So, Conservatives not the psychotic ones, after all..

[Dill]

(06-10-2019, 12:15 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Fair enough. I should not have pointed to posts in this thread to point to anyone's mental status. However, it does appear "thou doth protest too much".

The article in the OP was to show flaws in a published finding, but we got caught up in "psychotic versus psychoticism"

The definition I was told to use is " psychoticism states that a person will exhibit some qualities commonly found among psychotics, and that they may be more susceptible, given certain environments, to becoming psychotic." So can we just all agree that Liberal have a greater propensity to become psychotic?

No. We cannot. 

What "we" got caught up in was whether the article claims that political party determines mental stability because "we" read a spun up interpretation from the New York Post.   Terms like LIBERAL and CONSERVATIVE also need a double check here--by determining how they are used in the article, not looking up a dictionary definition.  

Reading the article itself in context of its research field and the problem it specifically addresses is the best way to inhibit projection. Reading news versions of the article and latching onto common terms outside their disciplinary usage only sets one up for failure outside the bubble.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(06-10-2019, 12:15 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Fair enough. I should not have pointed to posts in this thread to point to anyone's mental status. However, it does appear "thou doth protest too much".

The article in the OP was to show flaws in a published finding, but we got caught up in "psychotic versus psychoticism"

The definition I was told to use is " psychoticism states that a person will exhibit some qualities commonly found among psychotics, and that they may be more susceptible, given certain environments, to becoming psychotic." So can we just all agree that Liberal have a greater propensity to become psychotic?

Quote:The journal said the error doesn’t change the main conclusions of the paper, which found that “personality traits do not cause people to develop political attitudes.”

And you thought that meant a person's political ideology makes them more prone to a type of mental illness?  

Really?

[*bfine32*]

Why do folks keep bringing up:

Quote:The journal said the error doesn’t change the main conclusions of the paper, which found that “personality traits do not cause people to develop political attitudes.”

Yet omit the very next line

Quote:But professor Steven Ludeke of the University of Southern Denmark, who pointed out the errors, told Retraction Watch that they “matter quite a lot.”

So the dude that found the errors says they matter, but the folks that made the error says they do not.

I get nobody wants to be a member of a population that may be more propensed to being psychotic, but after the errors were pointed out, that's exactly what the paper points to:

Turns out liberals are the real authoritarians.

A political-science journal that published an oft-cited study claiming conservatives were more likely to show traits associated with “psychoticism” now says it got it wrong. Very wrong.

Quote:The American Journal of Political Science published a correction this year saying that the 2012 paper has “an error” — and that liberal political beliefs, not conservative ones, are actually linked to psychoticism.

To be honest you guys were doing better arguing the semantics

[BmorePat87]

(06-10-2019, 04:15 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Why do folks keep bringing up:


Yet omit the very next line


So the dude that found the errors says they matter, but the folks that made the error says they do not.

Here's the problem with using a third person source rather than seeking the full quote

The erroneous results represented some of the larger correlations between personality and politics ever reported; they were reported and interpreted, repeatedly, in the wrong direction; and then cited at rates that are (for this field) extremely high. And the relationship between personality and politics is, as we note in the paper, quite a “hot” topic, with a large number of new papers appearing every year. So although the errors do not matter for the result that the authors (rightly) see as their most important, I obviously think the errors themselves matter quite a lot, especially for what it says about the scientific process both pre- and post-review.

He admits that the errors don't change the argument of the paper (our personalities alone don't dictate our political beliefs) but that the errors matter in terms of the pre and post review process and how the media and other journals use data like this. We should be worried that an error slipped past the review process and that so many sources incorrectly used it to push agendas.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(06-10-2019, 04:15 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Why do folks keep bringing up:


Yet omit the very next line


So the dude that found the errors says they matter, but the folks that made the error says they do not.

I get nobody wants to be a member of a population that may be more propensed to being psychotic, but after the errors were pointed out, that's exactly what the paper points to:

Turns out liberals are the real authoritarians.

A political-science journal that published an oft-cited study claiming conservatives were more likely to show traits associated with “psychoticism” now says it got it wrong. Very wrong.


To be honest you guys were doing better arguing the semantics

No one was arguing semantics except you. Rather, everyone is correcting your mistaken and misguided semantics argument. This quote is from the authors:

Quote:Having a high Psychoticism score is not a diagnosis of being clinically psychotic or psychopathic. Rather, P is positively correlated with tough-mindedness, risk-taking, sensation-seeking, impulsivity, and authoritarianism.

The traits in bold aren't related to being psychotic. Neither is authoritarianism.

Plus the original study looked at whether there is a causal relationship between personality and political ideology. Their conclusion is that there isn't a causal relationship; meaning psychotocism (not to be confused with psychotic) doesn't cause an individual to be liberal or conservative. What the authors got wrong were the descriptions for the traits such as reversing the description of psychoticism with neuroticism and vice versa. That error does not indicate liberals are more prone to be psychotic as suggested by the NY Post. Or that conservatives are more prone to be neurotic. If anything the errors indicate this isn't a study you want to hang your hat on as you are doing. I'm actually shocked I need to explain this more than once even though I know exactly with whom I'm dealing with.

[Dill]

(06-10-2019, 04:58 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Here's the problem with using a third person source rather than seeking the full quote

The erroneous results represented some of the larger correlations between personality and politics ever reported; they were reported and interpreted, repeatedly, in the wrong direction; and then cited at rates that are (for this field) extremely high. And the relationship between personality and politics is, as we note in the paper, quite a “hot” topic, with a large number of new papers appearing every year. So although the errors do not matter for the result that the authors (rightly) see as their most important, I obviously think the errors themselves matter quite a lot, especially for what it says about the scientific process both pre- and post-review.

He admits that the errors don't change the argument of the paper (our personalities alone don't dictate our political beliefs) but that the errors matter in terms of the pre and post review process and how the media and other journals use data like this. We should be worried that an error slipped past the review process and that so many sources incorrectly used it to push agendas.

He has already been told and shown this.  To no effect. The New York Post article is still the definitive source, not the article itself.

Neither the authors of the article nor those who caught the error were seeking to prove that either "liberals" or "conservatives" were "the TRUE authoritarians."  Even in the article the authors point out that Eysenck's terminology is "poorly labeled" and should be replaced simply by the less pejorative label, an italicized "P." which they use.  "Having a high Psychoticism score is not a diagnosis of being clinically psychotic or psychopathic"(p.38). "Anti-authority," as in desire for independence from rules and authority, would in fact be a better parse for what Eysenck means by authoritarian.

As far as the authors' own view of their errors, this is rather like getting a story problem in math problem right, despite a mistake in the steps. It does matter, e.g., for the next problem you have to solve, if you don't figure out what you did wrong. And if you are a teacher you certainly don't want to teach students the wrong method, even if it "makes no difference" sometimes.  So the "dudes" who wrote the article are right--the error did not invalidate their results.  "Dude" who disagreed did so because false data can be abstracted from the article, regardless of the conclusion, and be put to other purposes. And he is also right. That is bad social science.

Main point though, is that this isn't a bunch of social scientists arguing over who is most authoritarian. That debate only emerges when the research terms and problems are injected into another narrative being furthered by the New York Post, for people who will never read the original article or the correction. Science says: LIBERALS the real authoritarians.

PS. the error slipped past whoever reviewed the article for the journal, but it did not slip past the "review process" to which all social science knowledge is subjected.  It was caught by at least three people.  

[hollodero]

Sorry for posting in the old thread and for answering so late, but I do not want to leave questions unanswered. So shortly

(06-10-2019, 12:15 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Fair enough. I should not have pointed to posts in this thread to point to anyone's mental status.

Kudos for that.

(06-10-2019, 12:15 PM)bfine32 Wrote: So can we just all agree that Liberal have a greater propensity to become psychotic?

No. Correlation and causation are not the same thing, and even the correlation is standing on pretty weak legs. Dill is not wrong about that.
Plus, why would anyone be keen to reach that conclusion? I know why a conservative would. But aside from team players, everyone should see clearly that this has no meaning for real life at all and isn't really worth debating.

(06-10-2019, 12:28 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: The authors still argues that the study holds up in showing that personality traits alone do not determine our political views. You think the entire thing is junk?

I think the entire thing is quite pointless and yeah, pretty much junk science. I don't see much reason to trust the authors or give the findings any real life merit. It doesn't get quoted for being good science, but to be used in the old red vs. blue game.