Sunday, March 05, 2006
Reinforcing My Stereotypes
If the Internet is good for nothing else, and it isn't, it's providing ample evidence to assure us that our worldview is the only sensible one. In that spirit there's this: Link. THE LIBERAL TEMPERAMENT....Before I even get started here, let me say up front that I have no idea if Neuropolitics.org is even a remotely credible organization. And since it's a weekend, I don't care. However, I applaud them for taking on one of today's weightiest political questions: Is it really true that liberals like cats and conservatives like dogs? The inverse is true for dogs, with preference for canines going up with conservatism except for one odd blip among very conservative women, who have equal preferences. For those of you who demand an explanation for this, here it is (sort of): So what is driving the Conservative preference for dogs over cats? Is it the dog's pack-oriented nature and prominent submissive behaviors?....Does the Liberal have a stronger aversion to pack-like hierarchical organizations and an attraction to feline-like territorial-based social organization? Whatever. Personally, I think cats are just more likely to take ruthless advantage of liberals' good nature. Who else would put up with them? Thirsting for more? Here's what else the Neuropolitics folks claim to have discovered: Liberals are more inclined to believe that the rich and powerful have a negative social value. No surprise there. Among men, conservatives are more active in high school sports. Texas probably skews the results here. Extroverts have a better sense of smell than introverts. This is actually sort of interesting. Also: extroverts tend to be more conservative and more religious. Conservatives like the colors red and dark blue. Liberal men like dark green; liberal women like light blue. Conservatives tend to be morning people. I hate morning people. Among women, conservatives are more likely to be sex-obsessed than liberals. Phyllis Schlafly, come on down! Liberals curse more than conservatives. Of course, we have reason to. Conservatives like beef more than liberals. ("If you eat a lot of beef, do you become more conservative? If you are conservative, do you eat more beef? More to come on this surprising and significant dietary preference.") Liberals are more depressed than conservatives. Gee, I wonder why? All of this is accompanied by loads and loads of entertaining ev psych explanations. Have fun!
As you can see from the chart on the right, the answer is a resounding yes. Among women, about 60% of the very liberal prefer cats, plummeting to 40% among the very conservative. Among men, it goes from 45% to 30%.
I wonder what a similar study of Canadians would show. My intuition is that it might have more to do with the utterly stark urban / suburban & rural - liberal / conservative nature of U.S. political preferences. If you look at a 3D electoral map, with population of counties taken into account, the US starts to look like a collection of city-states with a deathly red wasteland in between.
This whole affair could just be labelled as a great chicken and egg problem, too. Does the influence of one's neighbours have an effect on a new suburbanite's views? Does having to live in close proximity to many other human beings a natural home for the liberal mind? Does this same setting drive out the more conservative in search of shelter and order and control? Why are dogs dumb and smelly?
And as for the beef thing, perhaps conservatism is some thus-far undiagnosed prion disease.
