Political Professors and the Perception of Bias in the College Classroom

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Scott Liebertz ◽  
Jason Giersch
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
College Classroom ◽  
Political Opinion ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
National Universities

ABSTRACT This article addresses three related questions. Does voicing a political ideology in class make a professor less appealing to students? Does voicing an ideology in class make a professor less appealing to students with opposing views? Does the intensity of professors’ ideology affect their appeal? We conducted survey experiments in two public national universities to provide evidence of the extent to which students may tolerate or even prefer that professors share their political views and under which conditions these preferences may vary. Results from the experiments indicate that expressing a political opinion did not make a professor less appealing to students—and, in fact, made the professor more appealing to some students—but the perception that a professor’s ideology is particularly intense makes the class much less favorable for students with opposing views. Students are indifferent between moderately political and nonpolitical professors.

scholarly journals Are political-opinion pollsters missing ambivalence: “I love Trump”… “I hate Trump”

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. e0247580
Author(s):  
James C. Camparo ◽  
Lorinda B. Camparo
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Missing Information ◽  
Political Opinion ◽  
Approval Ratings ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Level Of Agreement

Given the increasing attention ambivalence is receiving from the psychological community, it must be asked if pollsters’ (routinely) dichotomous political opinion surveys are missing something crucial. To determine if there is any legitimacy to this question, undergraduates attending a Liberal Arts college in Southern California were asked to rate their level of agreement/disagreement to 28 statements regarding President Trump in two studies, with the items drawn from actual Quinnipiac (Q) and Brookings Institute (BI) surveys. To quantify ambivalence participants were told they could mark one or two responses per item, with double-responses serving as a measure of ambivalence. In Study 1, mean Trump approval ratings divided along party lines, and were consistent with the Q and BI findings. Nonetheless, approximately 40% of participants registered some level of ambivalence across all political-party affiliations, with those defining themselves as Neither Democrats (DEMs) nor Republicans (REPs) showing the greatest degree of ambivalence. In Study 2, ambivalence towards President Trump was examined looking at both party affiliation and political ideology (Conservative, Moderate, and Liberal). Again, roughly 40% of participants displayed some level of ambivalence, with greater degrees of ambivalence for Independents relative to DEMs and REPs, and Moderates relative to Liberals. Given research indicating that ambivalence is associated with delayed decision making and decisions based on “in the moment” contextual information, our findings our suggestive: if political opinion pollsters do not assess ambivalence, they may be missing information on a fair-sized demographic that could influence an election based on negative information (real or fictitious) surfacing only days before an election… as it did in 2016.

scholarly journals Lay Belief in Biopolitics and Political Prejudice

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Suhay ◽  
Mark J. Brandt ◽  
Travis Proulx
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Lay Theories ◽  
Social Avoidance ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Control Variables ◽  
Biological Basis ◽  
Political Views

Building on psychological research linking essentialist beliefs about human differences with prejudice, we test whether lay belief in the biological basis of political ideology is associated with political intolerance and social avoidance. In two studies of American adults (Study 1: N = 288, Study 2: N = 164), we find that belief in the biological basis of political views is associated with greater intolerance and social avoidance of ideologically dissimilar others. The association is substantively large and robust to demographic, religious, and political control variables. These findings stand in contrast to some theoretical expectations that biological attributions for political ideology are associated with tolerance. We conclude that biological lay theories are especially likely to be correlated with prejudice in the political arena, where social identities tend to be salient and linked to intergroup competition and animosity.

scholarly journals Red shape, blue shape: political ideology influences the social perception of body shape

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
María Alejandra Quirós-Ramírez ◽  
Stephan Streuber ◽  
Michael J. Black
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Body Shape ◽  
Societal Implications ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Political Preference ◽  
Political Identification ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Trait Attribution ◽  
The Social ◽  
Body Shapes

AbstractPolitical elections have a profound impact on individuals and societies. Optimal voting is thought to be based on informed and deliberate decisions yet, it has been demonstrated that the outcomes of political elections are biased by the perception of candidates’ facial features and the stereotypical traits voters attribute to these. Interestingly, political identification changes the attribution of stereotypical traits from facial features. This study explores whether the perception of body shape elicits similar effects on political trait attribution and whether these associations can be visualized. In Experiment 1, ratings of 3D body shapes were used to model the relationship between perception of 3D body shape and the attribution of political traits such as ‘Republican’, ‘Democrat’, or ‘Leader’. This allowed analyzing and visualizing the mental representations of stereotypical 3D body shapes associated with each political trait. Experiment 2 was designed to test whether political identification of the raters affected the attribution of political traits to different types of body shapes. The results show that humans attribute political traits to the same body shapes differently depending on their own political preference. These findings show that our judgments of others are influenced by their body shape and our own political views. Such judgments have potential political and societal implications.

scholarly journals Social and Economic Political Ideology Consistently Operate as Mutual Suppressors: Implications for Personality, Social, and Political Psychology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas H Costello ◽  
Scott O. Lilienfeld
Keyword(s):  
Political Psychology ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
The Other ◽  
Statistical Control ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Total N ◽  
Cognitive Rigidity ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Social Conservatism

Right-left political views can be decomposed into distinct economic and social dimensions that bear differing relations with external criteria. In three community samples (total N = 1487), we identified replicable suppressor situations in which statistically controlling for either social or economic political ideology increased the other ideology dimension’s relations with variables reflecting cognitive rigidity, authoritarianism, dangerous worldview, and lethal partisanship. Specifically, positive relations between social conservatism and these outcomes were enhanced after controlling for economic conservatism, while, after controlling for social conservatism, positive bivariate relations between economic conservatism and external criteria became negative and negative bivariate relations were enhanced. We identified similar, albeit less consistent, suppressor phenomena for general personality. Taken together, our results suggest that social and economic conservatism differ substantially in their psychological implications, and that following statistical control, these differences emerge even in samples in which social and economic conservatism are highly positively correlated.

Physical Androgyny and Categorization Difficulty Shape Political Conservatives’ Attitudes Toward Transgender People

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chadly Stern ◽  
Nicholas O. Rule
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Social Judgments ◽  
Transgender People ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Gender Minorities ◽  
Sex Categorization

Researchers have recently begun to examine how categorization processes impact social evaluations. In two studies, we examined how sex categorization influences attitudes toward transgender individuals. We found that people evaluated transgender individuals more negatively if they possessed physically androgynous (vs. sex-typical) characteristics because they struggled to identify their sex. These relationships were stronger among political conservatives compared to individuals with more liberal political views. These findings provide new insights for research on attitudes toward gender minorities and for the role of political ideology in social judgments.

scholarly journals Looking Beyond the Political in Driss Chraïbi's Le Passé simple and Kamel Daoud's Meursault, contre-enquête

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-188
Author(s):  
Sura Qadiri
Keyword(s):  
Political Context ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
The Political ◽  
First Person ◽  
Literary Practice ◽  
Political Opinion ◽  
Political Views

Recent years have seen an aesthetic turn in postcolonial literary studies. There has been a widespread call for a move away from over-emphasis on the political context and content of postcolonial literary texts, because this leads to a reductive mining of these for political opinion. Instead, critics advocate a greater engagement with their literariness, with their different generic forms and poetic styles. It can be difficult, however, to look beyond any political comment such texts might be making on account of the politically charged contexts from which they emerge, particularly if their authors publicly express strong political views. This study looks at two novels that have strong political overtones, and that are written by politically outspoken authors and narrated in the first person by politically opiniated narrators; Driss Chraïbi's Le Passé simple (1954) and Kamel Daoud's Meursault, contre-enquête (2013). I will look at the possibilities of reading each text as a comment on literary practice that carries significance beyond its political setting.

scholarly journals Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in political ideology

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Hibbing ◽  
Kevin B. Smith ◽  
John R. Alford
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Physiological Responses ◽  
Negativity Bias ◽  
Direct Connection ◽  
Psychological Resources ◽  
Political Views ◽  
New Information ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
The Many ◽  
Point Of Departure

AbstractDisputes between those holding differing political views are ubiquitous and deep-seated, and they often follow common, recognizable lines. The supporters of tradition and stability, sometimes referred to as conservatives, do battle with the supporters of innovation and reform, sometimes referred to as liberals. Understanding the correlates of those distinct political orientations is probably a prerequisite for managing political disputes, which are a source of social conflict that can lead to frustration and even bloodshed. A rapidly growing body of empirical evidence documents a multitude of ways in which liberals and conservatives differ from each other in purviews of life with little direct connection to politics, from tastes in art to desire for closure and from disgust sensitivity to the tendency to pursue new information, but the central theme of the differences is a matter of debate. In this article, we argue that one organizing element of the many differences between liberals and conservatives is the nature of their physiological and psychological responses to features of the environment that are negative. Compared with liberals, conservatives tend to register greater physiological responses to such stimuli and also to devote more psychological resources to them. Operating from this point of departure, we suggest approaches for refining understanding of the broad relationship between political views and response to the negative. We conclude with a discussion of normative implications, stressing that identifying differences across ideological groups is not tantamount to declaring one ideology superior to another.

scholarly journals College roommates have a modest but significant influence on each other’s political ideology

2020 ◽  
Vol 118 (2) ◽  
pp. e2015514117
Author(s):  
Logan Strother ◽  
Spencer Piston ◽  
Ezra Golberstein ◽  
Sarah E. Gollust ◽  
Daniel Eisenberg
Keyword(s):  
Peer Effects ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
College Education ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Political Views ◽  
College Roommates ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Over Time

Does college change students’ political preferences? While existing research has documented associations between college education and political views, it remains unclear whether these associations reflect a causal relationship. We address this gap in previous research by analyzing a quasi-experiment in which university students are assigned to live together as roommates. While we find little evidence that college students as a whole become more liberal over time, we do find strong evidence of peer effects, in which students’ political views become more in line with the views of their roommates over time. This effect is strongest for conservative students. These findings shed light on the role of higher education in an era of political polarization.

scholarly journals Left Out: How Political Ideology Affects Support for Migrants in Colombia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alisha Holland ◽  
Margaret E. Peters ◽  
Yang-Yang Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Global North

Do perceived political views of migrants affect their treatment? For existing studies of migrant reception largely conducted in the Global North, the overlap between ethnicity and partisanship has made it difficult to disentangle political fears from other status and identity concerns. We leverage a case in which migrants come from a similar ethno-linguistic background to explore the role of political fears. Drawing on an original face-to-face survey with over 1,000 Colombians and 1,600 Venezuelans in Colombia, we find that Colombians view Venezuelan migrants as left-wing even though actual Venezuelan migrants are more right-wing than their Colombian hosts. These political misperceptions are consequential: we find that Colombians strongly oppose the settlement of left-wing migrants in their communities. Our research implies that societies can construct out-groups along political lines when the ethnic and cultural bases for migrant exclusion are weaker.

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