Political Psychology exam III

Implications of The Running Tally Model (AKA "Online processing" model)

- opinions reflect total considerations - Political surveys measure real attitudes - Has won over majority of political scientist who study behavior - Though debate exist, and some still prefer Zaller's RAS Model

The Libertarian Personality

Builds on Haidt's the righteous mind. Individual liberty is the most important Haidt moral foundations. Stronger system 2 style of thinking. Low empathy for others and few social connections. Less emotional (high emotional stability) and less likely to react with disgust

Many Americans are authoritarians. True or False?

False. Very few americans are Authoritarians. Authoritarians make up 3.9% on two issues of banning gay marriage and increasing taxes. They make up a small percentage when dealing with two big issues.

Classically if you go far enough right and far enough left they are effectively the same... how so?

Fascism-extreme right vs. Soviet communism-extreme left

Side notes of The Running Tally Model (AKA "Online processing" model)

For polling purposes your opinions are real. Most political scientists prefer this model

Are Donald Trump supporters authoritarians?

Generally, no. Not in an ideological sense. They do not want more government in everything

Why what Ramey, Klingler, and Hollibaugh do in the book matters:

Gets big 5 w/out legislators responding to surveys. You can apply this to presidents. It shows you can measure big 5 with lexical hypothesis or questionnaire approach

Why does social capital matter, psychologically?

It creates trust! Social norms and interpersonal dependence: Helps us behave more like Haidt's bees' and people in sociosentric societies. Emotional connections: creates quick system 1 responses to friends' requests. ALSO social status : Wanting to impress friends.

Authoritarian personality as opposite of flyer/haidt libertarian personality

Would fit Haidt's 99% elephant 1% rider. Care a lot about 5 and 6 Haidt Moral Foundations, but not at all for Liberty/Oppression. Stronger system 1. Highly empathetic, social, emotional (low emotional stability), and disgustable

Do campaigns attempt to target people with lots of social capital directly?

Yes! The more social capital leads to bigger social networks (more votes). You want to get your name/message out to the greatest number of people. This also works within social network!! Having just 1 political junkie in a social network can substantially increase political engagement and participation in the network as a whole.

Has legislator personality changed over time?

Yes, Today more extraversion and less emotional stability. But this is not what the voters like... but their preferences have changes too compared to 20 years ago-this could be why approval ratings are so low

Is social capital important for non-voting political participation?

Yes. Phone banking, block walking, giving money. Even contacting members of congress requires social trust an belief that system works. Best way to get volunteers= ask.. well you need norm of reciprocity (social capital) to get a yes. Non profits, interest groups, and campaigns rely indirectly on social capital to: recruit volunteers, get people to give money, come to rallies, etc.

Collective action problems

a mutually beneficial outcome exists for a group of people, but it will not be achieved because people in the group have conflicting preferences. Group projects

The Effect of N2E is

even greater than effect of growing up in a home that talked about politics and comparable to classic predictors like income. It has direct effects and these are not explained by others. ex. parents took you with hem to vote-affects your future participation in voting.

strong priors, motivated reasoning, and confirmation bias-->attitude polarization. can lead to

grant prior

The Authoritarian Personality

has strong effects on politics+ "Emphasized the need for order, swift responses to threats to that order, and stronger desire for established authorities to maintain order"

People high in the dark triad

have higher self esteem, are more competitive, score higher on classic measures of authoritarian personality (Machiavellians and psychopathy only)

Low discount factor

high ability to make sacrifices now for rewards later.

Indirect Mechanism (empathy)

if you care more about others you'll be more likely to participate in non political social organizations, where people are more lily to be asked to participate in politics.

Direct Mechanism(empathy)

if you care more about others, you'll care more about how politics affects them, and be more likely to participate

The Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect

imagine you open your favorite news source to a subject you know well.. you read it and discover the journalist doesn't understand the facts or issues. The article may be so bad it reverses cause and effect aka "wet streets cause rain".. annoyed you switch to a different story, assuming that the news source is reliable on subjects you do not know as well... This shows that we behave as if we don't always bayesian update our beliefs about the reliability of our favorer news source on unfamiliar subjects, though we do with other things (Michael Crichton)

GOP and Conservatives are for small government in economic and zip of government issues. What does this mean for its relation to authoritarian personality

it disconnects the two. Conservatives don't want the government in everything

People high in N2E tend to...

judge things as good or bad, and dislike remaining neutral. Also they are more likely to evaluate candidates and the republican and democratic parties and liberalism and conservatism in a bipolar, or diametrically opposing way

Regional ignorance

knowing everything about politics is not necessary for them in their daily life so they do not bother focusing too much on politics- (Lupia reading) Lupia believes it is elitist to expect otherwise! Would it be fair for somebody in another field to expect you to know how to change brake pads, or know how to check the salinity levels of a swimming pool, etc

PID, strong priors, and motivated reasoning or confirmation bias:

like seeing everything heavily tinted red/blue sunglasses. A different view of reality that leads to beliefs widely shared within 1 party, but not the other

Bayesian Updating/learning

like the running tally model but specifically the pre-existing size/certainty of your tally or how much it takes to add a new tally make to the total for an option

Dark Triad and Big 5: Those in the dark triad are _____ emotional stability (more democratic)

lower

Dark Triad and Big 5: Those in the dark triad are _____ Conscientiousness (more democratic)

lower. Except narcissists who have higher conscientiousness (more GOP)

Those high in the dark triad often function normally

make more money, have higher career satisfaction (Machiavellians). More likely to be leaders at work & can be great leaders when change is needed

Empathy (as a trait)

more empathy for others, more likely to volunteer and participate in politics.

Quality Challenger and Spending: higher openness to experience

more risk tolerant, more likely to engage with their constituents in more thoughtful, innovative, and direct (they think). Less likely to draw a quality challenger, no effect on spending

Elite cuing info (think rally the base type message) has linear effects

most aware receive most, moderately aware some unaware little.

Strong priors adjust only slowly in response to new information showing

motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. But weak priors adjust rapidly and show little or either

MBTI & Ideology & Interest in Politics: Are all of the MBTI options related to politics?

no. Only Sensing and Intuition. The other 3 groups do not matter

Leaners are significantly and substantively more likely than weak partisans to

vote and report voting, be contacted by a campaign, follow whats going on in government and consume all kinds of media, understand parties in congress, give money, work for campaigns, put up a sign

political participation

voter turnout (general and primary), volunteering, giving money, protesting, talking to a friend about politics, etc.

How do citizens learn about politics

well today, mesa is both top down and bottom top. You learn not just from news and social media, but: friends and social networks soft news and infotainment. Documentary and entertainment books, TV shows, and movies

backfire effect

when exposure to conflicting information primes and leads individuals to hold their beliefs even more strongly

The Running Tally Model (AKA "Online processing" model)

when people hear political information, it gets added to their prior knowledge of a subject. Their overall opinion or knowledge is updated.

Without good understanding of strength of partisanship, scholars don't know

why are some people rabid democrats or republicans and other don't care much about their party, why do many americans who favor one party prefer to remind nominally neutral, are americans actually unsatisfied with their party choices? What does this say about negative partisanship and government legitimacy

Is MBTI used in political research?

yes, but not nearly as much as the Big 5. In part because of length and other critiques.

If partisanship is a conflict oriented group identity: How can we measure strength of partisanship in that way?

With personality!

What is social capital according to Robert Putnam

"Features of social organization such as networks, norms and social trusts that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit." It makes it easier for people to act according to "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" principles. It is an important social psychology factor that brings up political participation

Non Authoritarians are

"More tolerant of ambiguity and diversity and that emphasizes autonomy over enforced order"

Need for Cognition (NFC)

-How motivated a person is to be objective and seek the true state of the world -high NFC have a "Tendency to think and enjoy he preaches of thinking" -High NFC are more likely to know political facts regardless of partisanship -To some degrees, hight NFC mitigates the information bias created by divided media outlets

Confirmation bias often occurs ______ Motivate reasoning often occurs as ______

-Passively -As a reaction

Pros to the MBTI approach

-doesn't consider each trait in isolation -Remember conditional trait effects? -allows analysis of real whole, rather than just particular factors

Estimates of the prevalence of the Dark Triad and associated personality disorders range from

1 in every 500 Americans (clearly outliers) to 1 in every 17 Americans (uncommon, but not abnormal) OR even 1 in 10 Americans or more in some population groups (somewhat common)

How do citizens learn about politics?

2 competing models among psychologist and political scientists: -the running tally model -Zaller's RAS model

The Dark Triad

3 distinct personality traits that are correlated with each other: Psychopathy, Narcissism, Machievllianism. Even in low amounts, can create negative behavior effects.

What is partisanship

A conflict-oriented, group identity. To be a partisan you must be willing to: take a side in conflict and join a group! You're a part of it, and it is a part of you.

Examples (all often require social capital to achieve collective action)

A group volunteering for a favored candidate, organizing neighborhood crime watch, efforts to help community homeless by building relationships (Ask the NET), refraining from overfishing or violating important gulf fishing rules, getting a ballot initiative on the ballot.

Need To Evaluate (N2E)

A way to measure the conflict-orented aspects of partisanship. It is a personality trait that measures: -Nir 2001: How much someone has a "chronic tendency" to "form evaluative thoughts and judgements." And dislike remaining neutral, "would rather take a stand than remain noncommittal," and have strong affective intensity toward parties, candidates, and objects in general. When you like or dislike things you don't just like them a little. All or nothing.

Joiner Status

A way we can measure the group identity aspects of partisanship! An American's tendency to join groups, of any kind which varies widely. Fun facts: Women are more likely to than men. Libertarians are less likely than liberals or conservatives

Conflict between authoritarians and non-authoritarians creates sharp divide in what? between what?

American politics between the GOP and Dems

Cons to the MBTI use of types

Because it forces you into types, there is not a lot of room for ambiguity. It doesn't allow you to be in the middle! Many people are ambiverts, not extraverts or introverts. 16 may not be enough "types" of people

Why must you be conflict oriented with partisanship

Because the 2 sides almost always oppose only each other. Bi-Polar group evaluations are a key for strength of partisanship. Viewing in group members favorably and out group members unfavorably. a sports team that only ever plays 1 other team

Why does Strength of Partisanship Matter?

Being able to explain an American's strengths of partisanship means you can explain his/her: Turnout & Participation, Vote choice, and Political Knowledge

Narcissism

Being vain, grandiose, entitled, and arrogant. Tend to seek dominance and feel superior to others. Depending on level of extraversion can lead to: grandiose narcissism (obnoxious, braggart extroverts) or vulnerable narcissism (disagreeable, thin-skinned introverts) (Campbell Video)

Dimensional Approach

Believe someone with a personality disorder is just a more exaggerated version of a normal person. Treat personality disorders as points on a scale. Like Sickle cell anemia; you can have typical red blood cells, some sickle cells, or sickle cell anemia. Everyone's a bit disordered there isn't a normal.

MBTI & Partisanship (PID): NTPs more likely to be:

Independent

Who is higher on the authoritarian personality? Conservatives or Liberals?

Conservatives

Low joiner status and High need to evaluate

Independent leaner

MBTI & Partisanship (PID): INFs more likely to be

Democrat

Strong Partisans

Extremely Likely to vote for their party, most likely to vote, volunteer for campaigns, donate money

Narcissism is related to the moral foundations. True or false?

False. It is not related, but this research is very preliminary

True or False? Social identity has an explicit theory of Strength of Partisanship

False. Neither social identity nor rational choice nor the big 5 nor moral foundations has an explicit theory of strength of partisanship

Psychopathy

Having low empathy and low anxiety and being highly impulsive and trill seeking. "Psychopaths think but don't feel". Those high in Psychopathy are non-reactive to things that cause emotional distress in others.

Dark Triad and Big 5: Those in the dark triad are _____ Openness to experience (more democratic)

Higher

Dark Triad and Big 5: Those in the dark triad are _____ extraversion (somewhat more GOP)

Higher

Quality Challenger and Spending: Higher agreeableness

Higher altruism (but for their group, the party), Higher motivation to hold office, enact policy, and act for group welfare at the expense of constituents (they think), MORE likely to draw a quality challenger (big effect). More likely to spend campaign money (small effect)

Higher need to evaluate=

Higher joining conflict oriented groups, higher voter turnout, and donating, volunteering, putting up a sign, and trying to convince someone to vote

Quality Challenger and Spending: Higher extraversion

Higher sensitive to gains due to more dopamine terminals, more likely to pursue policy or chamber power (they think), lower constituency service (they think, MORE likely to draw a quality challenger (modest effect). MORE likely to spend campaign money (Big effect)

Why is social capital important for elections?

Higher social capital, higher participatory benefits from voting. So more people vote.

Big 5 Shapes who you act: High in Extraversion

Higher turnout, volunteering, donating, and attending rallies. Why? Maybe the team joining and overall excitement

Cognitive constraints

How each trait reflects/affects your neurological way of thinking and then imagine how that affects your value from political outcomes. Once RKH have the big 5 for each legislator they translate ocean trait meaning into cognitive constraints.

A Hypothetical social identity theory of SPID

How strongly partisan an American is depends on how well that person fits into each party's social group coalition. Pure independents would not if at all in other parts coalition, learning independents a little better, weak partisans a little better than that, and strong partisans best. Problems with that? people aren't that simple, most people who are independent fall in one of these not none

Judging vs Perceiving

How you deal with the world (structured and decided lifestyle vs. flexible and adaptable)

Sensing vs. Intuition

How you take in information (concert, actual info vs. Relies upon their worldview); you could also think of this as empirical vs. theoretical

Why did psychologists become obsessed with the "Authority Personality" ?

In part a reaction to WWII Nazi/Fascists/Imperial Japan Atrocities. Social Scientists wanted to explain how millions of Germans and Japanese accepted/carried out these commands

Independent Learners

Lack some partisan bias is political perceptions, but still likely to vote for party they lean toward, often informed

Direct personality efficacy

Less efficacy, less political participation

MBTI & Ideology & Interest in Politics: Less Sensing=

Less interest in politics

Quality Challenger and Spending: More Emotional stability

Less sensitive to losses, less worried about losing policy fans or institutional power, and thus somewhat more likely to focus on constituents (they think). LESS likely to draw a quality challenger (modest effect). LESS likely to spend campaign money (big effect)

What legislator personality do voters prefer (via approval rating)

Liberals: more open to experience. Conservatives: more conscientiousness, more agreeableness (moderates prefer this too)

Weak Partisans

Likely to vote for their party, not as politically active as strong partisans, but still have partisan bias in political perceptions

Quality Challenger and Spending: Higher Conscientiousness

Low discount factor. Low focus on district visits and constituency service (they think), Increase writing bills and Washington advancement (they think) MORE likely to draw a quality challenger (Big effect). LESS likely to spend campaign money (modest effect)

Dark Triad and Big 5: Those in the dark triad are _____ agreeableness (somewhat GOP

Lower

The Dark Triad and Haidt's Moral Foundations: Psychopathy

Lower care/harm &fairness/cheating & sanctity/degradation. Higher loyalty/Betrayal

Big 5 Shapes how you act: High in agreeableness

Lower turnout, volunteering, donating, and attending rallies. Why? They don't like it. Confrontational maybe?

Soaking and Poking

Went and had drinks with members of congress, went to their meetings, and asked them pointed questions. Why they did what they did, and they answered honestly.

Are weak partisans and leaners the same?

Maybe, but they are different in personality. Percent of these groups in the public has changed over time

Weaknesses of MBTI besides length

Measurements of trials may very over time. But personality should be stable in adulthood. No measure comparable to Big 5's emotional stability. Which is very politically important (one of the most important). Big 5 traits are more stable (go without changing much over time)

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Measures 4 traits with 100+ Questions. It is commonly used by businesses to assess workplace personality. Also (somewhat) related to politics. Popular on Social media. Extraversion vs. Introversion Sensing vs. Intuition Thinking vs. Feeling Judging vs. Perceiving.

Who is more likely to have the Dark Triad?

Men (all traits), people in individualistic societies are more narcissistic than previous generations. Is this because of the self esteem movement in social media? kinda...

The Dark Triad and Haidt's Moral Foundations: Machiavellianism

More Authority/subversion and loyalty/betrayal.

MBTI & Ideology & Interest in Politics : More Sensing=

More Conservative

MBTI & Ideology & Interest in Politics: More Intuition=

More Liberal+More interest in politics

Indirect/conditional Efficacy

When people with low efficacy do participate they do so because volunteering reduces psychological stress

What is the trait that shows strong direct effects of personality on participation?

Need to evaluate

Does your personality change after 25?

No it shouldn't, but you should gain more emotional stability, conscientiousness, and agreeableness overtime, which could explain why older people are more GOP/conservative

How meaningful are the MBTI categories?

Not really meaningful... -Are thinking and feeling opposites? No (grant reading). Are intuition and sensing really opposites? (both are evaluating surrounds vs. not) If you're outwardly focuses you might use both intuition and sensing a lot

Low joiner status and Low Need to evaluate=

Pure Independent

Extraversion vs. Introversion

Where you focus your attention (outer world vs inner)

How is N2E measured?

Questions (think of yourself) from 2008-2009 NES Panel Study: N2E measures conflict-orietned aspects of partisanship very well. Those high in N2E should have greater strengths of partisanship, since they tend to take sides in conflict. Thus, both N2E and joiner stunt should strongly effect strengths of partisanship, since they tend to take side in conflict.

Professors Take on the RAS model and tally model

RAS model explains individual differences in information reception: but the running tally model correctly reflects the cognitive process. Survey responses are meaningful for most.

Quality Challenger

One who has held prior elective office

What are the number one reasons why "fake news" and "alternative facts" are created and persist on both the right an left?

PID, Strong Priors, and motivated reasoning and confirmation bias

Traditional Political Science

Personality is important, but not directly, and only affects participation through demographics, resources, and attitudes. Like political interests, internal efficacy, and police discussion, or the sense that voting is a civic duty.

Strengths of MBTI

Popular among business, higher education, other organizations. You can talk to many people about it, outside of your own group. It is easy to popularize outside of nerds (cultural relevancy). Some correlation with the Big 5 (especially extraversion). It has some real relationships with (political) behavior

Zaller RAS model

Receive: a person's engagement with an issue determines whether he hears political messages. Accept: People resist messages that contradict their own beliefs, but only if the recognize a relationship between their views and a message. Sample: people sample from the most salient/recent top-of-the-head considerations when responding new information or survey questions

MBTI & Partisanship (PID): TJs more likely to be:

Republicans

A (hypothetical) rational choice theory of SPID

SPID determined by how strong your ideology is. Pure independents=most moderate, strong partisans=the most liberal/conservative.

Show Horses vs Work Horses

Show horses are people who grandstand a lot in congress, but they don't actually do the hard work. Workhorses do the hard work, but they aren't really known.

Lakoff's Parenting Styles

Strict Father (Conservative) vs. Nurturing Mother (Liberal). In some ways Lakoff used the Lexical Hypothesis to come up with it. They are supposed to reveal the hidden moral values people hold, which then map on their political values-kinda

High joiner status and High need to evaluate=

Strong Partisan

Are the relationships of MBTI and PID strong?

There are some relationships, but not that strong

After criticism, psychologists reduced research on authoritarian personality until when? and why?

The 2000s. When political science renewed focus on personality, it revived the authoritarian personality as a subject of research. BUT with different research methods

Perspective Taking

The Tendency of an individual to adopt the point of view of others. Higher perspective taking, only higher nonpolitical-organization volunteering

How to measure the dark triad?

The dirty dozen- 12 statements: Which involve rating someone on a 7 point scales for each thing. Or you can use something like the short Dark Triad (27 questions)

Ramey, Klingler, and Hollibaugh created Big 5 personality measures indirectly thought text analysis of floor speeches, applying __________

The lexical hypothesis and get quantifiable measures of personal characteristics that matter.

The Lexical Hypothesis

The parts of other peoples personalities that are the most important in peoples lives are revealed in the speech they use. Came up with the big 5 by essentially running a factor analysis to see which words correlated to each other. Eventually five groups came out

Thinking vs. Feeling

The way you make decisions based on that info (head vs. heart, logic vs. feelings and emotions)

The idea of (authoritarian Personality=opposite of libertarian personality) is testable, but difficult to do so. Why?

There may not be a lot of libertarians who self identify as libertarian or authoritarian. A lot of people aren't also willing to identity as a authoritarian. Especially by recruiting online

Do Lakoff's Parenting styles correlated to ones political values?

They do, but political science research has shown that actual, expressed more values and religious values divide Americans much more.

The debate about how to treat personality disorders is particularly relevant for the Dark Triad. True or False

True

The effects of N2E and joiner status are not only statistically significant, but sizable. True or False?

True

All 3 dark triad trials are positively related to conservatism. True or False?

True, but on specific issues, its mixed: more conservative positions especially on immigration and torture of terrorists. But some liberal ones too. Environment issues. Not sure why...

America does not have a prominent authoritarian party. True or False?

True, it does not. Other countries do. Perhaps the Fidesz party in Hungary

Joiner Status has been decreasing in public over time. True or False?

True.

Robert Putnam argues that social capital in America has been declining. True or False?

True. He says it has been declining since the 60s. Therefore its not because of the internet. People now "now alone" no more bowling leagues. He also looked at different possible factors. Know Robert as the decline of social capital theorist.

True or False? Many of the statements originally used to measure authoritarian personality were not necessarily political

True. Instead these questions measured something like cultural conservatism

Classical political science is good at explaining why legislators vote, but not as good for many other aspects of legislator behavior. True or False

True. Not as good at determining: Frequency of bill sponsorship, absenteeism for votes, success rate of bills sponsored, etc. Why this weakness? because many of these are influenced by personal factors. (How hard someone works, how they see their role in congress, friendship with other party,etc.)

Those high in dark triad are more socially dominant and better at seduction and winning people over. True or False

True. they seek and have more flings and are preferred for flings, though not relationships. Narcissists are more physically attractive, charming, conscientious, and achievement-oriented.

Pure Independents

Unlikely to vote, not very informed

Strength of Partisanship

We do not have a great explantation for strength of partisanship. There is a 7 point partisanship scale: it gives you the 4 point strength of partisanship scale: Pure Independent, Independent leaner, Weak Partisan, Strong Partisan

High joiner status and Low need to evaluate=

Weak partisan

It is not always clear what to expect of high dark triad americans in politics, but they are more likely to

accept hierarchy in society, seek out positions of power, perceive that from other groups

Social Capital

allows people to achieve mutually beneficial social outcomes in spite of incentives not to. It also overcomes collective action problems

N2E and joiner status don't just influence strength of partisanship in general, but they...

also discriminate between specific levels of strength of partisanship. Theoretically we should expect that N2E determines how strongly people take sides, regardless of whether they join a partisan "team"

Authoritarian personality research is probably best done in Europe/Latin America. Why?

any country where authoritarian persoanlity has a history and is a meaningful ideology among voters.

independents usually have less one sided views than either party. But have their own distorted views. and:

are less quick to see the truth about an unconventional view than either partisan group. Independence is not necessarily a solution to motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, and strong priors

Machiavellians

being manipulative, exploiting others and doing whatever it takes to get what you want. Named after Machiavelli's advice in The prince.

Efficacy

believe in one's ability to influence events and social conditions that significantly affect ones life

How does the big 5 indirectly affect participation?

by interacting with negative campaign messages

Motivated reasoning

can lead to elaborate and creative argument, or a backfire effect

Who else is more likely to have the dark triad

con artists (criminal, abnormal). Business people, including investment bankers and marketers. Leaders in society, lawyers, politicians. Many of these people are not criminals

difference between confirmation bias and motivated reasoning

confirmation bias(information reception: is cognitively prior to motivate reasoning (informal processing)

Those high in Machiavellianism

crush other people in anything involving strategy in alliances, bargaining, and leadership and this is true even with politicians though machiavellian politicians are not as good at representing people.

How is social capital produced

participation in social groups, doing favors for one another, volunteering, church involvement (especially important in poor urban communities). using social capital increases social capital

RAS model implications

political persuasive info has non-linear effect- Political persuasive info has non-linear effects: - Most are receive most but resist most (small effect) - Moderately aware receive some info but don't screen well (large effect) - Least aware don't resist but don't receive (small effect)

Prominent theories of partisanship

rational choice and social identity

Those high in the dark triad are more likely to

seek their own gain at the expense of others (all 3). Lie (Psychopathy and Machiavellians), Bully (All three), and make unethical decisions (machiavellians and psychopathy). Behave badly at work, including the, absenteeism, turnover and sabotage (All three). Use threat based tactics at work (Machiavallians & Psychopathy)

Debate over whether trump is high dark triad or not

some psychologists say yes-narcissism. Others say you'd have to examine him and give he a test-you can't just say yes or no. BUT being high dark triad is not necessarily a bad thing.

Bayesian updating/learning

statistics concept in which you have a prior belief. Choose a degree of certainty for it and allow new information to update your "prior"

The ability of people to have strong priors and resist conflicting information varies widely in American society. Who resists most?

strong partisans/the strongly ideological, the most politically knowledgeable and most intelligent

Grandiose Narcissists

tend to make better military leaders.

result from both sets of elite communication implications

the most aware are the most politically divided. people generally answer surveys with their (often primed) "top of the head" consideration. Political surveys are not very meaningful.

Confirmation bias

the tendency to notice and look for what confirms one beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts ones beliefs

Herrington and Weiler

the two political scientists who believe that the authoritarian personality is what causes polarization, with Republicans and conservatives having the authoritarian personality and Democrats and liberals not having it.

Other Psychological aspects of political learning (Haidt article): Motivated reasoning

the unconscious tendency of individuals to process information and come up with ideas in a manner that fits with their preferred state of the world and rejects alternatives. Primarily triggered by system 1 type reaction rather than conscious system 2 decision. Usually these reactions are defensive against conflicting ideas/facts

Synodal approach

treat personality disorder like a medical diseases like malaria. You either function normally or you don't.