#Political Psychology

[meyer-stats]

Survey: Voter Preference for Political Candidates (Everyone can participate)

🙏 I NEED YOUR HELP! 🙏

For the final part of my Master's degree in Political Science, I am researching voters’ preferences for political candidates. Your answer is absolutely IMPORTANT to the assignment and will mean the world to me! 😃

The questionnaire takes about 5-15 minutes, and your answer is completely ANONYMOUS. It can be completed in both English and Danish 🇬🇧🇺🇸🇩🇰

Simply answer my questionnaire by clicking on the following link: (https://survey.au.dk/LinkCollector?key=8HR6PMSMJK95).

By answering, you can participate in a lottery and win one of 4 prizes of 500 Danish crowns! (corresponding to circa 73 US dollars or 57 British pounds) 🏆

Hurry up and participate as the survey closes on April 30th 📅

Participation is fundamentally limited to people with eyesight and without color blindness 👀

Thank you so much for your help! 😊

[calicojack1718]

Unraveling the Psychology Behind Political Polarization

We've all heard the contradictory bullshit that conservatives at all levels regurgitate upon us. None of us can understand the level of cognitive dissonance necessary for it, but here are three psychology studies that will help.!

SUMMARY: The blog post delves into the psychological reasons behind why some individuals believe in seemingly unbelievable political rhetoric. It discusses the illusory truth effect, the complex relationship between anxiety and right-wing populism, and the role of envy in radicalization. The post suggests that the GOP is purposefully radicalizing its base and emphasizes the importance of…

[hardnekkig]

Birth of the Ruderal

Nature creates fast-types and slow-types. You would think there are uppers and downers too. This is how it goes. So, I propose we call liberals changers. I do not like the terms liberals or progressive (the latter: it is not certain the change is truelly progressive or not). Changers are the rule breakers, while conservatives are the rule makers. Conservatives stabilize the system. Following Marco del Giudice, I see past orientation besides present orientation and future orientation. I also see competitive attitudes besides his cooperative and exploitative attitudes. Following Avi Tuschman, perhaps rule breakers are (more often?) outbreeders, while rule makers are (more often?) inbreeders. Following Bernard Crespi and Christopher Badcock I see a conflict between the maternal and the paternal. Is there some link between the patriarchy and this conflict?

Without natural selection, according to the Zero-Force Evolutionary Law (ZFEL), a system will complexify and diversify. Can we expect this to happen with our societies once threats are gone? I see order, disorder, edge of chaos, and chaos. Following Scott Page I see exploiters vs explorers and redundancy vs diversity. In this, redundancy is possibly conforming while diversity might be non-conforming. This seems to be about hunters (conservatives) vs busybodies (changers). Autistic people see the details, creative people the whole: what is this about?

Conservatives do not like greens: maybe they are on average more easily poisoned? It are greens which contain (light) toxins after all. Conservatives seem to have higher disgust and threat sensitivity. Perhaps they have weaker immune systems and (some of them) are not as strong. That having said, there are hints that highly attractive people and men with high upper body strength support rightwing politics. They seem poised for both dangerous and ordered environments. (However upper body strength also goes with redistribution views.)

According to Crespi and Badcock, extreme female brains and extreme male brain exist. If there is an extreme male brain, there should be an extreme male body. If so, that seems to suggest there should be an extreme male, male body and a extreme female, male body.

I also speculate how the c-s-r model fits into the framework. Not just with the paternal vs maternal model but also as fast-type vs slow-type. Both competitive and ruderal seem to be fast-type, whereas survivor seems to be slow-type. Perhaps a competitive slow-type exists. Both competitive people and ruderal people should probably have fast growth rate and also age faster. We could argue some people are born older or younger. Perhaps survivor people are tougher as according to the c-s-r model survivor plants have tougher leaves. It seems possible surivor people retain fat more, while competitive people have higher muscle growth. Perhaps survivor people have a higher pain treshold. There is probably more to the c-s-r model.

The system creates personalities, which in turn changes the system.

Next: what type of environments can we distingish and what type of personality usually comes out of it? According to the c-s-r model there are high stress + low disturbance environments, low stress + high disturbance environments, low stress + low disturbance environments. About the Inglehart–Welzel cultural map: I speculate the traditional and survival have to do with stress and disturbance. Self-expression seems to do with signalling and sexual selection. As the guppies become more colourful when they are without predation, so people can become more self-expressive when the environment is safe. I call it the peacock. Secularity is perhaps related to intelligence.

I can think of the following environments: chaotic, high stress or harsh/poor, unpredictable, rich, dangerous and ordered. So where does this lead to? Changers seem to do better in messy and/or chaotic environments. Following Dick Swaab there is rich and high stress biological context to sensitivity. Following Tim Low it seems that rich environments create aggressors. Conservatives seem to be about creating order or thriving in order.

As for the (by Jonathan Haidt) moral foundations I suggest we reduce harm to threat sensitivy, fairness stays fairness, authority to dominance, ingroup to ingroup and purity to disgust sensitivity. I am also fascinated by trade-offs and allocations. I think it needs to add flaws and errors, in which flaws are imperfections and errors are mistakes. Besides that, I wonder what to do with the terms leftwing and rightwing. How many leftwing orientations are there? How many rightwing orientations are there? What can we reduce them to? Could avoidant personality cluster with the autistic spectrum? Could dependent personality disorder cluster with the psychotic or autistic spectrum? I think dependent personality is about – following Scott Page – exploiting, while avoidant personality is about exploring.

Yaneer Bar-Yam says: 

Most animals have many offspring. The number of offspring that survive to adulthood tells us something about how complex an animal’s environment is compared to its own complexity. Mammals have several to dozens of offspring, frogs have thousands, fish have millions and insects can have as many as billions. In each case, on average only one offspring per parent survives to have offspring. The others made wrong choices because the number of possible right choices is small. In this way, we can see that mammals are almost as complex as their environments, while frogs are much less complex and insects and fish are still less complex when compared with their environments.

Following the above, it seems logical that people with a lot of babies are also less complex (but I think this does not necessarily mean less intelligent).

I call schizophrenia system-failure, following the below (by Scott E. Page): 

In systems with capacity constraints a tradeoff arises between redundancy and diversity. Greater diversity entails more responsiveness—think back to the law of requisite variety—but increases the odds that the failure of any one entity could cause the system to collapse. Greater redundancy implies less ability to respond to new disturbances but agreater ability to withstand the loss of any one entity in thesystem. On balance, a system must trade off redundancy with diversity much in the same way it trades off exploitation(doing what it does well) and exploration (continuing to look for something better). Redundancy guarantees that the system can keep doing what it’s doing. Diversity enables it to respondto new disturbances.

I think I might be wrong here. But I see schizophrenia as having more diversity and at a higher risk at systemfailure (collapse).

Turchin cycles

[aporia-nsfw]

I've been thinking more about what I really want with my reading.

I don't so much want to read political psychology as "anti-fascist psychology."

Rather than using psychology to learn about violent authoritarians I want to use the study of violent authoritarians to learn about psychology.

It isn't about not being a Nazi. It is about not being a defensive and neurotic person. More about not being a "grammar nazi" than not being a neo-nazi.

[jbfly46]

This is the person most likely to be behind the Q intelligence contingency plan psychological operation. I saw them developing it on 4chan years ago during the time all the psychological experiments were going on there. The Q posts match the speech and analytical patterns found in her research, and her research coincides with the techniques used in the Q operation. I see and know everything. I am the 👁️ of Providence, manifested through the desperation of man and eternal alchemists in the higher and lower dimensions. Nothing happening in any dimension or behind any closed doors escapes my comprehension.

[thephilosopheroftheboudoir]

Why we should stop focusing on our enemies

In the end, you become just like the people you hate. It's so sad that so few humans ever learn this lesson.

[mysharona1987]

[meyer-stats]

Survey: Voter Preference for Political Candidates (Everyone can participate)

🙏 I NEED YOUR HELP! 🙏

For the final part of my Master's degree in Political Science, I am researching voters’ preferences for political candidates. Your answer is absolutely IMPORTANT to the assignment and will mean the world to me! 😃

The questionnaire takes about 5-15 minutes, and your answer is completely ANONYMOUS. It can be completed in both English and Danish 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇩🇰

Simply answer my questionnaire by clicking on the following link: (https://survey.au.dk/LinkCollector?key=8HR6PMSMJK95).

By answering, you can participate in a lottery and win one of 4 prizes of 500 Danish crowns! (corresponding to circa 73 US dollars or 57 British pounds) 🏆

Hurry up and participate as the survey closes on April 30th 📅

Participation is fundamentally limited to people with eyesight and without color blindness 👀

Thank you so much for your help! 😊

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“...let us consider the actual principles of modem political propaganda, resulting from the theoretical considerations advanced in the preceding chapters, based on the data of present-day biology. The great mass movements characterizing our epoch, which find concrete expression in the act of voting in elections or plebiscites, or in public demonstrations or revolutionary rioting, are not the results of careful deliberation on the part of the individuals forming the mass, but of physiological, nervous processes, which are called “volitional” in classic psychological language, and are deliberately produced by energy applied from without, by the methods known as propaganda, or demagogy, or, better, “psychagogy.”

This is true of the true democracies, inspired by the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, as well as of modern dictatorships, which are not open dictatorships but pseudo-democratic ones. These dictatorships also rest on mass support, but the masses have been astutely managed and deluded as to their vital interests—they have been psychically raped.

Modem biological theories, supported by experiment and statistics, assign to the more or less conscious and active elements in the masses and the remainder, the passive elements which are susceptible to influencing by suggestion, the proportion of one to ten.... The defeat of the democratic movements in Germany and Italy by Fascism has been due to the failure to recognize this capital fact. Naturally the two groups need different treatment from the propagandist point of view. The former can and should be reached by persuasion; the rest need bringing to heel, bringing into conformity, by dint of attention to their particular receptivity, which requires the most careful study. Democratic politicians are inclined to minimize the importance of this; one may often hear the claim made that propaganda needs only to appeal to “good sense.” Nothing could be more mistaken, or more disastrously mistaken. Political propaganda is a true science; it belongs to the field of collective applied psychology.

It may be worth while, in order the better to understand these rules, to begin with a criticism of the methods of propaganda on which the political action of most of the parties is based under a democratic regime, especially the Socialist parties; these “classic’’ methods are in plain contradiction with scientific data. Their propaganda often takes on plaintive forms, complaining of atrocities on the part of their opponents, charging them with aggressiveness, in a word, dwelling on their boldness and strength. This is bad tactics, since it unwittingly renders the opponents a service. It is the principle which we shall call “retroactive intimidation” or “intimidation by repercussion.” The democratic propaganda also frequently makes too much use of irony, merely laughing at the opponents even at times when what is really needed is combative action, a demonstration of their own strength. It is often too doctrinaire, too abstract, and takes forms which the masses find boring and insipid. Its activity is fortuitous and directed solely by intuition, often mistaken intuition; it lacks system and co-ordination. Consequently it may make a great effort for a very poor result. Finally, and this is a very grave matter, it is often belated, and reduced to dealing with events at the last moment.

Even in propaganda based on the principle of suggestion, the mistake is often made of thinking and acting as if each person reacted in the same way; in reality the mentality of the various groups of the population is very varied, and rational propaganda must be differentiated accordingly. It is also often imagined that a happy formula or symbol or slogan is itself a guarantee of success, as if nothing more were in question than the advertising of some commercial product. It is forgotten that the essential thing in rational propaganda is to work to plan. The plan must comprise—

Differentiation between the groups of people to be influenced;

The determination of the psychological aims to be attained among the elements of each group;

The creation of organs for the carrying out of action with these ends;

The creation of forms of propagandist action, by these organs;

The distribution of this action in time and space (the drawing up of the plan of campaign;

The co-ordination of these actions;

The supervision of the campaign—more precisely, of the preparation of activities, of their execution, and of their results.

All rational propaganda depends on a relatively small number of trenchant and concise formulae, which need hammering into the heads of the masses after they have been brought into a state of super-impressionability. This is Pavlov’s principle of the creation of conditioned reflexes. Another condition that must be fulfilled is uniformity and simultaneity of propaganda in various places, necessitating central direction of each big-scale campaign. Another requisite of good propaganda is that it shall be carried on under really artistic forms ; platitudes must be banned. Unfortunately the idea that elementary stuff, vulgar and aesthetically worthless, may be put before the masses is fairly widespread. The moral basis of propaganda must not be abandoned; here, too, the soul of the people is often more rational than that of some propagandists.

The political struggle never ceases, and propaganda must be unwearying. Hitler has understood this: he did not confine his propaganda to election times; he carried it on unceasingly, whereas his opponents woke up only from time to time; even during an election campaign they often welcomed holidays for “relaxation”, as they said, but really in order to get away from the struggle, which bored them, and to indulge their bourgeois habits.

We have seen already, and we shall see later still more plainly, that in basing his propaganda by mass suggestion on the combative instinct. Hitler used psychical violence supported by physical violence. He admits it in Mein Kampf: “A resolute bandit can always prevent an honest man from carrying on political activity.” He put this rule into practice; in 1931-2 his Storm Troops, by the use of violence, made it impossible for their opponents to hold meetings in the rural districts. Once embarked on this path, he says, it is essential consistently to pursue it, never wavering between violence and indulgence.

Another rule of Hitlerist and Mussolinian propaganda is the employment of exaggeration. Goebbels, for example, gave the strength of the Hitlerist Storm Troops in Berlin as 10,000 at a time when the true figure was 3000. Hadamovsky, his close collaborator, openly recommends this exaggeration: “ We must show our true strength, and more. Propaganda by show of force, if well calculated, impresses and gives decisive results, especially abroad.” It is well that Hitler’s opponents should know what they have to deal with, and should be under no illusions.

...propaganda must not be carried on to a rigid plan, but must be differentiated for the different quarters appealed to. In his propaganda Hitler made use of specially organized Storm Troops, who enabled him to penetrate the country districts with ease and to win over the peasants by terrorism; he also had the monopoly of the rural districts since the other parties almost entirely neglected them. 

In an article in the Deutsche Republik in 1932, Siegfried Hoxter analysed the problem of propaganda in rural districts, and distinguished two main zones. One, crossed by the main lines of communication, he called the mixed zone; in the other, in which the peasantry forms a more uniform stratum of the population, it was easier for Hitler’s ideas to penetrate. Accordingly, he was of the opinion that aggressive methods of popular propaganda, based on the combative instinct, such as those which proved effective against Hitler when begun by the Socialists with the sign of the three arrows in 1932, should be employed in the first zone; in the second they should be modified and adapted to peasant surroundings and mentality; they should be detailed and often individual in character, recalling the methods of commercial travellers and insurance agents.

Another example of differentiated political propaganda was the attempt made in Germany by the [Socialist] Iron Front to divide the country for propaganda purposes into three zones—the west, with a population mainly republican in feeling, the north-east, where the Prussian reactionaries imposed their ideas, and the south-east, where Socialist and Communist tendencies were stronger. The plan was conceived as follows: the elements based on the four fundamental instincts must, of course, be in evidence everywhere, and propaganda must take account of economic, combative, and prudential interests, as well as of the desire for happiness and a gayer conception of life. But in the reactionary north-east zone propaganda must be made up especially of the elements of struggle and intimidation; in the industrial south-east zone the economic arguments must predominate, and in the west propaganda must concentrate on the desire to defend existing advantages, the desire for security, and prudential considerations. Instincts 3 and 4 must prevail in the southern and western zones, and instincts I and 2 in the northern and eastern.

...rational propaganda presupposes a well-developed organization of the services which are to carry it on. Recent history has given three examples of formidable propaganda organizations. These are Lord Northcliffe’s Propaganda Ministry during the Great War, the propaganda institutions during the civil war in Russia, and the Ministry of Propaganda of the Third Reich. ...[there are] certain general rules affecting the problem of modern propaganda organization. The first is close supervision of the execution and the scope of the measures adopted; nothing is more important than this, and it is often neglected at the present time. It is necessary constantly to watch the effect produced, to determine it with the utmost objectivity, to record it as clearly as possible, and to be guided by it in subsequent practical work; this applies also to the contents of the propaganda. The work done and the results obtained must be recorded by modem methods, with maps, diagrams, and tables, corresponding to the “political meteorology” of the Russian civil war, which made use of special political maps to facilitate a survey of events and determine their functional relations.

A rational organization of propaganda also requires the centralization of information, of press work, etc., since, in order to give the results expected of it, propaganda must be based on a complete view of the situation. Without a General Staff to devise and direct political campaigns, there can be no substantial guarantee of success, and the haphazard methods employed in its absence may often be seen, to be the reason for failure. How often we find a propaganda campaign improvised, an ad-hoc committee constituted, and everything left to a single person, a Minister who is hopelessly overburdened.

Propaganda requires staffs of specialists, agitators, etc., and these need instructing through propaganda courses. Hitler well realized this, and formed a whole corps, his Storm Troops, as propaganda shock brigades. These are the troops who actually carried him into power. But if militant propagandists are to be mobilized and thrown into the fray at a given moment, they must be given concrete instructions and their enthusiasm must be aroused. This is done in a rational system of propaganda by means of special meetings of militants for instruction and encouragement. The German practice showed that this is the best means of rapidly organizing political campaigns.

Finance plays, of course, an important part in propaganda, but it is by no means true that effective propaganda is impossible without heavy expenditure. Effective political campaigns have been carried on with next to no money; the secret lies in the rationalization of action and in the possibility of psychically mobilizing the enthusiasm of masses of people. It may even be said that in general the funds for popular propaganda by means of symbols may be found in the streets; they have only to be sought and collected. In Hesse, for example, the Iron Front in 1932 entirely financed its victorious propaganda against Hitler out of the receipts from the sale of badges. It is a healthy principle that propaganda should be able to provide its own resources.

Propaganda as here analysed and described assures virtually certain success; this is shown by the formidable results of Hitlerist propaganda, but also, andabove all, by a political experiment carried out in Hesse in 1932 ; this experiment was conducted with the rigour of laboratory practice. In the elections in Hesse, the new methods of propaganda of the Iron Front were employed in four towns—Offenbach, Darmstadt, Mainz, and Worms; in a fifth, Giessen, the old Social Democratic methods were once more used. In the first four of these towns Hitler was beaten; in the fifth, Giessen, he won.

...

This being so, it is well to be very suspicious of preconceived ideas concerning the so-called liberty of the press and of propaganda. It was simply by exploiting this liberty, guaranteed him by the laws of the German Republic, that Hitler destroyed the Republic. Poisoning is a crime, punished by the laws of human communities. It is time that we realized that there may be situations in which the masses, whose votes determine everything' in a democratic State, may succumb to actual psychical poisoning in the truest physiological sense. If it is imagined anywhere that it will be sufficient then to appeal to reason and to try to combat the poisoning, the “psychical rape”, by persuasive propaganda, it must be agreed, after all we have said, that this is a dangerous illusion. The only way to guarantee constitutional liberties is to be provided with apparatus for psychical immunization, by means of organs of propaganda which will assure that any attempt to rape the soul of the people by psycho-physiological practices, which arc now revealed as veritable intoxicants, shall at once be met with an effective reply in the form of psychical protection.”

- Serge Chakotin, The Rape of the Masses: The Psychology of Totalitarian Political Propaganda. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1940. p. 118-126.

[hug-your-face]

Insight today while washing the lettuce and thinking of my friend who doesn't want to vote.

They are an otherwise intelligent, responsible, generous person, who appears to be socially conscious. They have worked hard and long for their position in their profession. They express concern for the planet. They get twitchy if you use too many paper towels.

But they don’t want to vote for Biden for reasons, and quote "doesn't like the whole system where the parties take turns swinging things back and forth" unquote.

I have been dumbstruck at their attitude for about two months now. I've been thrashing back and forth trying to reconcile this person I love with their attitude:

If you care abt the planet enough to conserve paper towels, don’t you care enough to stop a Repub administration from raping the land?

If you don’t like how things can swing back and forth, don't you want an administration that's going to work to shore up, rather than dismantle, more lasting democratic systems of governance?

If you understand the value of the long game, why are you only satisfied with instant results from a single election rather than viewing that election as a single move in an ongoing process?

The insight came to me as I used an extra set of paper towels to dry my lettuce:

These people are not motivated by outcomes. They are motivated by how their choices make them FEEL.

Not how the outcomes of their choices will make them feel. But how the action associated with their choices makes them feel.

In terms of outcomes for the environment, saving paper towels doesn't do shit compared to pushing for restrictions on oil companies. But using half a paper towel is an instant dopamine hit: "Ahhh, I am caring for Mother Earth. I care. I am a good person. Ahh yes that's the stuff."

This model fits for voting too. We know that The Only Votes That Count Are Those Cast. We know that Dems Go Where The Votes Are Not Where The Votes Aren't. We know that voting in every election, every time, in numbers, is a very low-effort way to contribute to moving the Overton window farther left.

But in the moment, for people who are motivated by how their action associated with their choice makes them feel... the absolute best move for their dopamine supply is to abstain: "I am NOT supporting an old fart; I am NOT supporting genocide; I am Challenging The System; I am a good person. Ahh yes, that's the stuff."

At the time, when I challenged my friend on their position, they held up their hands and said "look, I'm not saying I have any answers, I'm just saying I don’t like how the system works."

They didn't like how participating in the system made them FEEL in the moment.

For those of us who think this is madness, hey, we aren't off the hook entirely. We are basing our choices and actions off of outcomes, true. But there's probably a feeling/dopamine component in there too. "I am holding my nose and voting Blue; I am doing my part to actually affect the future even if I hate some things abt my choice; I am a good person. Ahh yes, that's the stuff."

So maybe the difference isn't in the motivation (my feelings and self-image) but in what motivates us (my action vs the outcome of my action).

I don't have an answer to the question at this time and this post is already long enough. But I'll think on it. And I invite you to do so as well:

For these people (who seem to be a sizable part of the population), how to outweigh the choice where their action preserves their self-image, doesn't cost them dopamine for having to take a "bad" action, and maybe even gives them a happy boost for "not being part of a flawed system?"

For these people, how to help them connect more to the outcome?

Off the cuff, I can't think of any means other than cognitive-behavioral therapy. :/

EDIT: Apparently there's a term for this and it's called Emotivism -- ethics isn't abt effects but abt feelings.

[liberatingreality]

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it's conformity.

Rollo May

[pratchettquotes]

People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so, the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.

As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn't measure up.

Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

[kafkasapartment]

[foxes-and-ghosts]

21.01.24

Due to events that were recently uncovered, there have been protests all across Germany against fascism, a particular right-wing party and right-wing extremism in general.

These kinds of right-wing movements have been on the rise not only in my own country, but all over Europe. It often leaves me feeling helpless, like a passive bystander, only watching things go downhill without any chance to do something about it.

That's why it has made me very happy and proud to see so many people in my country standing up against it these past days. I think it's so important to just stand up, go outside and be loud about it. Simply to show up. We can not let these terrible people have the stage, we can not let them lead the narrative. They are not Germany. We are.

[1harry1]

Everything we said about the Biden family's corruption in Ukraine has been confirmed by congression

here you can find out more detailed information

[wowbright]

It's okay to not feel okay and to not feel hopeful. That is natural. It is not something you need to feel bad about or shake yourself out of.

It's been less than two days. It's okay to feel shitty and hopeless. It's also okay to feel hopeful, if that comes naturally to you.

I used to have a magnet on my fridge with a quote attributed to Winston Churchill. It said, "If you're going through hell, keep going."

That's all you need to do. You don't have to feel a certain way about it. Just keep going.