Are Republicans More Often Sheeple Compared to Democrats?

[Nous]

I have. I've brought forth the evidence that there are more Republicans than what the poll interacted with. Such that if the poll says 20% of Republicans, it really means: 20% of the Republicans polled, and not all Republicans.

Wow. I would have assumed that most everyone reading this understood what an opinion poll is.

An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals.​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_poll

So you don't have any evidence to present contradicting the evidence Mellman cited showing that Republicans are more often sheeple in this election than Democrats are?

 

[Augustus]

Mellman cites some of the evidence indicating that Republicans have more of a tendency to be sheeple, to follow the leader, to change their stated views and values in order for partisan purposes.

When someone handpicks 3 situation dependent points, they don't count as particularly strong evidence for generalisation purposes or to illustrate a 'tendency'.

Evidently, again, you forgot this:

5. He who asserts must prove. In order to establish an assertion, the team must support it with enough evidence and logic to convince an intelligent but previously uninformed person that it is more reasonable to believe the assertion than to disbelieve it. Facts must be accurate. Visual materials are permissible, and once introduced, they become available for the opponents' use if desired.

It is a discussion forum, not an academic symposium. That post would require about 10 citations.

You can read people like Robert Trivers, Kahneman and Tvesrky, Robert Kurzban if you want to know more.Or look at research on cognitive dissonance, groupthink, decision making, confirmation bias, etc. Generally fields of evolutionary psychology and heuristics and biases.

Rather than mindlessly copy pasting the same quote, why not say which parts do you disagree with and why?

Also your stock quote contains the words 'enough evidence', which you certainly don't provide either. So the 'intelligent but previously uniformed person' would agree that there is not enough evidence either way. Do you agree with this?

 

[Acim]

Wow. I would have assumed that most everyone reading this understood what an opinion poll is.

An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals.​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_poll

So you don't have any evidence to present contradicting the evidence Mellman cited showing that Republicans are more often sheeple in this election than Democrats are?

I do. My opinions that are as well, if not better reasoned, then Mellman's opinions.

 

[Nous]

When someone handpicks 3 situation dependent points, they don't count as particularly strong evidence for generalisation purposes or to illustrate a 'tendency'.

Prove it.

It is a discussion forum, not an academic symposium. That post would require about 10 citations.

So you are unable to substantiate your claims?

 

[Nous]

I do. My opinions that are as well, if not better reasoned, then Mellman's opinions.

No one disputes that opinion polls use samples of the target population, not every member of the population.

Obviously you haven't been to cite any evidence that contradicts the findings Mellman noted showing that Republicans are more often sheeple in this election than Democrats are.

 

[Acim]

No one disputes that opinion polls use samples of the target population, not every member of the population.

Obviously you haven't been to cite any evidence that contradicts the findings Mellman noted showing that Republicans are more often sheeple in this election than Democrats are.

I did provide evidence that contradicts the findings. You just don't accept it.

 

[Augustus]

Prove it.

Are you saying the author didn't handpick these issues? Suit yourself.

Why don't you prove why these 3 issues are highly representative? Why is attitude towards Putin more representative than attitude towards close ties to Wall Street and taking a huge amount of their coin? Weren't many/most Dems against that kind of thing? What about attitude towards neo-con FP, also pretty sure Dems used to hate that too.

Can you prove Reps are rationalising things they are supposed to be against more than Dems?

So you are unable to substantiate your claims?

I cited authors who you could read to educate yourself on the topic. Not my problem if you prefer to stay ignorant. Strangely enough everything I've ever learned isn't just sat at my fingertips waiting for

Which points do you disagree with? I might be kind enough to help you with 1 or 2 if you can find me information about Dem attitudes to close financial ties to Wall Street and attitudes towards neo-cons

 

[Nous]

Are you saying the author didn't handpick these issues?

He cited the figures. If there are figures that he should have cited, provide them.

I cited authors who you could read to educate yourself on the topic.

In other words, you can't substantiate your plethora of claims.

 

[Acim]

I cited authors who you could read to educate yourself on the topic.

Thank you for substantiating your claims.

 

[Augustus]

He cited the figures. If there are figures that he should have cited, provide them.

I have actually tried to engage you in reasonable discussion, but that seems to be beyond you.

When someone makes the point that there is not enough information to reach a conclusion, and explains what kind of information would be needed to have a better understanding of the issue, this doesn't require them to actually provide the missing information.

If you were capable of reasoned discussion, you would explain why this information was not in fact needed, and why the information you have provided is indeed sufficient. You can't do this though as it would require more effort than typing 'prove it' or the like.

In other words, you can't substantiate your plethora of claims.

I did ask you to highlight what you disagreed with but again this would actually require thought on your behalf so you chose to revert to a stock answer.

It's quite ironic that in a post about 'sheeple' you choose to uncritically parrot the opinion of what someone else with a clear agenda said.

Never mind, just continue to take it as gospel. That's the essence of independent thought after all

 

[Valjean]

OK, let's stop pussyfooting around.
The Republican Brain is a throwback. It's tribal. It's wired differently. it blindly follows perceived authority -- like sheep.

A neurologist can identify a "Republican brain" through a CAT scan or MRI alone.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...efs-with-83-percent-accuracy-17536124/?no-ist

Ideological differences between partisans may reflect distinct neural processes, and they can predict who’s right and who’s left of center with 82.9 percent accuracy, outperforming the “your parents pick your party” model. It also out-predicts another neural model based on differences in brain structure, which distinguishes liberals from conservatives with 71.6 percent accuracy.

Previous research has shown that during MRI scans, areas linked to broad social connectedness, which involves friends and the world at large, light up in Democrats’ brains. Republicans, on the other hand, show more neural activity in parts of the brain associated with tight social connectedness, which focuses on family and country.

Other scans have shown that brain regions associated with risk and uncertainty, such as the fear-processing amygdala, differ in structure in liberals and conservatives. And different architecture means different behavior. Liberals tend to seek out novelty and uncertainty, while conservatives exhibit strong changes in attitude to threatening situations. The former are more willing to accept risk, while the latter tends to have more intense physical reactions to threatening stimuli.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...ercent-accuracy-17536124/#50kPhqYHXVo1FUdM.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

From Wikipedia:
Right-wing authhttp://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/study-predicts-political-beliefs-with-83-percent-accuracy-17536124/?no-istoritarianism (RWA) is a personality and ideological variable studied in political, social, and personality psychology. Right-wing authoritarians are people who have a high degree of willingness to submit to authorities they perceive as established and legitimate, who adhere to societal conventions and norms, and who are hostile and punitive in their attitudes towards people who don't adhere to them. They value uniformity and are in favour of using group authority, including coercion, to achieve it.

 

[Revoltingest]

OK, let's stop pussyfooting around.
The Republican Brain is a throwback. It's tribal. It's wired differently. it blindly follows perceived authority -- like sheep.

A neurologist can identify a "Republican brain" through a CAT scan or MRI alone.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...efs-with-83-percent-accuracy-17536124/?no-ist




Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...ercent-accuracy-17536124/#50kPhqYHXVo1FUdM.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

From Wikipedia:
Right-wing authhttp://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/study-predicts-political-beliefs-with-83-percent-accuracy-17536124/?no-istoritarianism (RWA) is a personality and ideological variable studied in political, social, and personality psychology. Right-wing authoritarians are people who have a high degree of willingness to submit to authorities they perceive as established and legitimate, who adhere to societal conventions and norms, and who are hostile and punitive in their attitudes towards people who don't adhere to them. They value uniformity and are in favour of using group authority, including coercion, to achieve it.

The only fly in the ointment of that claim is that "right wing" brains inhabit Democrats too.
They love authority, both imposing it & submission to it.
Just look at our 2 leading prezidential candidates....2 peas in a rotten pod.

There's a lot of confusion about the meaning of "right".
Some say it means economic liberty.
Others say it means conservatism.
An still more say it means authoritarianism.
So we fact the odd possibility that the more left leaning pols are, the more right wing they become.
We must not make logical errors due to mismatching definitions.

 

[Augustus]

The Republican Brain is a throwback. It's tribal. It's wired differently... A neurologist can identify a "Republican brain" through a CAT scan or MRI alone.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...efs-with-83-percent-accuracy-17536124/?no-ist

Neuroscience is still an emerging field that suffers from significant replicability problems and questions about the correctness of methodology, small samples and what findings can be stated on the back of research. These problems are noted by may practitioners within the field.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of emotion, personality, and social cognition have drawn much attention in recent years, with high-profile studies frequently reporting extremely high (e.g., >.8) correlations between brain activation and personality measures. We show that these correlations are higher than should be expected given the (evidently limited) reliability of both fMRI and personality measures.

Puzzlingly High Correlations in fMRI Studies of Emotion, Personality, and Social Cognition1
Perspectives on Psychological Science May 2009 vol. 4 no. 3 274-290


I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on neuroscience, but given the high error rate of publications, and the limited understanding we have about the brain it is not generally prudent to treat such studies pretty tentatively. Even if we accept that you can reasonably accurately tell difference via fmri (which given the sample was 22 Republicans who were on average 6 years older than the Dems in the study is far from cast iron), what this means in terms of personality characteristics is even less certain.

Such findings are potentially of interest and might well show relevant factors, but aren't yet accurate enough to be too confident about.

it blindly follows perceived authority -- like sheep.

This seems to be a touch essentialist and overgeneralising.

Right-wing authoritarians are people who have a high degree of willingness to submit to authorities they perceive as established and legitimate, who adhere to societal conventions and norms, and who are hostile and punitive in their attitudes towards people who don't adhere to them.

How do you explain the high degree of consensus amongst various liberal communities. If you look at left wing students at university there seems to be a very strong consensus around issues of political correctness and severe reactions against those perceived to be breaking these rules. Is this uniformity arrived at through independent thought?

What about the degree of influence of non-authority opinion leaders? Lots of people simply parrot the responses of their favourite social commentators.

What about when leftists used to be massive apologists for Soviet Communism, the so called 'useful idiots'?

Perhaps it is environmental characteristics that determine the level of 'sheeple-ness' rather than internal political persuasion.

You mentioned that liberals are more 'socially connected', perhaps this leads them to be 'sheeple' in regard to peer pressure?

The vast majority of humans are affected by social pressures to some extent. If hypothetically liberals were more affected by peer pressure and conservatives were more affected by authority figure, would we consider one 'better' or 'worse' than the other?

imo the issue is very complicated given high degrees of political polarisation and that we all evolved to be influenced by a complex web of social pressures.

Such a broad question is very difficult to answer without a whole range of additional evidence that may, or may not, exist.