Does a poor upbringing make you more left wing?

The Telegraph ^ | 5/23/2007 | Roger Highfield

[bruinbirdman]

Psychologists attempt to make sense of politics, reports Roger Highfield

The rise in the numbers of mothers who work may be linked with a subsequent rise in liberal politics, according to a study that suggests New Labour should thank career opportunities for women as much as policy spin for its appeal.

Liberal and conservative politics were not invented by the power hungry but evolved to help us to survive, according to research on more than 100 young adults conducted by by psychologists.

The study, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour, backs the idea that politics is useful, contrary to what many may believe.

It also suggests that liberals had a more difficult upbringing, such as a father who is absent and a disinterested mother, than right wingers.

Although the differences between liberals and conservatives are well studied, Prof Randy Thornhill and Corey Fincher from the Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, were interested to find out whether the differences between right and left were "functional and socially strategic in human evolutionary history.

In other words, did politics evolve to help our ancestors to survive and reproduce?

Conservatives, they propose, are focused more on working within family groups (so called ingroup alliances), while liberals are better at dealing with other groups (outgroup alliances).

They go on to suggest that these different values could be linked with stress during upbringing - the more stress, the more liberal leanings. "Results from our study of 123 young adults support the hypotheses," said Prof Thornhill.

Liberals are more interested in novelty, while conservatives are more interested in stability, and the study suggests that, overall, this blend of skills was an advantage for our ancestors. "Under certain conditions of human evolutionary history outgroup alliances are highly advantageous whereas under others close ingroup alliances better promote survival," said Prof Thornhill.

For each of their subjects, the team recorded political leanings, outlook, upbringing and relationships with parents. There was no link with short-termism and long-termism, as some have suggested, but an association did emerge with childhood experiences, "a link between childhood feelings of abandonment, the resultant psychological state of insecure attachment and a corresponding later belief in liberal values."

"I would say that conservatives and liberals raised their kids differently," Prof Thornhill told The Daily Telegraph. Tories and right wingers experienced "more positive interactions with parents", and hands on parenting, compared with liberals.

The increasing number of working mothers could have influenced politics, since his study suggests that being looked after in a nursery was more likely to generate future liberal leanings. However, to say left wingers had an unhappy childhood was misleading since the term "happy" carried a lot of baggage, he stressed.

However, this is a tricky field. Last year, another group at the University of California, Berkeley, came to the opposite conclusion; insecure children were more likely to grow up into conservatives, and that confident kids were more likely to become liberal.

How do we tell right from left?

The differences between left and right were detailed by an earlier study of 23,000 people in 12 countries. "Conservatives, in comparison to liberals, are risk averse and prefer social inequality, traditionally established and familiar in-group values, and familial allegiance," they say.

"Liberals are risk prone, are open to new views and ways, value equality and out-group relations, and exhibit high independence and self-reliance."

The earlier work shows that liberals tend to be: against, skeptical of, or cynical about familiar and traditional ideology; open to new experiences; individualistic and uncompromising, pursuing a place in the world on personal terms; private; disobedient, even rebellious rule-breakers; sensation seekers and pleasure seekers, including in the frequency and diversity of sexual experiences; socially and economically egalitarian; and risk prone; furthermore, they value diversity, imagination, intellectualism, logic, and scientific progress.

Conservatives "exhibit the reverse in all these domains. Moreover, the felt need for order, structure, closure, family and national security, salvation, sexual restraint, and self-control, in general, as well as the effort devoted to avoidance of change, novelty, unpredictability, ambiguity, and complexity, is a well-established characteristic of conservatives."

[dasboot]

"That, however, doesn’t mean that the study’s findings are crap."

The studies findings are at best subjective. What are the measures? How does the researcher dsfine things. What does the respondant understand about what is being asked?

The data are defective. And the interpretation is , most assuredly, loaded-dice, full of ...crap. Kinda like that 'study' that just came out that states that intellegent, beautuful, superior humans are less likely to believe in God. Crap.

[Texas Jack]

According to Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D., author of "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness" liberals aren't fully developed adults. They lack some of the traits that adults demonstrate in their lives. He links the cause to disruptive childhoods, especially between the mother and the child before the age of two.

This is a most informative book. I highly recommend it. In it you learn exactly why Rosie's writer would deface pictures of Elizabeth Hasselbeck.

[hosepipe]

[.. Does a poor upbringing make you more left wing? ..]

NAH!.. graduating from an Ivy League College will though..
America has been creating Moonbat left wingers for decades.. at an advanced rate..

[HawaiianGecko]

[Liberals are] skeptical of, or cynical about familiar and traditional ideology; open to new experiences; individualistic and uncompromising, pursuing a place in the world on personal terms; private; disobedient, even rebellious rule-breakers; sensation seekers and pleasure seekers, including in the frequency and diversity of sexual experiences; socially and economically egalitarian; and risk prone; furthermore, they value diversity, imagination, intellectualism, logic, and scientific progress.

The exact pattern of behavior exhibited by criminals and losers.  They value imagination because they live in a fantasy world, intellectualism & logic because they don't have it, and scientific progress because they are looking for quick fixes for their problems.

[sneakers]

God bless your mom, dasboot. My mom kept the five of us together and it hurt her to go on welfare too. She found a good paying job after dad left, but she worked until midnight and the babysitter would go home early. I was 11. My little brother was 1. Welfare found out we were alone after hours and threatened to take away us kids. Mom had no choice but to stay home. She hated welfare. She was ashamed. When we were old enough, she immediately got a job in housekeeping at the local university. She did all she could to keep us together, fed and clothed. She died just this past Tuesday. My husband and I gave her the most comfortable life we could and she died at home.

We were lucky to have loving, good moms dasboot. You know if she could, your mom would do it all again for you and your siblings. They would do it all over again if they had to - because they loved us that much.

[weezel]

Self made people are much more likely to be conservative.

[cgbg]

Every few years a psychological study comes out that says that the Marxists and Stalinists are original, sophisticated, tolerant free-thinkers while conservatives who believe in personal freedom and appreciate the complexity of a market economy are simple-minded authoritarians. Yawn.

You just reminded me of something I erased from my memory. Many years ago when I attended the Kremlin on the Charles one piece of required reading for one of my courses was "The Authoritarian Personality". Your description fit that book perfectly. It was a total waste of good forest to print that p.o.s. tome.

[therut]

I grew up poor. The fact that my mom and Dad did everthing they could to provide for us WITHOUT any .gov help made me a conservative. My parents were wonderful. If LBJ had been around earlier it would have ended up a sad story.

[therut]

SELF-Reliance and LIBERAL do not go together.

[kalee]

The differences between left and right were detailed by an earlier study of 23,000 people in 12 countries. “Conservatives, in comparison to liberals, are risk averse and prefer social inequality, traditionally established and familiar in-group values, and familial allegiance,” they say.

“Liberals are risk prone, are open to new views and ways, value equality and out-group relations, and exhibit high independence and self-reliance.”

I say BALONEY!

[RavenATB]

“The studies findings are at best subjective. What are the measures? How does the researcher dsfine things. What does the respondant understand about what is being asked?

The data are defective.”

You say the studies are defective, right after you admitted you don’t even know the methodology.

What’s “crap” is you condemning the study as defective while admitting you don’t know ‘chit’ about how it was structured and conducted.

[latina4dubya]

i don’t think so... i had an excellent upbringing... and my parents—who have been married 61 years so far—taught all seven of us to be self-reliant... no relying on charity and such... but we had liberal views... it was more like, we don’t government handouts, but others who are worse off might need the help...

[tacticalogic]

Does a poor upbringing make you more left wing?

A "poor upbringing" - Yes.

Having been brought up poor - No.

[Nea Wood]

I’d say there’s some truth to this article. I had a horrible childhood and was a lib for a long time as a result. Finally the sheer obvious dreadfulness of Bill Clinton pushed me into being a conservative. Plus living in an extremely liberal area and seeing the results of liberal policies woke me up. Now I am as conservative as they come. I think I am the proverbial “liberal who got mugged.”

[DennisR]

All you have to do is look at the attitudes of the leading liberals in Congress - Reid, Pelosi, Clinton, Kennedy, et al. Their attitude is that you and I are too stupid to make it without them. And that they need to spend almost $10,000 per person at the Federal level to create the Utopia we all apparently need. And the more they spend on the unwashed masses, the better they themselves feel. So dependence - not independence - is actually the bulwark of liberalism.

[SauronOfMordor]

Lefties look to government to solve their problems.

Underclass socialists want socialism so they will be able to loot the middle class

Affluent socialists want socialism because they are arrogant enough to think they will be part of the planning class

The "educated" university segment is attracted to big-government because they are articulate, and a big-government, socialist environment is where very articulate people can attain power

[Wilhelm Tell]

Yeah, it is funny how the leftists fundamentally do not tolerate dissent and they have very rigid and authoritarian ideas about a lot of things but they are held up as an example of how to be tolerant and free-thinking.

[SoftballMominVA]

I think any child is ‘poor’ if they are not brought up with good character and respect of stability in the world. Those that are brought up to challenge every authority end up being pretty miserable people as the whole world really is out to get them.

[dasboot]

So you think human behavioral psychology is a sciance? LOL

[RavenATB]

“So you think human behavioral psychology is a sciance? LOL”

The joke is for you to say in one sentence that the study is crap, and in the next sentence that you know nothing about the methodology of the study.

"sciance"...spele cheak is ur frend. LOL!