Table 2 - uploaded by Neil Nevitte
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Political identification of college professors by field (%)
Source publication
This article first examines the ideological composition of American university faculty and then tests whether ideological homogeneity has become self-reinforcing. A randomly based national survey of 1643 faculty members from 183 four-year colleges and universities finds that liberals and Democrats outnumber conservatives and Republicans by large ma...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... addition, the NAASS respondents were asked to identify their political party affiliation as Democrat, Republican, Independent or "other." Fully half (50%) identified themselves as Democrats, compared to only 11% who identified themselves as Republicans, close to the five to one margin among left versus right of center self-identifiers (see Table 2). An additional 33% called themselves independent, and 5% specified some other party. ...
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Citations
... Scientific censorship appears to be increasing (94). Potential explanations include expanding definitions of harm (93), increasing concerns about equity and inclusion in higher education (122), cohort effects (91), the growing proportion of women in science (123), increasing ideological homogeneity (74), and direct and frequent interaction between scientists and the public on social media (124,125). However, without rigorous meta-scientific research on scientific censorship, proposed explanations are plausible hypotheses rather than empirically supported conclusions. ...
Science is among humanity’s greatest achievements, yet scientific censorship is rarely studied empirically. We explore the social, psychological, and institutional causes and consequences of scientific censorship (defined as actions aimed at obstructing particular scientific ideas from reaching an audience for reasons other than low scientific quality). Popular narratives suggest that scientific censorship is driven by authoritarian officials with dark motives, such as dogmatism and intolerance. Our analysis suggests that scientific censorship is often driven by scientists, who are primarily motivated by self-protection, benevolence toward peer scholars, and prosocial concerns for the well-being of human social groups. This perspective helps explain both recent findings on scientific censorship and recent changes to scientific institutions, such as the use of harm-based criteria to evaluate research. We discuss unknowns surrounding the consequences of censorship and provide recommendations for improving transparency and accountability in scientific decision-making to enable the exploration of these unknowns. The benefits of censorship may sometimes outweigh costs. However, until costs and benefits are examined empirically, scholars on opposing sides of ongoing debates are left to quarrel based on competing values, assumptions, and intuitions.
... From the 1930s through 1960, they were more likely to report voting for Democrats, but substantial minorities voted for Wilkie, Eisenhower, and (in 1960) Nixon. By 2006, however, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans had climbed to more than 11:1 (Gross & Simmons, 2007;Rothman et al., 2005). (p. 3) Recent surveys have shown that 90% or more of social and personality psychologists and other psychologists identify politically as liberal (Duarte et al., 2015;Inbar & Lammers, 2012;Lambert, 2018). ...
Psychologists address social-justice problems in their research and applied work, and their scholarly efforts have been influenced by assumptions, constructs, and hypotheses from the political left. Recently, some psychologists have called for increased intellectual and political diversity in psychology, particularly as such diversity may lead to improved problem-solving. As an attempt to increase intellectual diversity in psychology, we review here the scholarship of Thomas Sowell. His work represents a rich source of hypotheses for psychologists’ future research. We focus on his views on the importance of freedom; the extent to which reforms can reduce freedom; the importance of free markets to human flourishing; the role of free markets in producing costs for discrimination; the way spontaneously ordered systems can contain knowledge that can be overlooked in reforms; and the importance of culture and cultural capital. We will also discuss Sowell’s more thoroughgoing economic analyses of problems and solutions and his analyses of contingencies operating on politicians and reformers, as well as his views on conflicts in fundamental visions about human nature and the pivotal role of improvements in minority education.
... From the 1930s through 1960, they were more likely to report voting for Democrats, but substantial minorities voted for Wilkie, Eisenhower, and (in 1960) Nixon. By 2006, however, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans had climbed to more than 11:1 (Gross & Simmons, 2007;Rothman et al., 2005). (p. 3) Recent surveys have shown that 90% or more of social and personality psychologists and other psychologists identify politically as liberal (Duarte et al., 2015;Inbar & Lammers, 2012;Lambert, 2018). ...
Psychologists address social-justice problems in their research and applied work, and their scholarly efforts have been influenced by assumptions, constructs, and hypotheses from the political left. Recently, some psychologists have called for increased intellectual and political diversity in psychology, particularly as such diversity may lead to improved problem-solving. As an attempt to increase intellectual diversity in psychology, we review here the scholarship of Thomas Sowell. His work represents a rich source of hypotheses for psychologists’ future research. We focus on his views on the importance of freedom; the extent to which reforms can reduce freedom; the importance of free markets to human flourishing; the role of free markets in producing costs for discrimination; the way spontaneously ordered systems can contain knowledge that can be overlooked in reforms; and the importance of culture and cultural capital. We will also discuss Sowell’s more thoroughgoing economic analyses of problems and solutions and his analyses of contingencies operating on politicians and reformers, as well as his views on conflicts in fundamental visions about human nature and the pivotal role of improvements in minority education.
... The regional diversity is also notable, with the largest % coming from the Northeast (28%), Midwest (22%), South (19%), and West (14%), with nearly 17% identifying as "international." 5 Lastly, while the political and religious makeup of the sample are indeed unrepresentative of the general population, they are entirely consistent with what we would expect about the political and religious leanings of sociologists given previous surveys (Beit-Hallahmi, 2015;Blanton & Krasniki, 2022;Ecklund & Scheitle, 2007;Gross & Simmons, 2009;Klein & Stern, 2005;Rothman et al., 2005;Thalheimer, 1973). Roughly 50% identify as "Extremely Liberal," and another 44% identify as "Liberal." ...
... However, the goal of this experimental design is not population estimates but rather to discern effects through random assignment. Nevertheless, the demographic patterns I document in Table 1 suggest the sample is similar to those used in previous studies (Beit-Hallahmi, 2015;Blanton & Krasniki, 2022;Ecklund & Scheitle, 2007;Gross & Simmons, 2009;Klein & Stern, 2005;Rothman et al., 2005;Thalheimer, 1973). 5 Because of how participants were recruited, "International" would likely include mostly Canadian and UK faculty and trainees. ...
By several metrics, the sociology of religion subfield and its specialists are marginalized within academic sociology. Though various reasons for that marginalization have been ventured, systematic evidence is limited. This study used a 2022 survey experiment to assess how academic sociologists perceive the sociology of religion and its specialists and the potential biases influencing their evaluations. Sociology faculty and trainees (N = 536) were randomly assigned to evaluate one of six sociology subfields and their respective specialists. Sociology of religion was rated as the least mainstream, but was rated middle-of-the-pack in scientific rigor, need within sociology departments, and interest to undergraduates. Though sociologists of religion were rated comparably to specialists in other subfields on characteristics indicating intellectual rigor, they were more often characterized as “religious” and “conservative,” and participants who characterized religion specialists as such downgraded the subfield on nearly every metric. Additional analyses show lower ratings were not due to generalized negativity toward “me-search.” And secular sociologists were more likely than religiously affiliated ones to downgrade the religion subfield when its specialists were perceived as “conservative.”
... There are also differences in career paths. For example, academics in the social sciences and humanities are well known for generally being left leaning (Rothman et al., 2005). ...
This chapter focuses on the research conducted by Alford, Hibbing, and Smith, which examines the variations in tastes and preferences between liberals and conservatives.KeywordsBiopoliticsLiberalsConservatives
... The increasingly partisan nature of politics in the United States has resulted in renewed interest in the ideology of college professors. Many conservative politicians and political pundits have accused college professors, who do tend to lean liberal (Rothman, Lichter, and Neil Nevitte 2005), of serving as agents of indoctrination that prevent colleges from serving their intended function as an incubator for critical thinking skills. Similarly, some have raised concerns that instructors may attempt to impose their ideology via biased grading (Horowitz 2007). ...
... Despite any student-instructor ideological distance, perceived or otherwise, for colleges and universities to be bastions of liberal indoctrination, professors would first have to be ideologically distinct from the general population. Several studies have confirmed that professors are indeed more liberal than the general population (Gross and Fosse 2012;Rothman, Lichter, and Neil Nevitte 2005;Bullers, Reece, and Skinner 2010). However, despite this inclination, there is evidence that students and professors generally agree on what defines ideological bias, and that it should be avoided (Tollini 2010). ...
How do students form perceptions of their professors’ political ideology? Previous research has shown that students tend to project their own ideology onto professors whom they like, but the opposite ideology onto professors whom they dislike. We build on this research by running a similar survey at multiple points throughout the same semester to see if, and to what extent, students’ perceptions of their professors’ ideology change over time. We find that the interaction between student ideology and professor favorability manifests early in the semester for students who like their professor, while students who dislike their professor take half a semester or more to project the opposite ideology onto their professor.
... Many scholars admit to discriminating against researchers for political reasons (e.g., Honeycutt & Freberg, 2017;Inbar & Lammers, 2012;Peters et al., 2020), suggesting political concerns influence their judgments and that they are complicit in creating a high peerpressure social environment. This ideological bias may explain why research tends to portray conservatives more negatively than liberals (Eitan et al., 2018;Tetlock, 2012) and why liberal scholars find themselves at more prestigious institutions than their less liberal but similarly productive peers (Rothman et al., 2005). Peer reviewers evaluate research more favorably when findings support rather than challenge their own theoretical orientations and political views (Abramowitz et al., 1975;Ernst & Resch, 1994;Koehler, 1993;Mahoney, 1977), ethics committees evaluate identical research proposals differently depending on the hypothesis (Ceci et al., 1992), and a recent survey of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology found evidence of political resistance to certain evolutionary theories (e.g., Buss & von Hippel, 2018;von Hippel & Buss, 2017). ...
General Audience Summary
Behavioral and social scientists have long enjoyed vast discretion in data-analysis choices. This permissive regime has enabled scholars to engage in many deceptive analytic techniques that facilitated false claims and undercut the field’s collective credibility. Recent adoption of new transparency norms has slowed these trends and has shed light on the nonreplicability of many once-prominent empirical findings. But these transparency norms lack means of constraining researchers’ flexibility to cherry-pick how they define their variables and design their empirical tests that make it easier for scholars to support their preferred hypotheses. This freedom continues to facilitate false claims in the social and behavioral sciences and enables contradictory conclusions to persist for decades with little to no convergence. We propose that adversarial collaborations, which call on disagreeing scientists to codevelop tests of their competing hypotheses, are a vital supplement to current scientific norms for improving science’s capacity for self-correction. Adversarial collaborations disincentivize performative research aimed at like-minded colleagues, instead favoring intense intellectual competition designed to winnow false claims. We explain why it is in the best interests of the research community to incorporate adversarial collaboration as a routine component of science.
... For example, according to Brown, there is a greater focus on institutional orthodoxy and bureaucratic hierarchy in Christianity compared to Islam [13]. Thus academics, who tend to lean more liberal and less authoritarian [50], [76], [87], may find Islam more appealing and/or accommodating for its greater decentralization of authority (i.e. there is no "church" structure) [81]. ...
The religiosity of academics has been studied for over a decade. With few exceptions, this research has been conducted on American “elite” scientists, and data from non-Western countries is lacking. Drawing from psychological and sociological literature, the present exploratory study investigates the religiosity of Turkish academics (N = 361) and their perceptions on the relationship between religion and science, and associated variables such as interpretation of the Quran, and belief in evolution and creationism. Moreover, we address criticism directed at previous research by probing for different God concepts among believing academics. Although cultural differences can be identified, the results generally support the idea that academics are less religious with 54% identifying as “less religious” or “not religious,” compared to 24.2% self-identifying as “religious” or “extremely religious.”
... They don't see such discrimination as a vice; they see being discriminating as a virtue (Tetlock, 2012). Such findings also shed light on why conservatives are described more negatively than liberals in social scientific research (Eitan et al., 2018) and why more liberal ideology among academics predicts working in more prestigious institutions, controlling for scholarly impact and productivity (Rothman et al., 2005). ...
The social and behavioral sciences have taken a substantial reputational hit over the past decade. Some highly publicized findings have failed to replicate—and those that do replicate often do so with much smaller effect sizes (Camerer et al., 2018; Nosek et al., 2021). Plus some highly touted “science-based” interventions have failed to produce promised positive social change—even when massive efforts are dedicated to making them work (Singal, 2021). This chapter will lay out our two-tiered hypothesis: (a) the ideological homogeneity of the social sciences has entrenched certain scientific orthodoxies and taboos; (b) these orthodoxies and taboos have protected weak ideas from rigorous scrutiny and contributed to the replication crisis. We also explain how open science practices, although a big step in the right direction, leave many researcher degrees of freedom on the table that can bias methodological decisions and research conclusions. We argue that adversarial collaborations are the next necessary science reform for addressing lingering weaknesses in social scientific norms and can further minimize false positives, expedite scientific corrections, stimulate progress for stalemated scientific debates, and ultimately improve the quality of social scientific outputs.
... Thus, for either or both of two reasons, scientists should be motivated to avoid advancing scientific findings that challenge a liberal political agenda: (1) They share that agenda and do not wish to oppose it or (2) They correctly discern these norms and believe (probably correctly) that work challenging those norms will be more difficult to publish and fund than work that advances those norms. For example, some research has found that liberals are described more positively than conservatives in social scientific research (Eitan et al., 2018), that conservative social scientists fear ostracization and that other social scientists openly report that they would discriminate against conservatives (Honeycutt & Freberg, 2017;Inbar & Lammers, 2012), and that more liberal ideology predicts working at more prestigious universities, even after controlling for academic productivity, suggesting that ideological conformity helps one advance in their career (Rothman, Lichter, & Nevitte, 2005). ...
“They all pose as though their real opinions had been discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, divinely indifferent dialectic… whereas, in fact, a prejudiced proposition, idea, or ‘suggestion,’ which is generally their heart's desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with arguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates who do not wish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their prejudices, which they dub ‘truths,’—and VERY far from having the conscience which bravely admits this to itself...”
--Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
Scientists are humans. They are smart, ambitious humans, with a peculiar desire to explain and understand the world and a set of principles and procedures that help steer them toward truth. They are humans nonetheless. Their psychology is therefore human psychology.
Psychological discoveries in the social sciences—human errors, heuristics, biases, motivations, psychological needs—all apply to scientists in similar if not equal (or possibly even greater) measure.
