Figure 2 - uploaded by Jarret T Crawford
Content may be subject to copyright.
(Hilbig and Moshagen). Percentage of votes gained in most recent election conditional on party positions on the logit left-right (LLR) scale. The black lines indicate the unweighted (dashed) and weighted (dotted; weighting party positions by the proportion of actual votes received) mean across parties (mean and median differ by less than 2% of the scale). The red and blue lines indicate the LLR position of U.S. Republicans and U.S. Democrats (latest election only), respectively.
Source publication
In our target article, we made four claims: (1) Social psychology is now politically homogeneous; (2) this homogeneity sometimes harms the science; (3) increasing political diversity would reduce this damage; and (4) some portion of the homogeneity is due to a hostile climate and outright discrimination against non-liberals. In this response, we re...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... is self-evident that the political parties of these countries will not map onto the Democrat-versus-Republican categorization from the United States. Comparing the position of U.S. Demo- crats and U.S. Republicans on the LLR scale to those of the 99 political parties of said 12 countries clearly reveals that U.S. Dem- ocrats are best characterized as holding a moderate (rather than left) position in a global context (results are virtually identical when considering all countries available in the manifesto data- base). Figure 2 plots the proportion of actual votes parties re- ceived in the most recent national elections against their position on the LLR scale. As can be seen, the "global midpoint" (both unweighted and weighted by actual votes that parties re- ceived) is close to the numerical neutral point of the left-right spectrum. In turn, this is essentially the current position of U.S. Democrats. By contrast, U.S. Republicans score approximately 1 standard deviation right of this global midpoint. Thus, in compar- ison to the political spectrum of all parties across these countries (which contribute just as much to psychological science as the United States), it is clear that the U.S. spectrum (Democrats vs. ...
Citations
... In addition to age and gender, other sociodemographic parameters were collected in order to identify possible bias. According to Duarte et al. (2015) in studies where the ability to understand the nature of intergroup antipathy itself is to be investigated, it is important to check with control questions that the sample is not politically biased. For this purpose, in Samples 1, 2, 3, and 8, political and ideological beliefs were also collected. ...
Diversity acceptance enables individuals to deal with social diversity in a constructive and goal-oriented way. The DWD-O5 rating scale is a new, multidimensional survey tool for the organizational context to measure this trait. It was developed in three steps: after item analysis (n = 203), iterative exploratory factor analyses followed (n = 2,443), in which 40 models were generated and compared. An interpretable model with five factors and 15 items was chosen. With a third sample (n = 761) this model was verified via confirmatory factor analysis. Taking the relevant parameters (RMSEA, SRMR, CFI, TLI) into account, the scale has a high model quality. The DWD-O5 has a good reliability (inter-nal consistency α = .85, split-half correlation r = .81, retest reliability r = .85). The validity was examined. The scale proved itself in practice and can be used as a research tool to examine questions of development , changeability, and other implications of diversity acceptance. Practical uses and limitations are discussed.
... Baron and Jost [31] spelled out some reasons why researchers may be compelled to interpret their research findings as supporting the notion that political bias is symmetrical. Motivation to appear unbiased may be elicited by calls from prominent researchers to promote "ideological diversity" in social psychology [51][52][53]. It may also be motivated by a conscious or unconscious recognition of the fact that there is a higher rejection rate for manuscripts on "liberal" topics [54]. ...
Three studies sought to explore the existence of (a)symmetric bias regarding Donald Trump. In Study 1, participants read one of three statements expressing different degrees of favorability toward electing the President of the United States via a National Popular Vote attributed to Trump or an anonymous source. In Study 2, participants read one of two statements either favoring or disfavoring the name change of the Washington NFL franchise, and the statement was attributed to either Trump or an anonymous source. In Study 3, Trump and Biden voters were asked to rate their support or opposition to counting all the votes in battleground states when continued counting was expected to either help Trump or Biden. Results for all three studies supported the asymmetric bias hypothesis. Trump supporters consistently showed bias in favor of the interests and ostensible positions of Trump, whereas Trump’s detractors did not show an opposing bias.
... Baron and Jost [31] spelled out some reasons why researchers may be compelled to interpret their research findings as supporting the notion that political bias is symmetrical. Motivation to appear unbiased may be elicited by calls from prominent researchers to promote "ideological diversity" in social psychology [51][52][53]. It may also be motivated by a conscious or unconscious recognition of the fact that there is a higher rejection rate for manuscripts on "liberal" topics [54]. ...
Three studies sought to explore the existence of (a)symmetric bias regarding Donald Trump. In Study 1, participants read one of three statements expressing different degrees of favorability toward electing the President of the United States via a National Popular Vote attributed to Trump or an anonymous source. In Study 2, participants read one of two statements either favoring or disfavoring the name change of the Washington NFL franchise and the statement was attributed to either Trump or an anonymous source. In Study 3, Trump and Biden voters were asked to rate their support or opposition to counting all the votes in battleground states when continued counting was expected to either help Trump or Biden. Results for all three studies supported the asymmetric bias hypothesis. Trump supporters consistently showed bias in favor of the interests and ostensible positions of Trump, while Trump's detractors did not show an opposing bias.
... First, Crawford et al. (2015) used stereotype threat as an example of an effect where a political bias could exist. They suggest a researcher's liberal bias by might lead to biases in questions pursued, p-hacking, and a file-drawer problem. ...
Zigerell (2017) demonstrated that 4 methods of examining publication bias applied to the meta-analysis presented by Nguyen and Ryan (2008) on stereotype threat effects yield highly divergent conclusions. The methods differ in the estimated magnitudes of publication bias and of the stereotype threat effect. Zigerell (2017), Nguyen and Ryan (2008), and the current article all strongly urge researchers to pay attention to moderators of stereotype threat effects, and we provide commentary on the state of this research focus.
... As a political conservative, I would like to supplement the discussion started by Duarte et al. [1] by commenting on some of their points and by also pointing out some of the advantages of being a conservative in today's social science academic environment, an environment that often seems anti-conservative. This is important because the lack of diversity in social science may seem to make being an academic conservative an exercise in futility or a career without a future or on the wrong side of history [1]. ...
... As a political conservative, I would like to supplement the discussion started by Duarte et al. [1] by commenting on some of their points and by also pointing out some of the advantages of being a conservative in today's social science academic environment, an environment that often seems anti-conservative. This is important because the lack of diversity in social science may seem to make being an academic conservative an exercise in futility or a career without a future or on the wrong side of history [1]. Furthermore, conservative students may be seen as obstacles to diversity rather than those most able to accept it [2]. ...
... The situation is so common, this author once wrote a parody of how one could prove that tobacco use was harmless (or maybe even good for your health) if one was allowed to make the same sorts of methodological errors [73]. One of my concerns as a scholar, a concern shared by others [1], is that once the public catches on to such methodological nonsense being passed off as sound-if not the best -scientific evidence, they may lose any faith they might have had in the social sciences. ...
... The social sciences are comprised almost entirely of socially liberal researchers (many are also economically liberal; see Gross & Fosse, 2012; Sanderson & Ellis, 1992). Inbar and Lammers (2012) found that only 6% of social and personality psychologists identified as conservative; Bill von Hippel and David Buss, in a still unpublished survey of members of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, found that a paltry four out of over 300 members surveyed voted for Mitt Romney in the 2012 election (quoted in Jussim, 2015). Because of this, the social sciences are (arguably) plagued by political correctness (a generally liberal way of protecting sacred values) and (potentially) biased in ways that preserve a sacred narrative about social (metaphysical) equality. ...
... Kleck has certainly earned the ire of many liberals who vigorously dispute his findings and arguments; however, he has not been removed from the domain of respectable discourse or forced to suffer the unremitting assaults that Murray, Summers, Wade, Jensen and others have. V A few scholars have started to draw attention to potential biases in social psychology (and in the social sciences more broadly) (For example, Duarte et al., 2015; Haidt, 2012; Jussim, 2015; Tetlock, 1994). In this essay, we praised these scholars for focusing attention on this problem, and we largely agreed with their contention that the overwhelming proportion of liberals compared to conservatives in the social sciences is one cause of bias. ...
An essay about political bias in the social sciences; a working draft.
Against the backdrop of the Covid‐19 pandemic, this article undertakes a critical evaluation of a series of shortcomings of the view of conspiracy theories that is predominant among scholars and the general public. Reviewing numerous studies on the topic, we critically assess: (a) how justified the claim is that we are in a conspiracy‐thinking emergency, (b) how the label of conspiracy theorist can be used strategically to delegitimize heterodox views, and (c) the practical consequences, for academic research and the well‐functioning of democracies, of unpopular ideas being labeled as conspiratorial. The empirical sources reviewed here suggest that beliefs in conspiracy theories have not increased over time and are less consequential than commonly believed, even in times of a global pandemic. Instead, the concept of conspiracy theory has become more prevalent and its derogatory connotation evokes a stigma that tilts the playing field against dissenting viewpoints. The stigmatization and political leveraging of this notion, we argue, lead to biases not only in the public discussion on various sensitive topics but also in the academic literature on conspiracy theories themselves. We analyze these academic blind spots in light of the diminishing political diversity in academia and recent perspectives on soft censorship. We propose to complement the research on conspiracy theorists with an analysis of individuals at the opposite end of the spectrum, who are inclined to uncritically trust institutional authorities and are prejudiced against heterodox opinions. Proposed solutions include promoting balanced news coverage, fostering critical thinking through debates, and piercing information bubbles to provide access to diverse perspectives.
Women in politics and income inequality have become two prominent issues in developed economies and remain a topic of ongoing debate. To achieve sustained economic transformation, economies around the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) urgently need to adapt to sustainable development practices to reduce the risk of experiencing bad economic outlooks. However, the gap in the existing literature is the relationship between women in politics, income inequality, and the well-being of people, which has not received sufficient attention thus far. To fill this gap, this study aims to assess how income inequality and women in politics affect the social and economic well-being of OECD countries. This study adopts a panel dataset from 2000 to 2020 in a panel regression model and performs a fixed-effects analysis of the relationship among these factors. Interestingly, we show no significant association between women in politics and human development. In contrast, we confirm a positive and significant relationship between women in politics and gross national savings as well as renewable energy supply. Moreover, we confirm the key role of income and poverty levels in triggering social and economic well-being, as it shows a significant and negative relationship in all of our models. These original findings have several practical implications for policymakers and contribute to the current debate on the role of women in politics and income inequality across OECD countries.
