September 29, 2020
Today I have finished enjoying reading and reciting poetry with Rebecca (Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Gerard Manly Hopkins). I went to the piano and played with Sonata 30 variations and then some jazz pieces and finally a Bartok piece I never played about a folk tale of a person in his wagon who was waylaid by robbers and then killed. Simple notes to play but requiring changes in tempo and loudness to set the mood.
Then I realized that I needed to revisit Jonathan Haidt's theory of moral foundations and updated my knowledge with more research into Morality as Cooperation Theory described by Oliver Scott Curry
There are seven types of cooperative behavior:
(1) Kin selection explains why we feel a special duty of care for our families, and why we abhor incest. (2) Mutualism explains why we form groups and coalitions (there is strength and safety in numbers), and hence why we value unity, solidarity, and loyalty. (3) Social exchange explains why we trust others, reciprocate favors, feel gratitude and guilt, make amends, and forgive. And conflict resolution explains why we (4) engage in costly displays of prowess such as bravery and generosity, why we (5) express humility and defer to our superiors, why we (6) divide disputed resources fairly and equitably, and why we (7) respect others’ property and refrain from stealing.
You can look at the article I referenced for descriptions. In essence, the theory attempts to explain how our evolutionary journey from Africa in hunter gatherer groups required these more hard wired moral responses to survive and thrive. I recalled reading some years ago similar observations of a primatologist who mostly studied primates in the wild. What stood out for me was that homo sapiens differed in childrearing from the other primates in that cooperation with other members of the group helped in child rearing and were at times surrogate rearers, With the other primates the mother was the protector and sole child rearer. The pack probably would kill the infant if unprotected by the mother.
The seven factors describing cooperative behavior has valences to each factor so people then can be grouped according to the valences of these factors similar to what Jonathan Haidt has done when explaining political differences.
O.K. so far. I am interested in trying to understand these differences further. My previous musings have shown me that I can readily respect those whose political persuasions are more conservative since we share similar values with some differences in emphasis. My last blog about French's debates with right wing extremists and the Republican groups so dissatisfied with Trump that they are putting hard dollars at work against him are examples of conservative dissatisfaction with Trump.
What are the attributes that turn them off. Fear mongering, racistist rabble rousing, lying, womanizing and even allegations of rape and coercion, abuse of power for his personal gain, undermining democratic checks and balances for his benefit, misrepresenting health risks and incompetent handling of our pandemic, undermining our international alliances and jeopardizing safeguards to world peace, admiring and communicating with our adversaries including autocrats accused of murder and mayhem, attempting to silence and punish his opponents by autocratic methods echoing the advice of Machiavelli, etc. For those readers disputing this list please hold forth but for those who see how inadequate my list is and want to add to it please do.
So then I wanted today to understand better why this list has no effect on Trump's loyal followers. In 2016 Bobby Azarian in Psychology Today gave me some suggestions of an answer that I need to think more about.
He points out that there is a percentage of our population who greatly overestimate their logic, grammar and sense of humor. They are completely unaware they are misinformed about the issue at hand. "Many people would describe themselves as above average in intelligence, humor, and a variety of skills. They can’t accurately judge their own competence, because they lack metacognition, or the ability to step back and examine oneself objectively. In fact, those who are the least skilled are also the most likely to overestimate their abilities".
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dunning-kruger-effect
They accept what Trump is saying even though he has been shown objectively to be lying and knows that the truth is the opposite (i.e. The Covid virus is no more harmful that the flu and it will be soon disappearing; wearing masks is foolish; getting back to the workplace and life as before the pandemic is O.K., etc).
In the Journal Science "Although political views have been thought to arise largely from individuals' experiences, recent research suggests that they may have a biological basis. We present evidence that variations in political attitudes correlate with physiological traits. In a group of 46 adult participants with strong political beliefs, individuals with measurably lower physical sensitivities to sudden noises and threatening visual images were more likely to support foreign aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism, and gun control, whereas individuals displaying measurably higher physiological reactions to those same stimuli were more likely to favor defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism, and the Iraq War. Thus, the degree to which individuals are physiologically responsive to threat appears to indicate the degree to which they advocate policies that protect the existing social structure from both external (outgroup) and internal (norm-violator) threats". 2008 Sep 19;321(5896):1667-70.doi: 10.1126/science.1157627
And in the Journal Current Biology "Substantial differences exist in the cognitive styles of liberals and conservatives on psychological measures. Recent work has shown a correlation between liberalism and conflict-related activity measured by event-related potentials originating in the anterior cingulate cortex Here we show that this functional correlate of political attitudes has a counterpart in brain structure. In a large sample of young adults, we related self-reported political attitudes to gray matter volume using structural MRI. We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala. These results were replicated in an independent sample of additional participants. Our findings extend previous observations that political attitudes reflect differences in self-regulatory conflict monitoring and recognition of emotional faces by showing that such attitudes are reflected in human brain structure. Although our data do not determine whether these regions play a causal role in the formation of political attitudes, they converge with previous work to suggest a possible link between brain structure and psychological mechanisms that mediate political attitudes".
So Azarian writes "As long as Trump continues his fear mongering by constantly portraying Muslims and Mexican immigrants as imminent dangers, many conservative brains will involuntarily light up like light bulbs being controlled by a switch. Fear keeps his followers energized and focused on safety. And when you think you’ve found your protector, you become less concerned with remarks that would normally be seen as highly offensive". He describes Terror Management Theory as contributing factors in Trump keeping his acolytes. " Terror Management Theory predicts that when people are reminded of their own mortality, which happens with fear mongering, they will more strongly defend those who share their worldviews and national or ethnic identity, and act out more aggressively towards those who do not. Hundreds of studies have confirmed this hypothesis, and some have specifically shown that triggering thoughts of death tends to shift people towards the right". He cites various studies suggesting thatn this theory is valid such as "According to terror management theory, heightened concerns about mortality should intensify the appeal of charismatic leaders. To assess this idea, we investigated how thoughts about death and the 9/11 terrorist attacks influence Americans’ attitudes toward current U.S. President George W. Bush. Study 1 found that reminding people of their own mortality (mortality salience) increased support for Bush and his counterterrorism policies. Study 2 demonstrated that subliminal exposure to 9/11-related stimuli brought death-related thoughts closer to consciousness. Study 3 showed that reminders of both mortality and 9/11 increased support for Bush. In Study 4, mortality salience led participants to become more favorable toward Bush and voting for him in the upcoming election but less favorable toward Presidential candidate John Kerry and voting for him. Discussion focused on the role of terror management processes in allegiance to charismatic leaders and political decision making".
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167204267988
Finally Azarian points out the entertainment and media addictions some of us have in watching Trump's showmanship. "Essentially, the loyalty of Trump supporters may in part be explained by America’s addiction with entertainment and reality TV. To some, it doesn’t matter what Trump actually says because he’s so amusing to watch. With Donald, you are always left wondering what outrageous thing he is going to say or do next. He keeps us on the edge of our seat, and for that reason, some Trump supporters will forgive anything he says. They are happy as long as they are kept entertained".
I have mentioned in previous post Daniel Boorstins book The Image in which he describes how our news and viewing of events and people have been influenced often subliminally. In my September 18 post I discussed how Tversky and Kahneman describes our slow and fast thinking system and how they and other researchers have shown how our minds can be hacked by others.
So I've discussed lying, hypnosis, illusions, errors of thinking, and racism in my previous posts. Some of Trump supporter I am sure are racist and support him for this reason. His poll numbers are substantial for being such a obviously misleading liar of a politician so those who support him seeing what I see give their support for other reasons. Abortion opponents are some. Those with the biological constitution to not see their own failings in logic and who are prone to support him due to his fear mongering, people with obsessive compulsive anxiety fearing change and holding on to a false sense of security through loyalty, and true conservative citizens who want the Republican party to return more to family, community, and individual pursuit of happiness.
Paul Krugman just posted an opinion piece concerning the latest revelations concerning Trump's tax returns and financial messes. I leave his post fyi.
So what to make of all of this! Our rational minds are capable of reasoning and our emotional systems does give us clues to our inclinations and vulnerabilities. Our separate musings can be very misleading so discourse with others, sharing data, and puzzling through difficult confusing information and opinions can lead to the light and some better understanding and insight.
Leonard
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