Pathologizing Conservatism

Right and left

The "right wing" in right-wing authoritarianism does not necessarily refer to someone's politics, but to psychological preferences and personality. It means that the person tends to follow the established conventions and authorities in society. In theory, the authorities could have either right-wing or left-wing political views.

Milton Rokeach's dogmatism scale was an early attempt to measure pure authoritarianism, whether left or right. The scale was carefully designed to measure "closed mindedness" without regard to ideology. Nevertheless, researchers found that it correlated with British political conservativism.[7] In a similar line of research, Philip Tetlock found that right wing beliefs are associated with less integrative complexity than left wing beliefs. People with moderate liberal attitudes had the highest integrative complexity in their cognitions.[8]

There have been a number of other attempts to identify "left-wing authoritarians" in the United States and Canada. These would be people who submit to leftist authorities, are highly conventional to liberal viewpoints, and are aggressive to people who oppose left-wing ideology. These attempts have failed because measures of authoritarianism always correlate at least slightly with the right. There are certainly extremists across the political spectrum, but most psychologists now believe that authoritarianism is a predominantly right-wing phenomenon.[9]

Although authoritarians in North America generally support conservative political parties, this finding must be considered in a historical and cultural context. For example, during the Cold War, authoritarians in the United States were usually anti-communist, whereas in the Soviet Union, authoritarians generally supported the Communist Party and were opposed to capitalism.[10] Thus, authoritarians generally favor the established ways and oppose social and political change. Hence, even politics usually labeled as right or left-wing is not descriptive. While Communism in the Soviet Union is seen as leftist, it still inspired the same responses. This leads to questions over what makes various ideologies left or right, but that is another discussion.

In contrast to Smith's suggestion that certain tendencies might be hardwired into human beings, Altemeyer believes that children learn right-wing tendencies through harsh discipline from their parents. However, studies looking at identical twins reared apart back up the notion that political attitudes are heritable. They find that on average, about 60 percent of the individual differences that we observe in scores on a version of the Wilson-Patterson Conservatism Scale (WPC) are attributable to genetic individual differences.

Identical twins have identical genes. If homosexuality was a biological condition produced inescapably by the genes (e.g. eye color), then if one identical twin was homosexual, in 100% of the cases his brother would be too. But we know that only about 38% of the time is the identical twin brother homosexual. Genes are responsible for an indirect influence, but on average, they do not force people into homosexuality. This conclusion has been well known in the scientific community for a few decades (e.g. 6) but has not reached the general public. Indeed, the public increasingly believes the opposite.

Identical twins had essentially the same upbringing. Suppose homosexuality resulted from some interaction with parents that infallibly made children homosexual. Then if one twin was homosexual, the other would also always be homosexual. But as we saw above, if one is homosexual, the other is usually not. Family factors may be an influence, but on average do not compel people to be homosexual.

Twin studies suggest that as a class, events unique to each twin--neither genetic nor family influences--are more frequent than genetic influences or family influences. But many individual family factors (such as the distant father) are commoner than the individual unique factors. Unique events would include seduction, sexual abuse, chance sexual encounters, or particular reactions to sensitive events, when young. Everyone has their own unique path which only partly follows that of the theoreticians!

At this point, some of you will be asking--what about the concordant identical twins who were both homosexual? Could their genes have "made them do it"?

No. It can be a strong influence for a few, but even for those few, it is never overwhelming. The record strengths for genetic influence on behaviors are 79% in a group of highly addicted women cocaine addicts (8) and about the same or somewhat higher, for ADHD (9). Because those figures are not 100%, even among addicts or those strongly pushed towards some other behavior, there is room for outside intervention and change. Hence even if homosexuality is as addictive as cocaine for a few individuals, their genes didn't "make them do it."

[T]he results of identical-twin studies are critical in understanding the biological influences on homosexuality. Only for physical traits like skin color are identical twins 100% concordant; otherwise they don't necessarily follow either their parents' genes...or their parents' admonitions! In this, homosexuality proves to be no different from such unrelated behaviors as violence, being extroverted, or getting divorced. All may be influenced by genes, but not overwhelmingly determined by them.

In summary:

1. No scientist believes genes by themselves infallibly make us behave in specified ways. Genes create a tendency, not a tyranny.

2. Identical twin studies show that neither genetic nor family factors are overwhelming.

3. Conclusion 2 will not be altered by any research in the future.

4. We can foster or foil genetic or family influences.

5. Change is possible.

Originally Posted by BR

Grats Marc. What classes you just get done taking?

Originally Posted by segovius

Difficult to believe...

Originally Posted by marcUK

Math, first exam 93%, two more results coming soon....Next summer I am going off to the "observatori astronòmic de mallorca" for a week to study with other boffs

Originally Posted by BR

Nice. Which Math may I ask? Sounds like an awesome summer ahead for you.

Originally Posted by BR

Calculus itself is easy. The numerous precalc steps before you do the final calculus step are the bitches. Get that foundation really solid and you'll thank yourself later.