Conservative political beliefs not linked to psychotic traits, as study claimed

[Independent voter]

Remember that study that concluded that people on the right had psychotic traits? Turns out the study has been retracted, the data sets were reversed, it's left wingers who have psychotic traits.

How can you make a mistake this large and still call yourself a scientist?









http://retractionwatch.com/2016/06/0...ts/#more-38705

Conservative political beliefs not linked to psychotic traits, as study claimed

with 7 comments


American Journal of Political Science

Researchers have fixed a number of papers after mistakenly reporting that people who hold conservative political beliefs are more likely to exhibit traits associated with psychoticism, such as authoritarianism and tough-mindedness.

As one of the notices specifies, now it appears that liberal political beliefs are linked with psychoticism. That paper also swapped ideologies when reporting on people higher in neuroticism and social desirability (falsely claiming that you have socially desirable qualities); the original paper said those traits are linked with liberal beliefs, but they are more common among people with conservative values.

We’re not clear how much the corrections should inform our thinking about politics and personality traits, however, because it’s not clear from the paper how strongly those two are linked. The authors claim that the strength of the links are not important, as they do not affect the main conclusions of the papers — although some personality traits appear to correlate with political beliefs, one doesn’t cause the other, nor vice versa.

In total, three papers have been corrected by authors, and a correction has been submitted on one more.

We’ll start with an erratum that explains the backstory of the error in detail. It appears on “Correlation not Causation: The Relationship between Personality Traits and Political Ideologies,” published by the American Journal of Political Science:


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.

The erratum (which is long, so we won’t quote in full) explains:


The potential for an error in our article initially was pointed out by Steven G. Ludeke and Stig H. R. Rasmussen in their manuscript, “(Mis)understanding the relationship between personality and sociopolitical attitudes.” We found the source of the error only after an investigation going back to the original copies of the data. The data for the current paper and an earlier paper (Verhulst, Hatemi and Martin (2010) “The nature of the relationship between personality traits and political attitudes.”Personality and Individual Differences 49:306–316) were collected through two independent studies by Lindon Eaves in the U.S. and Nichols Martin in Australia. Data collection began in the 1980’s and finished in the 1990’s. The questionnaires were designed in collaboration with one of the goals being to be compare and combine the data for specific analyses. The data were combined into a single data set in the 2000’s to achieve this goal. Data are extracted on a project-by-project basis, and we found that during the extraction for the personality and attitudes project, the specific codebook used for the project was developed in error.

In the paper, the authors are clear that “psychoticism” doesn’t mean “psychotic.” Rather:


Having a high Psychoticism score is not a diagnosis of being clinically psychotic or psychopathic. Rather, P is positively correlated with tough-mindedness, risk-taking, sensation-seeking, impulsivity, and authoritarianism…As such, we expect higher P scores to be related to more conservative political attitudes, particularly for militarism and social conservatism.

[Nadiru]

Neat. Not that surprising, but neat.

[satimy]

What's more crazy being an evangelical Christian or thinking Elizabeth warren is good for the country?

[Azadina]

Makes me wonder how much freedom of speech they received to reverse it

[Belize]

What's more crazy being an evangelical Christian or thinking Elizabeth warren is good for the country?

It depends on your point of view and political leaning.

[Independent voter]

If you're crazy you gravitate toward the left. Republicans have their shit together.

Except for this Trump thing maybe.

[Kalis]

The entire study is now invalid, even if I had used it pre-retraction to support my agenda, because it was valid then, as science is only valid when it supports my agenda.

[jbombard]

If you're crazy you gravitate toward the left. Republicans have their shit together.

Except for this Trump thing maybe.

Crazy isn't the same thing as ignorance and stupidity. While Trump is very likely a sociopath, his followers are for the most part just ignorant and stupid, not crazy.

Personally though, the ignorant and stupid people can be just as scary as the crazy ones.

As far as OP goes, more pseudo-science than science.

[dd614]

The left loves to dehumanize its opponents. That's how they rile up their brown shirts to commit violence.

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Crazy isn't the same thing as ignorance and stupidity. While Trump is very likely a sociopath, his followers are for the most part just ignorant and stupid, not crazy.

Personally though, the ignorant and stupid people can be just as scary as the crazy ones.

As far as OP goes, more pseudo-science than science.

Case in point: Dehumanize your opponents instead of attacking their beliefs. Hallmark of the political left.

[Brexitftw]

It doesnt take science to establish that all of politics is a think tank process and all believers of extreme viewpoints are extremists.

When people feel their survival is being pigeon holed by views that do not support them, we all turn psychotic.

Its a natural survival instinct.

[Mormolyce]

Ugh, pop science. You really shouldn't believe any studies like this.

[sarahtasher]

Yes, it's silly to call names the right. (Cue to the usual suspects screaming like possessed about how ''lefties'' (code word for ''anyone left of something so rabid right that half of the actual Nazi party would have labelled as ''SJW''') are degenerate deserving a bullet in the head)

[jbombard]

The left loves to dehumanize its opponents. That's how they rile up their brown shirts to commit violence.

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Case in point: Dehumanize your opponents instead of attacking their beliefs. Hallmark of the political left.

Interesting considering I'm a middle of the road independent.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Just so you know - and as someone who despise both political extremes - take in consideration that there is a correlation and not a causality.

[Kalis]

Yes, it's silly to call names the right. (Cue to the usual suspects screaming like possessed about how ''lefties'' (code word for ''anyone left of something so rabid right that half of the actual Nazi party would have labelled as ''SJW''') are degenerate deserving a bullet in the head)

It is silly to call the right names, but fuck it, you are going to label them anyway.

[Dezerte]

It's only valid when it supports my view.

[Hana Song]

Everyone should be conservative anyways, the world would be much better with that

[Quien Soy Yo]

Everyone should be conservative anyways, the world would be much better with that

Do you just go around throwing childish one-liners the whole day?

Awesome, that's what I'm here for too! Wanna go out for coffee?

[enragedgorilla]

I am more ....at issue with the thought that they Got it wrong the first time (really?) ...so very utterly wrong....let it go out into the public, people probably used it as a basis for debate....waited awhile ...THEN retracted it.

I find far more value in the study that found the "Best way to make a Grilled Cheese Sandwich"
Guess I was not the target audience in the OP one

[jbombard]

After AI and robotic systems remove the need for human labor to support human life, it is extremely likely we will move to some form of socialism.

Regardless, as technology and society move forward and the world continues to change, you need political leadership that can embrace and manage change, not politicians that fear and resist change.