Acme

Yes what? You have read it, or you intend to read it?

Have you read or do you intend to read Altemeyer's book?

Have you read or do you intend to read Altemeyer's book?

Have you read or do you intend to read Altemeyer's book?

Have you read or do you intend to read Altemeyer's book?

Have you read or do you intend to read Altemeyer's book?

Pardon me; Ray. As I said I'm typing hastily due to a storm. 'Ray's' bias is no more a red herring than your continuing whine about Altemeyer's bias. I won't address anything until you say whether you have read -or intend to read- Altemeyer's book.

I read all you wrote. Blah blah blah repeating a thing over & over does not make it so. I again call on you to say whether or not you have actually read Altemeyer's book or intend to, as well as call on you to justify the hateful language I found on Jay's page. You keep citing him as an authority but his rhetoric if used by a member here would tag him as a luny crackpot in short order. PS To all dear tender readers please forgive any recent typos, delayed response, & brevity for a few hours as we're having a major wind storm and I keep losing power & web connections. If need be I'll clean things up when things get back to normal.

Stop right there. Given what I just posted from Jay's page I have to consider him by your own measures an extremely biased source. The quotes of his I gave if used here in a post by a member would bring fast & sure censure and accorded no credibility. Honestly, it is just this kind of foaming-at-the mouth rhetoric from conservatives that leads people to ask if conservatives are mildly insane. I'd like you to declare whether you have actually read Altemeyer's book that I am sourcing or if not whether you intend to. I have not accepted what others said of it & I expect no less from respondents here.

I don't quite understand the question, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. IOW I urge you as I do all to read the book yourself. It's free online and also freely downloadable as a pdf. Here's his main page where you can get or read the book as well as other of his writings. None of his stuff contains the hateful sort of language I found at Mr. Jays page I note. What's up with that vitriol I wonder. The Authoritarians @ University of Manitoba

Not Canadian; I am the son of Daughters of the American Revolution on both my father's and mother's side and my ancestors were English and Swedish. Old as dirt; yes. I'll have to consult the oracle on that title to jog my memory... accessing...whiring...clicking...so yes, I remember that. Back on point, while I couldn't access Ray's particular article that chadn referenced, I did look into his bias. A few quotes from one of his pages sums it nicely. Conservatism as Heresy Ouch!

A conditional thank you. All notions are preconceived in the sense that conceiving is predicated on some form or fashion of history. Everyone then has 'preconceived' notions, including yourself and chadn. As I recall you left this discussion saying something to the effect that you would not read Altemeyer's book and [to paraphrase] implying that this was so because you already knew what was in it. I get the sense chadn has no intention of reading the book either and will content himself with citing what others have said about it. (Both chadn and Moontan have expressed here that they don't even accept as legitimate a delineation of right/left or conservative/liberal.) Whatever my preconceived notions I have at least undertaken to get the story from the horse's mouth rather than take things second hand from the mules. Whether or not I manage it, I have in mind to do the same for the other 80 or so studies referenced in the meta-study that opened this can of worms. (I did try and read the paper by Ray that chadn linked to, but it's behind a pay-wall.) I also re-read the section -as I said I would- in The Authoritarians on pgs. 15-29 that related to the validity of Altemeyer's RWA scale and found that quoting bits of it don't make the argument and quoting all of it goes beyond what is reasonable to quote here. If folks argue against the validity without reading that section and then making specific criticisms to points in it...well...that's just more broad-brush unsubstantiated expression of preconceived notions of what it says.

The questionnaire you linked to is just one of many that Altemeyer uses. Who is picking the cherries here? So statements along the line of these from Altemeyer's book. Since I have shown that 'the questions' you keep bringing up are actually just the questions that you cherry picked, I have met my part. You decry bias as if it invalidates any investigation. It is only as sensible in a survey on authoritarianism to mention authority as it is to mention painting in a survey about art. By reading Altemeyer's work and posting on it I am submitting it to questioning. Which of your biases & prejudices are you conforming to? Duly noted. . [i missed your editing this in.] ...I'm not exactly sure what you are getting at, but ... But you're going to go on about it as if you did.

Yes, I have read the questions in the book, as well as the discussion concerning their validity. From your link: Give me a few minutes to access that section as I have to complete some updates. Blah blah blah. If you don't agree with the studies' methods or conclusions that is fine. If you want to keep harping here, fine too. But you can't simply say the questions are biased and then fail to produce non-biased questions and so declare any such questions are invalid. People take political stances, other people find the why's and wherefore's of those stances of interest because political stances and actions affect lives and so studying the situation is valid. Moreover, people give themselves political labels such as conservative, liberal, libertarian, etcetera so implying that these assignments are imposed by academics is fallacious. Be back in a bit with information from the book section referenced above. If you haven't read the book, I suggest you do. The Authoritarians

Yes. They are in the book I have been reading and referencing. If what you say is true -and from what I have read it is not- then you should be able to start a thread on liberals being slightly insane and cite multiple studies to support the idea. Have at it.

I'd like to revisit this complaint. In the thread on the demise of science I alluded to having read 80% of Altemeyer's book. Checking now I must amend that to ~64%. Anyway, I got off on other interests and duties and didn't finish the read so today I picked it up where I left off and in short order found a telling passage in regard to your above claim. To whit: The Authoritarians

So each measure should be taken in the context it is given. I don't have a problem with that. Just because apples aren't oranges does not mean they are not fruit. So using your analogy, the studies have just as sure a result as the nail is driven. One does not drive a nail all the way in if they intend to hang their hat on it. Well, Altemeyer's work does show that his 'right-wing authoritarians' tend to self-identify as conservative so it shouldn't be surprising to see that reflected in the meta-study. The link in post #1 is not the meta-study itself; I give that link in post #22. As to the meta-study itself equivocating, I think the authors were quite straight-forward. They say: Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition I'd say that, at least in regards to Altemeyer, he is straight-forward about the demographics as well as about what shortcomings his work has and what further studies may be desirable to fill in gaps. On the general idea of studying psychology, science is always amendable and that can only serve as a lenitive to your fundamental problem. You would not be the first here to just declare that you don't believe there is legitimacy to comparing political persuasions, however people are as people do and the interest appertains whether you join or not.

1) Please point out which specific measures you take issue with so we can look at the specifics. 2) What's the use of using the term statistically significant if one can simply dismiss it as small? Either statistical significance matters or it does not. Would you likewise qualify a statistically insignificant result as large? 3) What study are you referring to here? In Altemeyer's study there is no claim that all authoritarians [per his definition/use of the term] are conservative or that the two terms denote the same measure. 4) I think you will find religiosity -to name another aspect- is rather high in association with conservatism in the US.

I just took the loan of The Archimedes Codex: How A Medieval Prayer Book Is Revealing The True Genius Of Antiquity's Greatest Scientist by Reviel Netz & William Noel. Looking forward to a good read.

Philosophy solves the problem of generating unsolvable problems.

Mmmmmm...I failed to understand the explanation as well as failed to understand that it was an explanation. Nevertheless, you can't simply go by what I quote, so...

You simply will have to read the study yourself. As I have said several times, I can only quote a limited amount of material in respect to the author and forum rules and what I do quote is indicative of what I find pertinent to the topic of whacky behavior among political conservatives. If there was a similar level of mild insanity among political liberals then there would be studies examining and affirming that; there isn't, there aren't, and so they don't. I have yet to find any criticism of Altemeyer's methodology, which is of course not to say there is none. While Bob Altemeyer is retired, I'm sure you can write him and ask for clarification of issues you feel aren't addressed in his books. Keep also in mind that Altemeyer's work is just one of 80+ studies covered in the meta-study of the OP, and on the whole all those studies affirm some psychological infirmities among political conservatives. (As if it wasn't obvious. ) Whatever turns your crank Mr. Die.

Presuming the pdf you mean is Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians, details of the methodology are mostly in the footnotes. [The meta-study in the OP is also a pdf file.] Bob has another book that the free pdf The Authoritarians is drawn from and that other book contains far more detail on the statistical analysis. Here's a link to it on Amazon: >> The Authoritarian Specter by Bob Altemeyer While I have been gone from this thread for a couple weeks, I have not forgotten it and I'll return as circumstances allow. Thanks for your interest.

Knowing that you dear tender readers have been reading along with me, I'll just jump to a bit of the summary. Next up is Chapter Five: Authoritarian Leaders. Keeping this all in the perspective of politics, most who score high on the Fundamentalist questionnaire also score high on the RWA and most high-RWA folk self-identify themselves as politically conservative. Crazy, huh? The Authoritarians

I suppose one difference to consider in regards the conservative effort to draw Blacks and Hispanics to their party-of-choice is that Blacks tend to be Protestants whereas Hispanics tend to be Catholic. (I'll go with that casual observation and only find the stats if demanded of me.) It is unlikely we will get an interview with the Hunts in which they clarify their psychological mind-set concerning the Southern Strategy and whether or how it plays a role in trying the same approach with Hispanics that failed with Blacks. On to some study material. The Authoritarians On-topic views from whatever perspective are welcome. Arguably it's my ball but I'm staying to see the game out. Spoken like a true high RWA. (Regardless of whether you rate that label, your comment matches such behavior as revealed in the study.) Were you to bother reading the study you might understand your error. Given that high-RWA are not so good at logic, and given your apparent high-RWA comment above, I wouldn't bet on it. And as I have stated before, the author of this particular study is a Canadian professor teaching in Canada. (Now retired.) You keep bringing your personal attributes into this which in some sense requires me to reply to them. However, as this puts me on risky ground for a staff admonition to attack the idea and not the person I'll thank you to stop introducing your personal attributes into the discussion. Again, if you had read the study you would know who it applies to. The Democrats have done so. Since this thread is not specifically about parties, and as we learned from the Southern Strategy article that conservatism has migrated between parties, then discussion of Democrats really does not play into it. If you or anyone else have studies indicating that liberal and/or Democratic party politically leaning folk are mildly insane then by all means start a thread and present them. ----------------------------------- [Appended separate post] Notes of note. The Authoritarians