Mike Brown Vs. Mike Brown
Thanks to @PE_Mulroe via Twitter, here’s a story from the (Northwest Indiana) Post-Tribune that combines two of our favorite topics: elections and first names. It’s called “A Tale of Two Mike Browns in Lake County Politics”:
Read More »Did Mike Brown, the candidate for recorder, intentionally run on the name recognition earned by former recorder and Lake County Clerk Mike Brown?
The candidate says no. Incumbent Recorder Michelle Fajman and party boss Tom McDermott Jr. say yes. And the clerk with the same name? Well, as someone who backed Fajman in the election, he’s just sorry if anyone cast a ballot without knowing who was who.
Jonathan Haidt Answers Your Questions About Morality, Politics, and Religion
We recently solicited your questions for social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Below are his responses about confirmation bias in religion, the “score” of our morals, the power of branding, how his research has made him a centrist, and how the search for truth is hampered by our own biases. Big thanks to him and all our readers for another great Q&A. Read More »
What Do Indian Politicians and Drug Dealers Have in Common?
Freakonomics described the economics of a crack-selling gang – a tournament model where you don’t earn much unless you can get to the top of the pyramid. Columbia Business School professor Ray Fisman, who has shown up on this blog before, argues that politics isn’t all that different. In Slate, Fisman summarizes his new working paper, coauthored with Florian Schulz and Vikrant Vig, which uses disclosed finances of politicians in India in the last election cycle. The researchers found that being a politician doesn’t really pay off: Read More »
Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? Bring Your Questions for Righteous Mind Author Jonathan Haidt
“Morality, by its very nature, makes it hard to study morality,” writes the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. “It binds people together into teams that seek victory, not truth. It closes hearts and minds to opponents even as it makes cooperation and decency possible within groups.”
His new book is called The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
I’m pleased to say that Haidt has agreed to take questions on his topic from Freakonomics readers, so ask away in the comments section and as always, we’ll post his answers in short order. Read More »
Which Way Does Your Blog Lean?
A new paper by Aaron Shaw and Yochai Benkler looks the differences between left- and right-wing political blogs during the summer of 2008. From the abstract:
Read More »An examination of the top 155 political blogs reveals significant cross-ideological variations along several dimensions. Notably, the authors find evidence of an association between ideological affiliation and the technologies, institutions, and practices of participation. Blogs on the left adopt different, and more participatory, technical platforms, comprise significantly fewer sole-authored sites, include user blogs, maintain more fluid boundaries between secondary and primary content, include longer narrative and discussion posts, and (among the top half of the blogs in the sample) more often use blogs as platforms for mobilization.
The Thinking Liberal?
It seems that the stereotype of the “thinking liberal” may have some truth. New research (summarized in the BPS Digest) finds that “low-effort” thinking about a given issue is more likely to result in a conservative stance. Here’s the abstract:
Read More »The authors test the hypothesis that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism. In Study 1, alcohol intoxication was measured among bar patrons; as blood alcohol level increased, so did political conservatism (controlling for sex, education, and political identification). In Study 2, participants under cognitive load reported more conservative attitudes than their no-load counterparts. In Study 3, time pressure increased participants’ endorsement of conservative terms. In Study 4, participants considering political terms in a cursory manner endorsed conservative terms more than those asked to cogitate; an indicator of effortful thought (recognition memory) partially mediated the relationship between processing effort and conservatism.
America: Training Ground for Dictators?
Foreign Policy examines America’s role as a training ground for those who would plot coups around the world. For example, Yahya Jammeh, current president of the Gambia, reportedly attended a military police training course in the U.S. prior to his 1994 bloodless coup:
Read More »Jammeh promised that his would be a “coup with a difference” and that he would stand down “as soon as we have set things right.” Eighteen years later, he is still in power.
What If It Rained on the Tea Party Parade?
My latest Bloomberg View column with Betsey is all about the Tea Party. Well, actually, it’s really about some superb research about the Tea Party, by Andreas Madestam, Daniel Shoag, Stan Veuger and David Yanagizawa-Drott. Their big question: “Do Political Protests Matter? Evidence from the Tea Party.” We know that lots of people turn out to Tea Party rallies. But does it really change anything? Read More »
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