about rationalization about the choice of which bubble gum to buy would be so...political.
In addition to voter rationalization, we see a lot of beautiful commenter rationalization right here in the comments. Guys, I get it, I can guess what party you support; anything else? :-)
If Stern wants to publish this, he'll have to differentiate it from Cohen (2003), "Party over policy: The dominating impact of group influence on political beliefs," published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. I don't know if it's enough that he used Harlem residents instead of college students. The abstract:
Four studies demonstrated both the power of group influence in persuasion and people's blindness to it. Even under conditions of effortful processing, attitudes toward a social policy depended almost exclusively upon the stated position of one's political party. This effect overwhelmed the impact of both the policy's objective content and participants' ideological beliefs (Studies 1-3), and it was driven by a shift in the assumed factual qualities of the policy and in its perceived moral connotations (Study 4). Nevertheless, participants denied having been influenced by their political group, although they believed that other individuals, especially their ideological adversaries, would be so influenced. The underappreciated role of social identity in persuasion is discussed.
Way to sock it to those Greens, William.
"for whatever reason, are singularly turned off by the Republican party."The reason is pretty obvious when you think about it for more than a few seconds. The Republican strategy has, since 1966, been the "Southern Strategy", by which I mean the sort of people who put Confederate flags out their window.
Expert mythmakers in battle (Stern and Obama). Yudkowsky and Hanson are frequently mythmakers (rather than empiricists) too, but don't play at this level.
Check out the Newsweek article from a couple years ago. http://www.newsweek.com/id/.... It pretty much says that no one really votes based on logic or reasoning, but because of emotional responses the candidate gives them
This is described as "rationalization", that is, irrationality.
Politics wonks have a hard time sympathizing with people who favor candidates without knowing the issues well. However, it's perfectly reasonable to say "I like and trust my friend, who is similar to me and has the same values as me, but pays more attention to politics. My friend says I should vote for So-and-So, so I will.".
If you favor a candidate, and don't know the issues well, taking your candidate's positions is reasonable.
Re: 'Does anyone seriously think for a moment that the point of this post was "look how ignorant Obama's voters are!"?'
i'd *like* to think the post was intended with a little more subtlety. but that statement was the obvious message behind the howard stern segment.
Strongly second Slepnev, bobvis, and Mike.
Politics really is the mind-killer.
Of course you could find the same phenomenon among McCain supporters. Does anyone seriously think for a moment that the point of this post was "look how ignorant Obama's voters are!"?
The defensive reactions of some commenters are very telling -- particularly in light of all the whining that we have heard from intellectuals about people voting for Republicans despite "agreeing" with Democrats' policies. The point is, people are clueless about policy, period. Politics isn't about policy -- you might have heard?
I am not partial to any party and don't vote. To tease apart subtle behavorial differences requires more than what Stern did. That's all I am saying.
A funny little segment, but not really anything new.
The "Proof of Existence" for stupid people was completed some time ago. (TIC)
>Some of the comments in this post are pretty ironic, given that this is a site dedicated to overcoming bias. Are some of you even aware of your own?
Well gee, it wouldn't be a bias then now would it? A bias that you're aware of is like a measurement error that you know exactly. Heh.
For anyone who thinks they might have a noticed a hint of bias, Eliezer has something to say: "When you notice an error in yourself, this signals your readiness to seek advancement to the next level." You should be happy if someone accuses you of being biased, not sad. There might be an opportunity for you to reach a more advanced level!
Whenever I read something about some or other bias, there is often some part of my brain that says "Ooooh! But I'm not like that, I swear!" So it's always great to be put in a situation where I can learn if I am like that. I would love to be part of a study like the one Unnamed mentioned, just because I'm so convinced that I wouldn't succumb to group influence. And if I did? Well, I'd laugh at myself and think about how I can improve.
There's a reason why this country's congress isn't composed by the entire population. The reason is that average people aren't informed enough to know what's important in politics. This is not a bad thing--if you're not a politician or a talking head, thinking about campaign finance reform is probably a waste of time. Ultimately, we elect politicians for superficial reasons, and it's up to the politicians, not the people, to improve things.
(If you're a person who wants to improve things, and you either lack strongly-held political beliefs or have a history of changing yours, please become a politician!)
bobvis-
Seconded.
Don't worry, Eric, some people actually understood the post.
"does anyone doubt that we could just as easily find three white mccain supporters in rural 'Merca who would enthusiastically back obama's policies if they were labeled as mccain's?"
Where did he single out black or pro-Obama voters? If you want to see bias, maybe you should look into the mirror.
"nor did they ask other 'races' the same question."
Again, where did the post's author mention race? Yet that's what you read into it.
Some of the comments in this post are pretty ironic, given that this is a site dedicated to overcoming bias. Are some of you even aware of your own?
It seems that many of the commenters are complaining that McCain voters are stupid to and for that reason this is a bad post.
I think this is a bad comment! Nowhere in the post does Falkenstein say "look how stupid Obama voters are!" If you feel this is the critique he is making, then you are merely trying to react to feeling attacked. The title of the post is "Voter Rationaliation" not "Anyone Who Votes For Obama is Stupid, whereas No One Who Votes for McCain is".
Yudkowsky wrote about what is happening here over a year ago. Political examples of bias are necessarily distracting. It is unlikely that a similar post about rationalization about the choice of which bubble gum to buy would be so...political.
In addition to voter rationalization, we see a lot of beautiful commenter rationalization right here in the comments. Guys, I get it, I can guess what party you support; anything else? :-)
If Stern wants to publish this, he'll have to differentiate it from Cohen (2003), "Party over policy: The dominating impact of group influence on political beliefs," published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. I don't know if it's enough that he used Harlem residents instead of college students. The abstract:
Four studies demonstrated both the power of group influence in persuasion and people's blindness to it. Even under conditions of effortful processing, attitudes toward a social policy depended almost exclusively upon the stated position of one's political party. This effect overwhelmed the impact of both the policy's objective content and participants' ideological beliefs (Studies 1-3), and it was driven by a shift in the assumed factual qualities of the policy and in its perceived moral connotations (Study 4). Nevertheless, participants denied having been influenced by their political group, although they believed that other individuals, especially their ideological adversaries, would be so influenced. The underappreciated role of social identity in persuasion is discussed.