On personality differences between different political groupings

[andrewducker]

More for my own interests, so I can find it later when I want it:
We found that libertarians tend to look more like liberals than like conservaatives on most measures of personality. For example, both groups score higher than conservatives on openness to experience, and lower on disgust sensitivity and conscientiousness. Where libertarians diverge

Comments

[f4f3]

Yup, can thoroughly recommend it - I don't agree with everything he writes, but the conclusions are fascinating and well researched.

[andrewducker]

Thank you!

[rhythmaning]

I was about to suggest you might have views about it.

I recognised the name, though not the context.

[rhythmaning]

By the way, it's got a good cover.

[andrewducker]

Thank you!

[quirkytizzy]

The libertarians scoring lower on Care values doesn't surprise me. Like, at all. I'm fond of saying "At least Republicans understand on some level they owe a debt to the society they live in, as a result of operating in that society." That means caring for people, even if it's only nice white church going people.

Libertarians - okay, online ones that I've run into (OBLIGATORY NOT ALL LIBERTARIANS), don't seem to get that.

[major_clanger]

I remember the shock of first meeting true-believer libertarians at an SF convention back in the 1990s, and my very real sense that these weren't just people whose politics I disagreed with but rather that their whole approach to 'being a human' was wrenchingly different from that of anyone I'd met before.

[andrewducker]

I find their viewpoint useful, if nothing else as a reminder that our cultural assumptions are just that, and that we should keep examining them.

I still remember your post about it being seductive because it gives a nice simple system on which to base everything, even if that system completely falls apart if you try to scale it up.

[andrewducker]

It's not that they don't get that, it's that they fundamentally disagree that it's true.

[matrixmann]

Someone once showed me a model of that; don't know what it was called like. Dumped it in the end because politics overseas and politics in Europe are totally different things.
But everyone living there probably can go with any model mentioning at least libertarians.

[danieldwilliam]

I remember having a similar insight to that attributed by Haidght to William McNeil about moving in formation.

There is something mind expanding about moving in concert with people. I've seen it with improv and marching in formation. I suspect you would experience in other concerted activities. Music I'd expect. Football.

[danieldwilliam]

And here is the blog post I wrote about it

http://danieldwilliam.livejournal.com/53623.html

[andrewducker]

Thank you, that was fascinating.

And I agree - there's definitely a psychotropic effect from doing something in a group, where you can end up in an almost meditative state.

Learning to march (OTC) was fascinating - weeks spent not quite getting it, and then suddenly the whole group moving as one, and a feeling of freedom from not having to think about movement and just letting it happen. You see similar thing from tribal chanting - or singing in groups.

The reason we had a song at our wedding was that we'd enjoyed having a hymn a lot at a previous wedding we'd been to, and felt that having everyone sing something as a group would be a bonding experience (which it was).

[danieldwilliam]

And I think it changed my understanding of the word meditative which I used to think of as quite passive but now see as a more acute but different way of awareness.