Psychology needs more conservatives

In his most recent talk to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, prominent moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt spoke about his colleagues rather than his test subjects as objects of study. Convinced of the negative effects of political partisanship within social psychology, Haidt offers an argument for increasing the number and prominence of conservatives in the social sciences. He describes the “binding and blinding” effect of insular or one-party morality, offering evidence that graduate students who self-identify as conservatives feel threatened and unwelcome by their liberal professors and peers. Taken as a whole, his observations ring true to student life at a predominantly liberal, private university. The implications of his talk open the way for a mutualistic exchange between academic disciplines and students—social psychology benefits from including viewpoints that are as diverse as possible, and students who aspire to be psychologists feel free to express their views in an environment that values that diversity. To truly decrease the inhibitions that partisanship imposes on our learning, however, we as students need to be aware and accepting of new and old viewpoints at a level that, at times, may exceed our professors’.

The important admission that personal beliefs can impact scientific findings can be found in Haidt’s thesis. Even though they remain a majority in academia, social liberals do not necessarily offer a limited range of views or cherry-pick the material they present. Biologists can understandably feel estranged from conservative ideologies by views such as creationism and beliefs about abortion and stem cell research. Members of the social sciences can be estranged by some conservatives’ perceived desire for racial cohesiveness or social conformity. We knowingly absorb from professors the biases they have cultivated for years from consulting and research. Despite our access to other viewpoints from the Internet or each other, their ideas become the groundwork on which our later knowledge is based and are ultimately inextricable from our personal beliefs.

For psychological results to be valid, however, they must apply to members of the general population so that the field remains engaged in the changing mindsets of its subjects. Most subjects of psychological studies are American undergraduates at a ratio of 4000-to-1 as found by Joe Henrich and Ara Norenzayan. With about three-fourths of incoming college first-years self-identifying as liberal, the agreement between the predominantly liberal practicing social psychologists today and students seems inevitable. However, Henrich and Norenzayan also found key differences between the undergraduate population and the rest of the population. Aside from a threat to validity, another possible consequence of an overly narrow mindset is that we lack all of the explanations for correlations between behaviors that others might have thought of. Although the integrity of psychological investigation remains unaffected by political belief, analysis and interpretation of surveys, diaries, and other records are often subject to post-hoc, or after-experimentation, analysis. The range of explanations for behavior that a conservative might suggest are at least conceivably different from those a liberal might suggest and are just as valid. This suggestion is analogous to arguments made over three decades ago about the benefits of increasing racial diversity among psychological researchers. Although Haidt’s talk was explicitly limited to social psychology, many fields of psychology synthesize to form a unified understanding of the mind, and social psychology research indirectly affects many other psychological fields. Ultimately, psychological research as a whole trickles down to shape public policy as well as our perceptions of and behaviors toward others.

Having made the case for adding politically conservative viewpoints to psychological studies, Haidt challenges the belief that most conservatives are uninterested in scientific progress. Haidt offers compelling accounts of students who feel inadequate and tend to conceal their conservative ideologies from their more liberal peers, and he cites a pro-liberal “locker-room mentality” as a reason for their reticence. A Yale University colleague confirms the idea of “academic bullying” at Edge.org. At least in my case, listening to my biology professor ridicule Sarah Palin’s honest misunderstanding of the efficacy and importance of fruit fly research or reading a campus publication that makes scathing mentions of conservatives’ being a minority makes me almost sympathetic to Haidt’s suggestion of “affirmative action” for conservatives interested in social psychology. Although no one should enter objective scientific study with an agenda, social conservatives should feel just as permitted as liberals do to confirm or refute their beliefs through the scientific method, regardless of whether cable news caricatures endorse their findings.

Mentioning the arbitrary nature of the political parties he used and the biases we mount against them might have served Haidt’s argument. In an informal poll at his talk, he counted just three self-identifying conservatives in a room of 1000 social psychologists, he but only offered the categories of liberal, centrist, libertarian, or conservative without mentioning whether his ideas spoke to fiscal or social sensibilities. In this case, it might be partisanship itself which “binds and blinds”by committing us to one another and making it impossible for us to see each other’s viewpoints.

In addition to the likelihood that we’ll learn more from our peers if we remain open to their beliefs, Haidt suggests that the fields we study could benefit from a little more diversity. Widening our net, especially in social psychology, could help us understand each other better and inspire individuals who otherwise feel scientifically inadequate because of their political beliefs.

Zeba Ahmad is a Barnard College junior majoring in psychology and philosophy. Any Road Will Take You There runs alternate Thursdays.