Is the left or the right ever right?

Both democrats and republicans have the propensity to view the other side as unethical and immoral. Humans have the tendency to engage in confirmation bias. They do not interpret events objectively and instead favor information that they believe to be true and ignore information that doesn’t align with their beliefs. A great study that exhibits confirmation bias was conducted by researchers at Yale University (Kahan, Dawson, Peters, Slovic 2016). Researchers presented subjects with a task that would rely on their ability to produce logical conclusions from empirical data. Subjects were presented a data table about how many people’s rash got better and worst from a new skin rash treatment. The researchers then presented them the identical data except this time the data was titled cities that did or didn’t ban gun and did or didn’t experience a raise in crime. Those who scored the greatest in numeracy (the ability to draw valid conclusions from empirical data) were better at drawing valid conclusions from the table about the new skin rash treatment. However, those who scored higher in numeracy were worst at drawing valid conclusions from the information when the table was about gun control. I expected numerate participants to change their beliefs due to existing data. Yet, the scientist’s initial hypothesis was correct those who were numerate were more likely to interpret the data in a way that supported their political beliefs. When the data didn’t support their beliefs they interpreted the chart a way that supported their pre-existing ideals.

The charts only variation is the label not the numbers in them.

Do vaccines cause autism? Will giving children access to a comprehensive sexual education increase the teen pregnancy rate? The information is out there yet there are still disagreements on the answers to these questions. The confirmation bias states that once people develop an initial hunch they look for information that supports it and disbelieve evidence that doesn’t support it.

Preconceptions shape our interpretations of events and are usually wrong.  I believe that in this case the confirmation bias could’ve been caused for many reasons. One reason is the availability heuristic. The availability heuristic states that if something pops up easily in our head we are more likely to accept it as true. Therefore, the people interpreting the information were more likely to interpret the information as false if the idea didn’t easily pop up in their head.

The inability to perceive the data accurately could also have been caused by the overconfidence phenomenon. The overconfidence phenomenon was proven in many social psychology experiments. For instance, a researcher may ask participants how many dollars a year are collected in tolls from the George Washington Bridge. When participants give an answer they are extremely confident in there answer even if they have no reason to believe they are right. So if the participants instantly saw ‘gun-ban’ and had previously came to the conclusion that gun bans make cities more dangerous they were more likely to answer the question over confidently because even if there’s data, they still think they’re right.

People may have had exhibited the over-confidence effect due to belief perseverance. People tend to believe what they initially believed even when they receive information that discredits it because they think to themselves why they’re still right. Even when they receive information that discredits their belief, they use the proof to emphasize they are right. One way to fix this would be to have people think of reasons why the opposite hypothesis may be true. Another way to resolve this would be to force the person to search for information that they don’t agree with. If they have less confidence in how right their beliefs are they may be less likely to display the over-confidence phenomenon. A second way to reduce the over-confidence phenomenon would be promptly give people information that disproves their beliefs. A significant way I could reduce confirmation bias in this situation is by explaining to people that people often are guilty of making illusory correlations and finding correlations in events that aren’t there. They may think that after their town banned guns it became less safe because there was one shootout. Yet there may be no correlation there at all.

I believe that stopping confirmation bias’ is currently of utmost importance. People cannot continue to vote for public officials who don’t believe in climate change. The future of every creature on the planet is in the hands of those who interpret empirical evidence in an unbiased way.

Citation :

Kahan, Dan M., et al. “Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government.” Behavioural Public Policy, vol. 1, no. 01, 2017, pp. 1–45., doi:10.1017/bpp.2016.2.

 

 

Trump Critiques Football in the Name of Politics

     This week politics has crossed over from the white house to the sports field. Politics have started to infiltrate sports: especially football. The Washington Post wrote an article about how recently, several football teams have taken a knee during the national anthem. The president has told the American people that it was disrespectful to do such a thing despite the amendment right to do so. In the article he says, “That’s a total disrespect of our heritage. That’s a total disrespect of everything that we stand for. Okay? And I know we have freedoms, and we have freedom of choice and many, many different freedoms, but you know what? It’s still totally disrespectful.” The Washington Post then talks about how football has increasingly become more and more diverse and that athletes feel as though Trump is silencing their rights as well as taking them away. Should athletes have the right to voice political views? Should people perform outside of their designated roles in america?

     Trump often ridicules athletes for performing outside of their roles. Often times when people step outside their roles they are chastised or shown repercussions. Roles are a set of standards that outline how people should behave in a social position. Let’s first define the role of a football player. Football players play football, recieve interviews, have practices and most importantly avoid politics. The other role that a football player has is being an american citizen. American citizens have pride in their country and often show that pride by standing during the pledge of allegiance. That’s a norm that anyone who is an american citizen follows. Trump criticizes players when they perform outside their roles but is it possible that Trump is performing outside his presidential role by chastising them?  As a president he should worry more about the states of the United States as suppose to sports. The president fails to recognize that as people we have other roles to fill such as mother, father, brother and so forth. The reason the football players kneel is because they recognize their families and friends are in danger especially if they are a person of color. They also are not given the same rights they should be given as an american citizen.  

     In the same light, many people judge these football players based on assumptions and their own inner biases. Trump views these football players as disrespectful when they kneel instead of stand during the national anthem. This can be somewhat explained by the fundamental attribution error. The fundamental attribution error can be defined as the propensity to explain someone’s behavior by attributing a cause to his/her behavior. We either attribute it to dispositional aspects or situational aspects. The negative behavior according to Trump is the football players kneeling during the national anthem. The dispositional attribution is that they are being disrespectful to this country. This makes Trump and other americans believe that they are being disrespectful and that they behavior is linked to their personality. The football players view their behavior differently by looking at the situation attributions: racial tension is building, they have been treated unfairly or racially in america, and that they haven’t been given the same opportunities and rights as the typical white American. The football players believe that they are exercising their rights as americans.

NFL team owners blast Trump in solidarity with players’ protests

President Donald Trump continued his Twitter war with the National Football League on Saturday, this time taking aim at Commissioner Roger Goodell for permitting players to protest by kneeling during the national anthem.

 

Li, D. K. (2017). NFL team owners blast Trump in solidarity with players’ protests. Retrieved from https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/170925-nfl-protest-trump-feature.jpg?quality=90&strip=all

Scott, E. (2017). Analysis | Trump’s problem isn’t with athletes being political. It’s with athletes speaking out against racism.. [online] Washington Post. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/25/trumps-problem-isnt-with-athletes-being-political-its-with-athletes-speaking-out-against-racism/?utm_term=.62a9684afd8b [Accessed 27 Sep. 2017].

Zilber, A. (2017). President Donald Trump continued his Twitter war with the National Football League on Saturday, this time taking aim at Commissioner Roger Goodell for permitting players to protest by kneeling during the national anthem. Retreived from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4914090/Bruce-Maxwell-baseball-player-knee.html#ixzz4ttGFV8mY Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook. Retrieved from http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/09/24/04/44A52F0200000578-4914090-President_Donald_Trump_continued_his_Twitter_war_with_the_Nation-a-6_1506225216291.jpg

Kendra L.

Swipe Right (For Republican)

 

By Connor Wills

While we watch policy and government morph and change with the recent inauguration of President Trump, most people are continuing on with their day to day lives. They’re buying groceries, going to school and work- and they’re even dating! But what does dating have to do with Donald Trump? Does politics play a role in relationships? According to NPR, it sure does. When talking to individuals, they found that a person’s political party will either immediately connect or disconnect individuals looking for a romantic relationship. Why? Likely it has something to do with confirmation bias.

According to a study published by the Polish Psychological Bulletin, people exhibit a confirmation bias when faced with making judgements based on moral character and intelligence/competence. The study’s results showed that people were more likely to search for reasons to support their judgements based on character than they were to search for support of intelligence. They exhibited more bias when it came to moral situations and moral traits- such as honesty- than when it came to competence- such as logical reasoning. And- get this- it made no difference whether one was aware of their bias or not, they still expressed the same amount of bias towards the individual. So, people are likely to act biased towards people based on perceptions of moral character- and they will actively search for reasons to back up their claim.

So, wait- how does this connect to dating? Shared morals and values are one of the things that allow relationships to work. And so, these values are often included on online dating profiles. If I were to mention Hillary Clinton, what kind of ideas would pop into your mind? Likely her morals and values expressed during her campaign. What if I mentioned Donald Trump? The same, right? People are including their political stances on their dating profiles, which puts a perception of character in an individual’s mind. So, when people are browsing through, say, Tinder, and open someone’s profile to see that they have a political affiliation listed, an individual will immediately start looking for validation to support the perception that comes along with it. This confirmation bias is pushing Democrats and Republicans even farther apart, as it is only enforcing the perceived moral differences between the groups. Will Republicans and Democrats be able to get over their differences any time soon? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.

 

Citations:

Brycz, H., Wyszomirska-Góra, M., Bar-Tal, Y., & Wiśniewski, P. (2014). The effect of metacognitive self on confirmation bias revealed in relation to community and competence. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 45(3). doi:10.2478/ppb-2014-0037

 

Myers, D. G. (2012). Exploring social psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.

 

Smith, T. (2017, February 14). When Dating In The Era Of Divisive Politics, Both Sides Stick To Themselves. Retrieved February 15, 2017, from http://www.npr.org/2017/02/14/515179534/when-dating-in-the-era-of-divisive-politics-both-sides-stick-to-themselves

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