Scientific meetings are not usually confrontational events, so it was notable when University of Virginia psychological scientist Jonathan Haidt roiled his colleagues at the 2011 gathering of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Addressing an audience of more than 1,000, the bestselling author of The Righteous Mind asked all those who considered themselves politically conservative to raise their hands. Three hands went up. He then described two other attempts he had recently made to locate conservative social psychologists. He had searched the Internet for "conservative social psychologist," and he had asked a small sample of social psychologists to name just one ideologically conservative colleague. These efforts together had turned up a single conservative social psychologist.
These small, informal efforts have big implications. They point to a "statistically impossible lack of diversity" in the field, Haidt has since argued, a worrisome situation that almost certainly fosters discrimination against both colleagues and students and, what's more, may be skewing the entire research enterprise. Haidt is advocating remedies to reach a quota of 10-percent conservatives in social psychology by 2020.
Haidt's message hit home with many of his colleagues, among them Yoel Inbar and Joris Lammers of Tilburg University, who describe the 2011 event in a new paper, to be published soon in Perspectives on Psychological Science. Inbar and Lammers decided to add some rigor to Haidt's provocative but anecdotal findings, which they did in two anonymous, online surveys of personality and social psychologists. They wanted, first, to verify the widespread impression of a pervasive liberal bias in the field, but they wanted to drill down even further, asking: Are there really no conservative social psychologists, or are they just well hidden? Are some liberal on social issues, but perhaps more moderate, or even conservative, on economic questions, or foreign policy issues? And if they are deliberately hiding their politics and values, why?
Inbar and Lammers drew their sample from the membership of the Society for Personality and Social psychology, the same scientific group that Haidt addressed in 2011. They contacted all members on the mailing list and got nearly 800 responses.
The findings clearly confirm the field's liberal bias, but they hold some surprises, as well. For example, although only 6 percent described themselves as conservative "overall," there was much more diversity than anecdotal evidence suggests. Inbar and Lammers found an overwhelming liberal majority when it comes to social issues, but only when it comes to social issues. On economic issues, nearly one in five is a self-described moderate, and slightly fewer put themselves to the right of moderate. Similarly, on foreign policy questions, nearly a third of respondents called themselves either moderate or conservative. In short, there is much more ideological diversity among these scientists than generally thought.
So why are only three out of 1,000 raising their hands when asked? Apparently, it's because conservative social psychologists perceive the field as hostile to their values. And it's not just perception. The more conservative respondents were, the more they had personally experienced an intellectually unfriendly climate. Importantly, self-defined liberals do not see this -- or believe it. The hostility is invisible to those who don't run into it themselves.
It gets worse. Inbar and Lammers also asked respondents to assess their willingness to discriminate against conservatives. Would they be more likely to reject a paper or a grant application that showed a politically conservative perspective? Would they be reluctant to invite a conservative colleague to a symposium? Would they favor a liberal job candidate over a conservative candidate? The disturbing answer to all these questions was yes, and the more liberal the respondents, the more likely they were to discriminate against conservatives in all these areas. So it appears that the well-hidden minority of conservatives have good reason to stay hidden.
The irony of these findings is not lost on Inbar and Lammers, nor on the several colleagues who have written commentaries to accompany the Perspectives article. If social tolerance and fairness are liberal values, most social psychologists would plead guilty to that bias, so it's embarrassing to uncover intolerance of a different kind in one's own backyard. What's more, psychological scientists are supposedly the experts on cognitive biases, including harmful ones, yet here they are displaying just such skewed judgments and decisions. Several of the commentaries raise serious questions about how ideology might be shaping the issues and questions that social psychologists choose for exploration -- and the ones they are blind to, or deliberately reject as uninteresting or taboo.
Why is social psychology so politically skewed, and what's to be done about it? It may be true, as some of the commentaries state, that the field attracts a certain kind of inquiring and open mind that tends to embrace liberal values, and that conservative self-select out of the field. But this, most commentators agree, does not change the fact that pervasive liberal bias is unhealthy for the field, and for intellectual inquiry generally.
Perhaps even more alarming is what Richard Redding, of Chapman University's School of Law, labels "prejudice and discrimination, straight up" -- that is, the deliberate discrimination against conservative thinkers is not subtle, unconscious, or inconsequential but real and harmful and in need of remedy. That remedy may be the kind of affirmative action that Haidt and others are now endorsing, or it may be something more measured. In any case, the Perspectives article and commentaries suggest that the time may be right for some self-examination in the field.
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Many responders have inferred that the bias in social psychology results from conservatives being too closed-minded, lazy thinkers, or ignorant of evidence against their existing beliefs. Those shortcomings should apply equal to other fields like astronomy and physics.
Are similar trends observed in those fields? That's the really interesting question.
Psychology is more subjective than other sciences, but I expect there are many instances where conservative views don't match prevailing views. Where's the line between discrimination or intolerance, and honest judgment about a person's qualifications, based on accepted beliefs in a given field?
I just don't see any Eisenhower Conservatives within the bunch running for public office at the present time. The current crop of Conservatives in Congress have generated a derogative definition for what a Conservative is. If Eisenhower was running for President today, he'd win in a landslide victory against any of the present crop of politicians.
You think you're so special, but you're only human just like everybody else on here. You are no better than anyone else, but you think you are above all of us.
Data can be made to lean whatever way the collector of such data leans towards. We've seen it happen on a regular basis. You being the conservative you say you are, only post data that leans conservative, and we're supposed to be swayed by that?
You may be book smart, but you are, sorely lacking in seeing the real world beyond your obsession with your data. You are not worth any more of my time. I deal with reality. I am well because I escaped people like you trying to tell me they knew best.
The lefts talks a good game when its comes to "tolerance," "compassion", and "diversity." But it doesn't walk that talk.
Well we can start with the Heritage Foundation, Cato Intitute, Mercatous Center, Americans for Prosperity, Larouche, ALEC, Liberty University, NACE & CEE, Unification Church, John Birch Soc., Leadership Institute, Federalist Society, etc...,
Sci-Ops tend to work in the background not out in the open, and they do not usually "raise their hands".
Group think in the LBJ White House is not substantively the same thing as having a specific field that has a large majority representing one broad political ideology. They are not comparable.