why has US government paid for this report!!?

Question

Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve


Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday August 13, 2003
The Guardian

A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".
As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.

All of them "preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality".


Article continues

Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.

"This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes," the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin.

One of the psychologists behind the study, Jack Glaser, said the aversion to shades of grey and the need for "closure" could explain the fact that the Bush administration ignored intelligence that contradicted its beliefs about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The authors, presumably aware of the outrage they were likely to trigger, added a disclaimer that their study "does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false".

Another author, Arie Kruglanski, of the University of Maryland, said he had received hate mail since the article was published, but he insisted that the study "is not critical of conservatives at all". "The variables we talk about are general human dimensions," he said. "These are the same dimensions that contribute to loyalty and commitment to the group. Liberals might be less intolerant of ambiguity, but they may be less decisive, less committed, less loyal."

But what drives the psychologists? George Will, a Washington Post columnist who has long suffered from ingrained conservatism, noted, tartly: "The professors have ideas; the rest of us have emanations of our psychological needs and neuroses."

Answer 1

I think that rocks! The US government paid for this report, because it represents the US people, and the US people should know if they have a crackpot running their affairs.

Answer 2

Well, I'm sure the government committed to paying for the research that bore that report. They didn't get to see the finished report and say, "Hey, we like what that says. We'll pay for it".

In case any Liberals are getting giddy over this report, let me give you a little reality check. People who had clear visions of what is right and wrong used to be called "clear thinkers". They weren't intolerant, but they knew what was good and bad. Think about all the cowboy heroes of the 1940's and 1950's. That's the type of un-muddled, focused, clear, logical thinking I'm talking about.

It is ironic they should include Reagan in this study. No one except Reagan could imagine a better outcome with the USSR than some tenuously peaceful coexistence. Reagan had a particular type of genius for cutting through the crap. While his advisors droned on about graphs and charts and trends, he immediately knew that the U.S. didn't have to accept some compromise with the Soviets. He knew he could beat them outright. And as Margaret Thatcher pointed out, he defeated the Soviet Union without firing a shot.

So, would you rather have the supposed "intellectual" Henry Kissinger who never seemed to accomplish much of anything of lasting consequence, or Ronald Reagan who defeated the Soviets with no bloodshed?

Often times when I think of Reagan, I am reminded of the Song "Hero":

"Well it was one of those great stories
that you can't put down at night
the hero knew what he had to do
and he wasn't afraid to fight
the villain goes to jail, while the hero goes free
I wish it were that simple for me.

And the reason that she loved him
was the reason I loved him too
and he never wondered what was right or wrong
he just knew - he just knew."
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One time, a reporter asked Reagan how he made what everyone thought was a very difficult decision. Reagan quipped, "I just imagined what John Wayne would do."

Now Reagan did not take these decisions lightly. He knew the gravity of what he did. However, he instinctively knew the difference between what he called a "simple" solution and an "easy" one. So, the strategy of defeating the Soviets by bankrupting them through an arms escalation was his "easy" solution, but he knew it would not be a simple undertaking.

If any Liberals are still reading, this will interest you: I read a scholarly psychology study which concluded that pouring through endless documents and research is not the best way to make a decision. They have found a rather curious fact: when people just study a problem normally, without going overboard, and then just "sleep on it", their brains somehow digest all that information much better, and the next day the person instinctively knows the correct course of action. (And they said Reagan slept too much! ha ha)

Answer 3

Well its about time that the power of psychological analysis was turned on the conservatives. They've been using it for mass manipulation for years (watch Hannity & Colmes, and all those other right wing puppets on Fox, ABC, CNN. MSNBC etc - poor Dan Rather and Donahue, they never stood a chance), now the lazer beam of examination is shone on their twisted mentally and their misguided actions we can see whats under the surface - and hey, they don't like it.

Well if you think that $1.2M is a waste of money - how about $80M to allow a judge to find something, anything and anyway to impeach and convict a president out of office - Mr K Star et al; which came to nothing.
Oh, tell a lie, it was part of a long running campaign to discredit the Clinton administration, which in retrospect will be seen as the the most beneficial for the US in the last 30 years at least, and did result, again by hook or by crook, in the conservative loonies resting power from the sane; and look at the consequences.

I think that conservativism should be outlawed. It's political dogma enslaves the citizens and ruins the economy and the environment and foreign policy, in fact eveything it touches.

If that f@cker Bush ever finds himself on the wrong end of a firing squad, then I (like at least 95% of the planet) would be first in line to volunteer to shoot the b@st@rd.

And hey, if you think that Bush is great and that global warming is nothing to worry about - you're a looney too.

Answer 4

It seems to me that the Government ordered a psychological test between the differences of Liberals and Conservatives... However, I don't believe that this had completely no bias in the study. Perhaps it was this psychologist who was right or leftwing himself and leaned towards one way more than the other because he knew his definition of the two branches.

The point is, they are just words. Your beliefs are individual... Your whole life cannot be summed into Republican or Democrat.

Answer 5

Sometimes people that get grants actually believe they are supposed to do scientific study using scientific methodology and the answers are the best conclusions for rationale people to use their own judgements as to veracity of findings by critical thinking.
Psychology is in a field that in ways is like religous beliefs , you sometimes have to interject a non provable, concete form, due to too many variables in order to even have a field to study within.
Human personality has so many ifs, varaibles, that it can never be one catagory unless the personality is completly robotic in response or comatose.

Answer 6

You can get grants to"study" just about anything how do you thing professors live, on their salary? most of the requirements are that you fill out the forms correctly and publish the findings. It can be on subjects like why do worms eat wood to what killers eat for breakfast. All opinion&irrelevant your wasted tax dollars at work.
(p.s. its rare profs are conservatives)

Answer 7

It is very important to study our own leaders, as well as leaders of other nations. Fortunately, because this is published as a science article, you are free (and encouraged) to publish any findings you have to the contrary.

I am surprised they received $1.2mil for this. That is an obnoxious sum of money.

Answer 8

They did not need anyone to write a report that Ultra right wingos" are mentally ill. It is based on a policy of primitave selfishness. Which means that they are not evolving along with the rest of the human race.

Answer 9

Why did they pay for the report? Perhaps because noone is watchdogging such a report activity, and because it is a free nation and reports like this can be initiated at any time.

Answer 10

Intelligence agencies have used psychological profiles since WWII to assess leaders of friendly and enemy countries to predict how they will react under certain circumstances. It goes back to the old maxim "Know thine enemy" which has been a military tenet since antiquity.

The CIA/FBI and Pentagon have psychological profiles on every world leader of any importance throughout the world. Why shouldn't they have one on our own leaders?