January 30, 2006
WASHINGTON POST – Another study presented at the conference, which was in Palm Springs, Calif., explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes — subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups. That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.### The analysis found that substantial majorities of Americans, liberals and conservatives, found it more difficult to associate black faces with positive concepts than white faces — evidence of implicit bias. But districts that registered higher levels of bias systematically produced more votes for Bush. “Obviously, such research does not speak at all to the question of the prejudice level of the president,? said Banaji, “but it does show that George W. Bush is appealing as a leader to those Americans who harbor greater anti-black prejudice.“
What The Washington Post does not note about this study is that Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji, the people who conducted this study, are Democrats.
Michelle Malkin has uncovered the political donation records of Nosek and Banaji:
Conservative Culture linked with Gay Blogger Extorts Black Bigots?
Maggie's Farm linked with Monday Evening Links...
13 Responses to “Study By Democrats Show Bush Supporters Are Bigots”
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4:24 pm [ Quote ]
Good job, Ian. It really bothers them when The Truth is pointed out.
4:59 pm [ Quote ]
Plus, you’d think academics from such prestigious universities would have a clue about the ecological fallacy (the notion that one can unproblematically make inferences about the behavior of individuals or subgroups from aggregate statistics), especially since their colleague, Gary King, is the leading expert in that field.
Ignoring other potential problems of bias, including the wording of the survey instrument, confounding or spurious variables, etc., the problem with ecological inference is this: To put it simply, the mere fact that that the average race prejudice score of majority conservative districts is higher doesn’t mean that it was the conservatives in those districts who were more prejudiced. It could, for instance, be the case that liberals in conservative districts are more likely to be prejudiced than liberals in liberal districts, and the offsetting tolerance of the less-prejudiced conservatives isn’t sufficient to change the result.
It is possible, using some of King’s techniques, to get an idea of how likely the ecological inference is to be correct, but I’ll bet these folks didn’t produce that estimate, or even refer to the problem.
Plus, the smaller the difference and the more equal the distribution within the aggregate, the greater the probability that no valid inference can be made.
5:09 pm [ Quote ]
Another note: presumably the study’s authors would have access to individual level data, so the fact that they reported findings in this way (conservative districts are more prejudiced, therefore conservatives are more prejudiced) suggests that they might have had problems identifying conservative or liberal ideology from their survey, or they might have over-sampled liberals. The latter would be typical, since they’d have had to survey rural areas at much greater expense to produce a truly random sample. Therefore aggregated conservative districts may have been the only statistic they had that was remotely reliable.
I smell a fish in the milk.
5:14 pm [ Quote ]
Sorry, I don’t see how the political affiliation of the researchers by itself disproves their scholarship.
The study will either fall or stand based on its merits. Not whether the authors are liberals or conservatives.
Not having read the actual study, I’m agnostic about its conclusions. But let’s answer the author’s arguments before simply questioning their motives.
SMG
5:19 pm [ Quote ]
Steve, that is just silly.
But anyways, no one has backed up this ‘study’ but the two who did it.
5:40 pm [ Quote ]
Ian:
Steve, that is just silly
As Sidney Hook noted a long time ago, you must first respond to the argument and then you can challenge the motives of your opponent.
You simply can’t point out the political leanings of someone (unless they’re really off-the-wall radicals) and then dismiss their statements.
As a conservative (and I’m sure you’ve read my other posts to prove that), I don’t want us to become like the crazy Kossacks and other leftists who smugly live in a cocoon and echo chamber where their views are never challenged or examined.
Personally, from what I’ve read, the study looks to be worthless. But we can point out its worthlessness and then challenge the motives of the authors.
6:21 pm [ Quote ]
Monday Evening Links…
Not news, but the dumb filibuster fund-raising effort went down fast. YARGB is right about that. Any press is better than no press, right?"Aslan isn’t safe, but he is good." Hunter at Ornery American digs into the Narnia movie, with some pra…
6:36 pm [ Quote ]
What a great site!
You’re like a teen stenographer for Michelle Malkin!
7:08 pm [ Quote ]
I suppose that goes for even minority supporters of Bush? Are all of the women, hispanics, blacks, etc that voted for Bush all bigots and racists?
Did anyone read about how they determined “bigotry”? They show a picture of a black person and a welfare check and see what brain activity happens. Apparently Republicans respond negatively and Democrats respond positively. Which they claim is racist. I think that it just shows that Conservatives are realistic and Liberals are in denial of reality. The Conservative has a negative response because he realizes that the welfare check is holding the black man down, whereas the Liberal believes welfare helps him.
10:52 pm [ Quote ]
Look, if you’re just going to post the same thing that a bunch of other bloggers have said, why not just link to it? Borrrringgggg.
2:54 am [ Quote ]
Everyone knows that the only valid polls are those conducted by either the Republican party or Fox News.
Everyone else lies!
10:00 am [ Quote ]
[...] So much for it just being about sex or that it is a private matter. Don’t ask – Don’t tell has been replaced with the Tell or Else policy on the left. In the end it won’t be view as criminal but rather a desperate attempt to free the senator from his hidden inner conflict. In the end the senator will realize who he really is and be freed from the Republican anti-black bias the Washington Post has exposed. “Obviously, such research does not speak at all to the question of the prejudice level of the president,? said Banaji, “but it does show that George W. Bush is appealing as a leader to those Americans who harbor greater anti-black prejudice.“ [...]
11:08 am [ Quote ]
Bigot – One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.
Republicans are bigots. As Democrats continue to approve of Harry Belafonte, hater of the white man, Republicans are bigots.
As the DNC chairman, Howard Dean mentions that he hates Republicans, Republicans are bigots.
As Democrats continue to support Sheehan, hater of jews, Republicans are bigots.
As Democrats continue to support the ACLU, hater of Christianity, Republicans are bigots.
Republicans are bigots. Hmm, if you repeat it often enough, it starts to sound believable!