Charlie Quimby notices something I’ve noticed, albeit noticed differently, as well:

Nicholas Kristof writes about research into how our biases filter the information we will accept as authoritative.

[Farhad Manjoo, Salon staff writer and author of True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society] cites a more recent study by Stanford University psychologists of students who either favored or opposed capital punishment. The students were shown the same two studies: one suggested that executions have a deterrent effect that reduces subsequent murders, and the other doubted that.

Whatever their stance, the students found the study that supported their position to be well-conducted and persuasive and the other one to be profoundly flawed.

“That led to a funny result,” Mr. Manjoo writes. “People in the study became polarized.”

Other experiments demonstrated how people seek out information that confirms their prejudices and resist information that doesn’t fit their beliefs — certainly not news in the blogosphere.

Of course, Quimby and Kristoff are writing for liberal audiences, so they have to make it safe for their consumption, presumably lest they end up getting “managed“:

Kristof says the blinkering “afflicts both liberals and conservatives, but a raft of studies shows that it is a particular problem with conservatives.”

Now of course I could follow up by responding “check the biases of your “researchers””, the subject samples, etc, etc, but, honestly, let’s let crabbling about the (proven) bias of most academics go for now.

The larger thesis – that people are predisposed to believe research that supports their biases and undercut or devalue research that disagrees with them – seems obvious enough.

But since I experiment on peoples’ perceptions of things for at least part of my living (usability testing), a more interesting experiment suggests itself.

Bear with me, here.

I was involved for a couple of years with a Saint Paul email discussion group. The group has devolved into, essentially, a DFL press-release forum, where DFLers argue about who is more DFL. Which is fine.

Periodically, conservatives would join the group. And there’d shortly be a spasm of arguments about what constitutes a “civil” discussion. And Republican commenters would leave comments that would give DFLers the vapors over “incivility”, that wouldn’t draw a comment if they had been aimed at Republicans instead.

I’ve wanted to try this experiment:

1. Make up a bunch of more-or-less caustic political phrases from whole cloth. They could range from really confrontational things like “Being a [liberal or conservative] is like having a lobotomy – although easier to detect in polite company – [right or left-wing commentator]”  to more neutral statements.
2. Get a series of test subjects.
3. Have the subjects rate their politics – left, right or center. (Also get the last four presidents/governors they voted for, or would have voted for, to help weight the answers).
4. Read them a series of these fictional statements, attributing them alternately to well-known left and right wing commentators, with appopriate subjects. For example – to a “left” leaning subject, read “Being a Liberal is like having a lobotomy – although easier to detect in polite company – (Ann Coulter)” and “Conservatism is to intellect what rape is to education (Michael Moore)”.
5. For each statement, rate them from 1 (not uncivil at all) to 10 (caustically uncivil).

The catch is, of course, that the statements are fictional and identical, and will have their “authors” and subjects shuffled an even amount of times – so the only actual variable will be the audience’s preconceptions.

I wonder how that’d turn out?

Well, no. I don’t wonder. I have a pretty fair idea, although it’d be fun to confirm or reject that idea. I have a pretty fair hunch that a fictional statement attributed to a “hostile” commenter aimed at someone the subject approves of will be judged far more harshly than the exact same statement from a “friendly” commenter aimed at an “enemy”.

I’ll go out on a limb with this next bit; I’d suspect that with conservatives, the effect would diminish with higher education. I will almost (but not quite) bet money that the opposite is true among liberals; the effect of taking offense at “incivility” in others will become more rather than less enhanced.

Hm. Where to do the experiment?

Hmmmm, indeed.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 6:40 am and is filed under Language. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.