Thursday July 10, 2008
Thursday July 10, 2008
Why are conservatives happier-- the answer
A while back I wrote about the findings that conservatives seem to be happier than liberals and offered a little speculation on the matter. One of the (many) reasons that John Jost is a better social scientist than me is that he actually went out and found the answer. From the recently published paper, "Why are Conservatives Happier than Liberals?"
Napier, Jaime L., and John T. Jost. 2008. Why are conservatives happier than liberals? Psychological Science 19, 6 (June): 565-572.
One way of looking at this is that liberals are less happy because they are bothered by others' unhappiness; conservatives, not so much. Of course, there's something to be said for an ideological buffer to make you happy. One of my favorite findings from psychology is that depressed people actually have a more accurate view of themselves then persons who are not depressed.
Posted by shgreene
( Jul 10 2008, 01:12:24 PM EDT )
Permalink
Napier, Jaime L., and John T. Jost. 2008. Why are conservatives happier than liberals? Psychological Science 19, 6 (June): 565-572.
Abstract: In this
research, we drew on system-justification theory and the notion that
conservative ideology serves a palliative function to explain why
conservatives are happier than liberals. Specifically, in three studies
using nationally representative data from the United States and nine
additional countries, we found that right-wing (vs. left-wing)
orientation is indeed associated with greater subjective well-being and
that the relation between political orientation and subjective
well-being is mediated by the rationalization of inequality. In our
third study, we found that increasing economic inequality (as measured
by the Gini index) from 1974 to 2004 has exacerbated the happiness gap
between liberals and conservatives, apparently because conservatives
(more than liberals) possess an ideological buffer against the negative
hedonic effects of economic inequality.
One way of looking at this is that liberals are less happy because they are bothered by others' unhappiness; conservatives, not so much. Of course, there's something to be said for an ideological buffer to make you happy. One of my favorite findings from psychology is that depressed people actually have a more accurate view of themselves then persons who are not depressed.
The economic impact of "sounding Black"
Via Freakonomics author, Steven Levitt:
Posted by shgreene
( Jul 10 2008, 09:50:42 AM EDT )
Permalink
Fascinating new research by my University of Chicago colleague, Jeffrey Grogger, compares the wages of people who “sound black” when they talk to those who do not.
His main finding: blacks who “sound black” earn salaries that are 10 percent lower than blacks who do not “sound black,” even after controlling for measures of intelligence, experience in the work force, and other factors that influence how much people earn. (For what it is worth, whites who “sound black” earn 6 percent lower than other whites.)
How does Grogger know who “sounds black?” As part of a large longitudinal study called the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, follow-up validation interviews were conducted over the phone and recorded.
Grogger was able to take these phone interviews, purge them of any identifying information, and then ask people to try to identify the voices as to whether the speaker was black or white. The listeners were pretty good at distinguishing race through voices: 98 percent of the time they got the gender of the speaker right, 84 percent of white speakers were correctly identified as white, and 77 percent of black speakers were correctly identified as black.
Grogger asked multiple listeners to rate each voice and assigned the voice either to a distinctly white or black category (if the listeners all tended to agree on the race), or an indistinct category if there was disagreement.
Then he put this measure of whether a voice sounded black into a regression (the standard statistical tool that economists use for estimating things), and came up with the finding that blacks who “sound black” earn almost 10 percent less, even after taking into account other factors that could influence earnings. One piece of interesting good news is that blacks who do not “sound black” earn essentially the same as whites.
Apparently, there was a negative impact for Southern accents as well, but the measures were less precise as that was not the focus of the study.
Wednesday July 09, 2008
McCain is a disgrace on Social Security
John McCain's most recent comments on Social Security are absolutely breathtaking in their stupidity. He's admitted he doesn't really know much about economic policy, but this is ridiculous.
Posted by shgreene ( Jul 09 2008, 08:12:19 PM EDT ) Permalink
Asked by a young woman if she is likely to receive Social Security
benefits someday, McCain said it was unlikely "unless we fix it."
"Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today," he said. "And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed."
Matt Yglesias:"Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today," he said. "And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed."
Of course in their day, present-day retirees were working and their tax
dollars were paying folks who were retired back then. And in exchange
for that service when they were workers, today's retirees get to enjoy
a secure retirement. Yes, on my dime. And in exchange I expect that
when I retire, ensuing generations will be there for me. I call it
generations looking after each other, so that those who built the
present with labors in the past get to enjoy some of the fruits of
their labor. The federal government calls it Social Security. John
McCain calls it a disgrace.
Kevin Drum:This is nuts. McCain is talking as if he just figured out that this is
how Social Security works and he's scandalized by it. Needless to say,
though, this is the way virtually every retirement system in the world
works, and it works fine. What's more, if Social Security really does
turn out to have a shortfall in future years, it's easily fixed by a
very modest combination of higher taxes and reduced benefits — exactly
the bipartisan, reach-across-the-aisle solution forged in 1983 that
McCain is constantly praising (and that he voted for as a freshman
congressman).
In short, this comment shows McCain to be either a) disgracefully stupid, or b) disgracefully dishonest. I don't think there is a c), so take your pick. Posted by shgreene ( Jul 09 2008, 08:12:19 PM EDT ) Permalink
Jesse would approve
As we've been hearing so much lately about how Jesse Helms would always stand for what he believes in no matter the personal cost, perhaps he would appreciate this story:
Posted by shgreene ( Jul 09 2008, 12:16:52 PM EDT ) Permalink
RALEIGH -
L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.
Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.
When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours' delay, one of Eason's employees hung the flags at half-staff.
The brouhaha began late Sunday night, when Eason e-mailed eight of his employees in the state standards lab, which calibrates measuring equipment used on things as widely varied as gasoline and hamburgers.
"Regardless of any executive proclamation, I do not want the flags at the North Carolina Standards Laboratory flown at half staff to honor Jesse Helms any time this week," Eason wrote just after midnight, according to e-mail messages released in response to a public records request.
He told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms because of his "doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice" and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
Posted by shgreene ( Jul 09 2008, 12:16:52 PM EDT ) Permalink
Tuesday July 08, 2008
33% of Americans think God is schizophrenic
I just finished reading an absolutely terrific book, How to Read the Bible by James Kugel. Kugel summarizes modern biblical scholarship on the entire Old Testament. Kugel explains the books of the bible within the original contexts in which they were created, and most importantly, explicitly lays out the very different assumptions upon which the Bible has been understood through most of its history (e.g., God does not contradict himself, The Bible is full of hidden meanings that belie the stated meaning, etc.). We learn that modern scholars have found that the language of the Covenant between God and Israel is remarkably similar to pre-existing covenants between early Middle-Eastern rulers and their vassal states. Likewise, we find how the odd story of Jacob and Esau can be explained by relations between the tribes thought to have descended from these brothers. What was most interesting to me was the aspects of the Old Testament already staring me in the face that I-- like most people-- had simply been oblivious to. The God of Genesis, the God who gives the Ten Commandments is quite clearly conceived of as fixed in a particular time and place. He moves around. He is neither omniscient of omnipresent. Yet, later conceptions within the Bible and our current Jewish and Christian conceptions certainly hold God to be omni-present and all-knowing.
Among the other aspects of the bible that believers are used to overlooking is the fact that the Old Testament is simply rife with contradictions that really cannot be logically explained (not that many have not tried). The Bible says the passover meal should be roasted, only to say that it should be boiled a few sentences later. All sorts of biblical stories are told in multiple versions (including the creation of the world, and the Ten Commandments), that are simply not reconcilable. If, like me (and most mainline Protestants and Catholics), you take the Bible to be important for its larger messages and are not too upset by the quite obvious role of the humans involved in creating it, that's not really a problem. However, to believe that the Bible is the "literal word of God" is basically to believe that God is essentially schizophrenic and suffers from a multiple-personality disorder. Nonetheless, the Pew foundations recently released their latest "Religious Landscape" survey which finds that a third of all Americans, 59% of Evangelicals, and about 23% of mainline Protestants and Catholics agree that "the Bible is the literal word of God" (emphasis mine). I was disappointed, though not surprised, that nearly a quarter of all Catholics hold this intellectually untenable view that has never been supported by the Catholic church itself. On some level I had known that a literal interpretation of the bible was ahistorical and dumb, but now that I have learned so much about the Old Testament, I know that it is really dumb.
Posted by shgreene ( Jul 08 2008, 11:12:23 AM EDT ) Permalink
Among the other aspects of the bible that believers are used to overlooking is the fact that the Old Testament is simply rife with contradictions that really cannot be logically explained (not that many have not tried). The Bible says the passover meal should be roasted, only to say that it should be boiled a few sentences later. All sorts of biblical stories are told in multiple versions (including the creation of the world, and the Ten Commandments), that are simply not reconcilable. If, like me (and most mainline Protestants and Catholics), you take the Bible to be important for its larger messages and are not too upset by the quite obvious role of the humans involved in creating it, that's not really a problem. However, to believe that the Bible is the "literal word of God" is basically to believe that God is essentially schizophrenic and suffers from a multiple-personality disorder. Nonetheless, the Pew foundations recently released their latest "Religious Landscape" survey which finds that a third of all Americans, 59% of Evangelicals, and about 23% of mainline Protestants and Catholics agree that "the Bible is the literal word of God" (emphasis mine). I was disappointed, though not surprised, that nearly a quarter of all Catholics hold this intellectually untenable view that has never been supported by the Catholic church itself. On some level I had known that a literal interpretation of the bible was ahistorical and dumb, but now that I have learned so much about the Old Testament, I know that it is really dumb.
Posted by shgreene ( Jul 08 2008, 11:12:23 AM EDT ) Permalink
Monday July 07, 2008
Homosexuality and Olympic sprinters
I must admit to being taken aback for a split second last week when I saw a sports page headline along the lines of "Gay wins 100m." "What's his sexuality got to do with it, I thought, before realizing it was the winner's last name. With that in mind, I found this quite hillarious:
Posted by shgreene
( Jul 07 2008, 07:59:15 PM EDT )
Permalink
In addition to blocking traffic
from websites they don?t like, it looks like the web-geniuses behind
the American Family Association?s OneNewsNow site have a few other
tricks up their sleeves, such as automatically replacing any use of the
word ?gay? with the word ?homosexual? in any of the AP stories they run
? leading to instances in which proper names are reformatted to meet
their ridiculous standard, such as this article about sprinter Tyson Gay winning the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials in which he is renamed ?Tyson Homosexual?:
Jesse
I've read so much interesting commentary on Jesse Helms in the few days since his death. Hard to pick my favorites to go with, but I'll try a couple. First, let's just be clear, however nice he may have been to people he liked, the man was an unrepentant bigot. Period. By all accounts he was a pioneer in using race-baiting as a successful political strategy, and to whatever degree he "mellowed" he remained an unrepentant bigot till the end. It is a stain on my home state of North Carolina that it repeatedly elected him to the Senate. TNR's Jonathan Chait seems to have the most succinct summation on Helms' legacy and the awfully disturbing praise for him from Republican quarters:
Posted by shgreene ( Jul 07 2008, 02:34:21 PM EDT ) Permalink
The New York Times obituary of Jesse Helms had the temerity to note that he "opposed civil rights." National Review's John Miller objects:
He "opposed civil rights"? Uh, no. He opposed a particular vision of them.
Hilzoy has a lot of detail about Helms' "particular vision" of civil rights. Among other things, Helms was an avowed believer in black intellectual inferiority, an hysterical opponent of interracial marriage, called the 1964 Civil Rights Act "the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress," and said of civil rights demonstrators, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." Helms' "vision" of civil rights for African-Americans was that there should be none.
The mainstream conservative position on civil rights is that the equal rights of the early civil rights movement were good, but things started to go wrong with the imposition of affirmative action. It's a flawed though not illegitimate view. But Helms wasn't a champion of color-blindness who objected to quotas. He was an out-and-out white supremacist.
Moreover, it would be one thing if conservatives celebrated the things they liked about Helms' life while disavowing his bigotry. But their unalloyed celebration of Helms is a staggering indictment of movement conservatism's views on race.
As mentioned by Chait, Hilzoy does a phenomenal job cataloging many of Helms' most odious statements and beliefs. A couple of my favorites:
"Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced."
“To rob the Negro of his reputation of thinking through a problem in his own fashion is about the same as trying to pretend that he doesn't have a natural instinct for rhythm and for singing and dancing.”
And, what I think is most disturbing (as Chait mentions) in the response to Helms' death is the unqualified praise Helms is receiving from Republican quarters. Hilzoy catalogs that as well in the same post. For example, Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, "Today we lost a Senator whose stature in Congress had few equals.
Senator Jesse Helms was a leading voice and courageous champion for the
many causes he believed in." Of course, one of those causes was keeping the Black man down. It would be nice to see a little more honest reporting in just what these "conservative principles" Helms stood for really were. “To rob the Negro of his reputation of thinking through a problem in his own fashion is about the same as trying to pretend that he doesn't have a natural instinct for rhythm and for singing and dancing.”
Posted by shgreene ( Jul 07 2008, 02:34:21 PM EDT ) Permalink
Back in the saddle
"Update your blog" demand my readers (okay, just one of them). Thanks for the push, LS, normal blogging duties to resume imminently.
Posted by shgreene
( Jul 07 2008, 02:24:48 PM EDT )
Permalink
Tuesday June 24, 2008
Oil drilling
With gas prices what they are, there's been a lot of news lately about possible drilling in ANWR and expanding off-shore oil drilling. Of course, what is usually not mentioned is just how incredibly marginal the impact of this will actually be on energy prices. The government's own Energy Information Administration estimates that when ANWR would be fully on-line-- a couple decades from now-- we could expect a drop in the price of oil by a whopping $.75 per barrel (courtesy, Kevin Drum). Would that even save us $.01 a gallon? The simple truth is, oil is a global commodity in a global marketplace and nothing the US ever does is going to be more than a drop in the bucket. All else being equal, presumably more oil is better, but let's not kid ourselves about the actual benefits.
Posted by shgreene ( Jun 24 2008, 05:24:19 PM EDT ) Permalink
Posted by shgreene ( Jun 24 2008, 05:24:19 PM EDT ) Permalink
The more you look
the more corruption you find in the Bush administration. In what should be not the least bit surprising to anybody even half paying attention to politics:
On the bright side for President Bush, when people look back years from now on his administration, the fiasco that is the Iraq War will surely largely overshadow the 19th century level of corruption he has brought to the executive branch. This from the man who campaigned on restoring "honor and integrity" to the White House.
Posted by shgreene ( Jun 24 2008, 03:11:12 PM EDT ) Permalink
Justice Department officials improperly used political and ideological
factors to screen applicants for the agency's prestigious honors and
summer intern programs, sometimes rejecting otherwise qualified
candidates because of their ties to Democrats, internal auditors said
in a report issued this morning.
Not at all surprisingly, two Bush political appointees are responsible...Two members of the screening committee in 2006, Esther Slater McDonald, an adviser to the associate attorney general, and Michael J. Elston, chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, considered political and ideological factors when rejecting candidates "and thereby committed misconduct," the investigators said.
McDonald allegedly wrote "disparaging" remarks about job seekers' liberal ties on their applications, and Elston allegedly failed to take action when the problems were brought to his attention by another concerned member of the hiring panel, according to the report.
Posted by shgreene ( Jun 24 2008, 03:11:12 PM EDT ) Permalink
More on China's cement production
Last week I reproduced a really cool graph created by my friend, political scientist extraordinaire, Kyle Saunders. Turns out, I wasn't the only one who thought this was really cool and a lot of blogs that people actually read linked to this as well. Consequently, Kyle has now achieved the ultimate goal of all political scientists-- he was on NPR's "All Things Considered" this weekend discussing the impact of China's cement production on global warming. What's pretty funny about this is that Kyle didn't actually know anything at all about the topic till Monday of last week, but thanks to a cool chart, he's NPR's go-to guy. Nonetheless, he gives a pretty interesting interview on the topic (and actually really sounds like he knows what he's talking about) if you are curious.
Posted by shgreene ( Jun 24 2008, 01:07:24 PM EDT ) Permalink
Posted by shgreene ( Jun 24 2008, 01:07:24 PM EDT ) Permalink
Monday June 23, 2008
McCain's economic disinterest
As I've mentioned before, I think the fact that this is a really bad Republican year will defeat John McCain as much as anything. The fact that he's utterly clueless on the economy and cares even less sure is not going to help him either. Kevin Drum reports McCain's and Obama's comments from a recent Forbes interview:
Posted by shgreene ( Jun 23 2008, 05:45:34 PM EDT ) Permalink
What do you see as the gravest long-term threat to the U.S. economy?
Obama: If we don't get a handle on our energy policy, it is possible that the kinds of trends we've seen over the last year will just continue. Demand is clearly outstripping supply. It's not a problem we can drill our way out of. It can be a drag on our economy for a very long time unless we take steps to innovate and invest in the research and development that's required to find alternative fuels. I think it's very important for the federal government to have a role in that process.
McCain: Well, I would think that the absolute gravest threat is the struggle that we're in against Islamic extremism, which can affect, if they prevail, our very existence. Another successful attack on the United States of America could have devastating consequences.
As Kevin puts it:
Two things are remarkable here. First, that McCain genuinely seems to believe that Islamic extremism poses not just a threat, but a threat to the very existence of the West. This is science fiction territory. Second, that he apparently can't come up with any better answer to Fortune's question about economic threats. Not energy, not high taxes, not runaway entitlement growth, not healthcare, not globalization, not any of a dozen plausible answers that would have gone down fine with his base. Instead, "His eyes are narrowed. Nine seconds of silence, ten seconds, 11." And then he came up with Islamic extremism.
I think this clearly shows McCain's general disinterest in the economy-- far and away the number one issue for voters right now. The press is giving him a complete free ride on this stuff right now, but at some point he's going to say something this useless when it matters.
Posted by shgreene ( Jun 23 2008, 05:45:34 PM EDT ) Permalink
Friday June 20, 2008
Pregnancy pact
Bill Boettcher has demanded that I blog this bizarre news story. From time.com:
Noted without further useless comment from me.
Posted by shgreene ( Jun 20 2008, 11:37:43 AM EDT ) Permalink
As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are
expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the
1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic
as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up
for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan
knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen
pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town. School officials
started looking into the matter as early as October after an unusual
number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they
were pregnant. By May, several students had returned multiple times to
get pregnancy tests, and on hearing the results, "some girls seemed
more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Sullivan
says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the
expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to
get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse.
"We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," the
principal says, shaking his head.
Noted without further useless comment from me.
Posted by shgreene ( Jun 20 2008, 11:37:43 AM EDT ) Permalink
Children oppose Universal health care
Nobody does satire like the Onion. This video is absolutely brilliant:
Posted by shgreene ( Jun 20 2008, 08:01:14 AM EDT ) Permalink
Posted by shgreene ( Jun 20 2008, 08:01:14 AM EDT ) Permalink
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Posted by shgreene ( Jul 10 2008, 02:11:38 PM EDT ) Permalink