Fair is fair, right? Well, except when it’s unfair. Appealing to people’s sense of fairness can be incredibly powerful in politics, but fairness is also one of the trickiest concepts in political psychology and cognitive linguistics to get right. Many voters sense that they’re being unfairly left out of the…
Why Are White People Conservative? Part 3 of 3
The bigger your family, the more liberal it probably is. I’ve now used evolutionary psychology theory to help explain why populations with high proportions of immigrants (Part 1 of 3) and young people (Part 2 of 3) would be more liberal. Those conditions are more strongly associated with the Openness…
Why Are White People Conservative? Part 2 of 3
In my last post, I found that while psychological traits like Openness and Conscientiousness usually correlate with liberal and conservative ideologies, respectively, they don’t seem to correlate much with the ethnic groups that are most associated with those ideologies (Part 1 of 3). But immigration status isn’t the only thing…
Why Are White People Conservative? Part 1 of 3
While not every white person is a conservative, the polls show that almost all conservatives are white — and Latinos, African-Americans, and Asian Americans are all much more likely to be liberal. It could just be a cultural thing — white people do more frequently exhibit a worldview that values…
Political Fact Checking and the Science of Denial
How come people don’t believe in science? It turns out science can actually give us answers to that question — well, some of us, anyway. I read an interesting piece about that recently, which I found all the more interesting because of how it relates to fact-checking efforts in politics….
How Politics Disproves “Death of Brands” Sensationalism
Having information isn’t the same thing as processing it. That means there will always be a place for brands, both in politics and in commerce — because the power of brands comes from helping people simplify their decision making. Even so, you can always grab a few eyeballs by making…
Fact Check Death Match: Mythopedia vs. Factivists
In the last couple weeks, two liberal groups have launched unique branded programs to help push back against right-wing lies, correct the record, get the truth out there, etc. As the content lead for the 2008 Obama campaign’s Fight the Smears microsite and Obama Action Wire email program, here’s what…
Is the Conservative Info Bubble Good for Progressives?
I think the information bubble that caused Mitt Romney to be sure of victory when he was about to be blown out is dangerous. But what if it’s actually a good thing for progressives? That’s what Frank Rich seems to think: Rather than waste time bemoaning Fox’s bogus journalism, liberals…
To Fight Poverty, Fight the Ultimate Attribution Error
Republicans in Congress forced the expiration of unemployment benefits for millions of Americans this weekend — an unprecedented move when long-term unemployment rates are this high. How could they be so cruel? Fighting poverty isn’t just a matter of making people care about the less fortunate — it’s about branding…
The Conservative News Bubble Is Psychological
Charlie Cook rightly points out that the conservative news bubble isn’t just differences of opinion or predictions gone a little wrong: What we’ve seen are “astonishing miscalculations on hugely consequential matters.” For my part, I’ve already explained why I think this bubble — the bubble that caused presidential loser Mitt…