Kelley … traced the success of conservative churches to their ability to attract and retain an active and committed membership, characteristics that he in turn attributed to their strict demands for complete loyalty, unwavering belief, and rigid adherence to a distinctive lifestyle. … [Such] a group limits and thereby increases the cost of non-group activities, such as socializing with members of other churches or pursuing “secular” pastime. …
Atheism isn't really a belief—more usually, the absence of belief. It requires, for example, no behavioral oddities. But when you get into more elaborated forms of atheism, such as Objectivism (or even Yudkowskyism), joining is prevalent.
Contrarians are making their bid to form a group, in which they themselves, as intellectual leaders, enjoy the highest status . (Forming is a kind of joining.)
I'm not sure that works. Consider that the religious middle in the United States consists of lukewarm, Christianity-tinged spirituality, what Christian Smith called "moralistic therapeutic deism." At one extreme, evangelical Christians and orthodox Jews form strong, cohesive, socially encompassing organizations, but there aren't correspondingly strong, cohesive, socially encompassing organizations of militant atheists. Instead there are disaffected loners.
(Maybe someone wants to suggest that the universities are the atheist correlative of the evangelical churches and orthodox shuls, but that's not really true. Very few academics are militant atheists; their god is just a little more impersonal than the god of the mainline moralistic therapeutic deists.)
The study cited seems weak evidence to base a theory like this on. Its just one paper, its highly dated (surveys from the50s and 60s), and its methodology is highly subjective. I don't think you can advance this theory in good faith without some recent quantitative studies on the correlation of political beliefs showing low correlation.
I, too, conclude that opinionation ( http://tinyurl.com/6znzxoj ) derives from narrow alliances. (See new posting [with some Hanson links] in Status inflation and deflation: Prestige, the essence of status, permits broad alliances" — http://tinyurl.com/lxokdf7
The linked article tends to show it's not a personality trait. One of the best predictors of being a joiner is circumstance: does the person have numerous opportunities (that conflict with joining)?
(A digression: most interesting personality trait variables don't link to the Big 5, which I think is properly viewed as a summary of factor analytic studies rather than of anything (typically) real. There's really nothing in factor-analytic methodology to "cut reality at its seams." The rotation problem, as it used to be called, is unsolvable by factor-analytic methods alone.)
There is already an informal term for personality types that have lots of strong, uncorrelated opinions--such people are described as "opinionated." When I think of common traits of "opinionated" people, some come to mind--extroversion, stubborness, perhaps vanity, and at least slightly above average intelligence. But desire for in-group conformism does not seem to map on to them as well.
"Those with more opinions overall have more extreme opinions on each topic."
This needs clarification. Are saying that someone with a lot of opinions is more likely to hold at least one or more extreme opinions? If so, that seems like a triviality. The larger N is the higher E(max(N)) will be.
But if you're contesting that those with many opinions have opinions that are more extreme on average, I'd like to see if that's true. Consider many of the most extreme political opinions: conspiracy theories, racial segregation, advocation of violent revolution, etc. The typical proponent tends to be less-educated and intelligent than average.
It's unlikely that your average neo-Nazi even knows about, let alone had an understanding of monetary policy or international IP law.
In order to generate predictions to test the validity of this conjectured joiner/middler distinction, it would useful to make a connection between it and other more established personality traits like the Big Five.
joiner vs. middler seems incomplete. I think you need to add "troll" or something. There are a lot of people who hold/express strong opinions to differentiate themselves from others rather than to bond with them. Holding strange opinions can raise their status (at least in their own mind) by making them seem smarter, more thoughtful and more independent than people who accept "the conventional wisdom" on many questions. I don't think you could call Mencius Moldbug a joiner, for instance.
Any thoughts about the rise and decline of men's lodges in the US (Moose, Masons, Lions)? So far as I know, they didn't actively restrict other activities, but they take up some time and did a lot to make members' identity include membership.
Relative to your other posts, this was very difficult for me to understand. I'm still not sure if I really know what you meant, and I've read it 2 1/2 times now.
Atheism isn't really a belief—more usually, the absence of belief. It requires, for example, no behavioral oddities. But when you get into more elaborated forms of atheism, such as Objectivism (or even Yudkowskyism), joining is prevalent.
Contrarians are making their bid to form a group, in which they themselves, as intellectual leaders, enjoy the highest status . (Forming is a kind of joining.)
I'm not sure that works. Consider that the religious middle in the United States consists of lukewarm, Christianity-tinged spirituality, what Christian Smith called "moralistic therapeutic deism." At one extreme, evangelical Christians and orthodox Jews form strong, cohesive, socially encompassing organizations, but there aren't correspondingly strong, cohesive, socially encompassing organizations of militant atheists. Instead there are disaffected loners.
(Maybe someone wants to suggest that the universities are the atheist correlative of the evangelical churches and orthodox shuls, but that's not really true. Very few academics are militant atheists; their god is just a little more impersonal than the god of the mainline moralistic therapeutic deists.)
The study cited seems weak evidence to base a theory like this on. Its just one paper, its highly dated (surveys from the50s and 60s), and its methodology is highly subjective. I don't think you can advance this theory in good faith without some recent quantitative studies on the correlation of political beliefs showing low correlation.
I, too, conclude that opinionation ( http://tinyurl.com/6znzxoj ) derives from narrow alliances. (See new posting [with some Hanson links] in Status inflation and deflation: Prestige, the essence of status, permits broad alliances" — http://tinyurl.com/lxokdf7
The linked article tends to show it's not a personality trait. One of the best predictors of being a joiner is circumstance: does the person have numerous opportunities (that conflict with joining)?
(A digression: most interesting personality trait variables don't link to the Big 5, which I think is properly viewed as a summary of factor analytic studies rather than of anything (typically) real. There's really nothing in factor-analytic methodology to "cut reality at its seams." The rotation problem, as it used to be called, is unsolvable by factor-analytic methods alone.)
Not clear which of these types you have in mind.
It's unlikely that your average neo-Nazi even knows about, let alone had an understanding of monetary policy or international IP law.
In fact, neo-Nazis have all sorts of extreme opinions on all sorts of topics. (Cf. The Authoritarian Personality, Adorno et al.)
Isn't this basically just a restatement of "most live lives of quiet desperation"?
There is already an informal term for personality types that have lots of strong, uncorrelated opinions--such people are described as "opinionated." When I think of common traits of "opinionated" people, some come to mind--extroversion, stubborness, perhaps vanity, and at least slightly above average intelligence. But desire for in-group conformism does not seem to map on to them as well.
"Those with more opinions overall have more extreme opinions on each topic."
This needs clarification. Are saying that someone with a lot of opinions is more likely to hold at least one or more extreme opinions? If so, that seems like a triviality. The larger N is the higher E(max(N)) will be.
But if you're contesting that those with many opinions have opinions that are more extreme on average, I'd like to see if that's true. Consider many of the most extreme political opinions: conspiracy theories, racial segregation, advocation of violent revolution, etc. The typical proponent tends to be less-educated and intelligent than average.
It's unlikely that your average neo-Nazi even knows about, let alone had an understanding of monetary policy or international IP law.
In order to generate predictions to test the validity of this conjectured joiner/middler distinction, it would useful to make a connection between it and other more established personality traits like the Big Five.
joiner vs. middler seems incomplete. I think you need to add "troll" or something. There are a lot of people who hold/express strong opinions to differentiate themselves from others rather than to bond with them. Holding strange opinions can raise their status (at least in their own mind) by making them seem smarter, more thoughtful and more independent than people who accept "the conventional wisdom" on many questions. I don't think you could call Mencius Moldbug a joiner, for instance.
Any thoughts about the rise and decline of men's lodges in the US (Moose, Masons, Lions)? So far as I know, they didn't actively restrict other activities, but they take up some time and did a lot to make members' identity include membership.
Relative to your other posts, this was very difficult for me to understand. I'm still not sure if I really know what you meant, and I've read it 2 1/2 times now.