Test 2 Flashcards
problems with models of political development?
Sociological model:
oOverly deterministic oWhat is the mechanism by which groups vote? oUnderplays the role of parties themselves oDifficulty in explaining de/re- alignment
Michigan model: o Most western democracies have undergone “de- alignment” o Increase in proportional representation systems problematic o Difficult to generalize outside of the US (two-party democracy)
Symbolic politics:
o What is a symbol? What is
rational? Assumption of
exclusivity
o Alternate explanations (e.g.
RGCT)
o Foolish (IMHQ) to assume
such a special process for
politics
Rational choice:
o “Impoverished” view of
humanity in general
o Works in economics but not
in other transactions.
"Why do people vote at all?”
o Limited evidence
o Alternative explanations
(e.g. vote symbolic of class
conflict)
o Party ID- costs of bad vote
greater than wrong choice
of power.
Converse argues to replace ___ with ___
ideology with belief systems
Converse’s definition of a belief system?
We define a belief system as a configuration of ideas and attitudes in which the elements are bound together by some form of constraint or functional interdependence.”
Lipset defines left and right wing politics as…
By left we shall mean advocating social change in the direction of greater equality – political economic or social; by right we shall mean supporting a traditional more or less hierarchical social order, and opposing change toward equality.”
Politics in the lay audience
(A) Converse argues in this
famous paper that the
general public do not have
a constrained, functionally
independent political belief
system.
a.His evidence was that when
most people were asked to
rate if they saw themselves
as more politically
conservative or liberal most
people did not have any
answer.
(B) Conversely, people argue
they must hold some
meaning because they
continue to be present in
our everyday lives (i.e.
journal articles, campaigns,
comics or advertisements).Lay Audience research highlights
In a NZ sample, participants were asked “to what extent do you identify yourself as being politically to the left or to the right?”
- The 40% of people who did respond, when latter asked if they knew the meaning for leftwing and rightwing political labels-majority said, “I don’t know”.
- Yet, participants still managed to pick a position that reflected the political party they voted for.
- How? Based on the public’s (lay audience) stereotypical understandings of LW and RW politics.
***Evidence that the same political labels hold different meanings for different constituencies (group of voters from the same legislative body i.e. Labour and national).
Research Example: Item vs Inventory Measures
The Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWA)
o Measures individual’s ideological commitment towards tradition, authority, social conventions, against threats of change, protests and political rebellion. o Predicts a high degree of submission towards authorities and aggression towards individuals who have been sanctioned by an authority figure. o High degree of adherence to societal conventions that are endorsed within society.
Indicate that issues relevant to these items differ from country to country.
Are liberal-conservative and LW-RW labels correlated and interchangeable?
what is the political paradox?
In NZ liberal-conservative and LW-RW labels are highly correlated and used by the public interchangeably (r = .60).
However, ACT party voters showed a preference for being labeled liberal and RW.
This supports that these terms are measuring two different dimensions of political ideology!
e.g.
(A) Social Issues
(B) Economic Issues
Thus, ACT party votes identify as socially liberal and economically conservative!
In addition, breaking down correlation between labels by political party…
Green and Labour who are traditionally liberal on both dimensions use the terms interchangeably.
National (RW), ACT (Liberal-RW) and UFNZ had insignificant correlation between the two political labels.
Why do NZ political parties not have to conform to both LW-Liberal and conservative-RW labels?
(A) the dimensionality of
political belief systems
(social and economic).
(B) NZ's unique proportional
representative electoral
system.Motivated Social-Cognition model of political conservatism
A matching process takes place whereby people adopt ideological belief systems (such as conservatism, RWA, and SDO) that are most likely to satisfy their psychological
needs and motives (such as needs for order, structure, and closure and the avoidance of
uncertainty or threat).
Correlates of conservatism in NZ:
oNational as the political party preference oEndorsement of use of animals in research oSupport for genetic engineering oIncreasing red meat consumption (and less fruit and cereal) oSexism oMaterialism oRacism oStrong preference for hierarchy-enhancing occupations (military, legal, institutional) vs hierarchy- attentuating roles (e.g., social work, public defense, low- status jobs).
John Ducketts Dual Process Model of Prejudice:
Two pathways to prejudice
Pathway 1: RWA Children who grow up with punitive/strict parents develop a conformity personality. This personality style leads to people to perceive the world as dangerous. To cope with this fear people adopt a authoritarianism attitude: submission to authority, for people to do as their told, resistant to change, preference for tradition. This leads to authoritarian’s being aggressive towards members of society that have been sanctioned by authority figures. =prejudice
Pathway 2: SDO Children grow up with unaffectionate but not overly punitive parents. This leads to a tough-minded and ruthless personality forming. This leads to people perceiving the world as a dog- eats-dog world in which they need to dominate other social groups to stay the alpha male. Leads to a preference for the ingroups-social elites- dominant group. =prejudice.
How does John Ducketts Dual Process Model of Prejudice link to political conservatism?
*High scores in both RWA and SDO are associated with political conservativism. SDO=preference for social hierarchy RWA=preservation of the status quo
Correlation between seeing the world as a dangerous place and viewing it as being more competitive (.22) Correlation between social dominance and right-wing authoritarianism (.38) Viewing the world as a competitive jungle was a strong predictor of SDO (.62) SDO and RWA explain over half of the variance in predicting political conservatism.
Linking to political conservatism: Multiple conservatisms:
oRWA measures aspects of
social conservatism.
oSDO measures aspects of
economic conservatism.
what is affective forecasting
Predicting what makes us happy
e.g. people who buy lottery
tickets because they think
it will make them happy if
they winHappiness can be broken down into two key components:
(A) Happiness (affective
component)
(B) Life Satisfaction
How Can We Measure Happiness?
1. Survey’s: Retrospective survey’s which ask people on a global scale about how happy they are in general.
2. Experience Sampling:
Researchers regularly ask
participants on a daily or
hourly schedule:
o What are you doing now?
o How do you feel?
*these two methods can sometimes produce different results- i.e. in a survey people may report that their families may be a large source of happiness for them but in an experience sampling method report that their family is driving them crazy.
Designs for Research on Happiness:
(A) Longitudinal:
Observe people overtime
to identify if people get
happier as they get
wealthier?
(B) Cross-Sectional
The comparison of richer
and poorer nations at one
point in time in their overall
level of happiness.
Research Example:
Longitudinal at the Individual Level
Q: Are individuals happier a year after winning the lottery?
Q: After people incur a major disability are people less happy?
Q: Are individuals happier a year after winning the lottery?
- No, people are not.
- People experienced an initial
sense of euphoria after
winning for a short period of
time, but this diminished
back to baseline levels. - In addition, people who win
the lottery experience strain
to their relationships, people
asking for money or
instances where you move
up a class and your peers
cannot experience the same
luxuries as you.
Q: After people incur a major disability are people less happy?
- Initially people experience a dramatic drop in happiness soon after the disability is incurred. - However, up to 2 years later people with disabilities are no less happy then they were originally.
Research Example:
Longitudinal at the National level
Myers & Diener (2018)
Q: Does happiness increase as countries get wealthier?
Note:
Happiness remained stable at 30% even as income progressively increased across nations.
This is called the “Easterlin Paradox”
- Instead Easterlin argues that happiness does not reflect increases in income. - Once our basic needs are met, happiness is better described by other factors.
e.g. Paradox where: Wealthy people can still be unhappy Poor people can still be really happy
*the relationship between wealth and happiness is NOT LINEAR it remained flat (stable).
Research Example:
Longitudinal Study: China- Nation Level
*Increasing wealth, decreasing happiness
o Happiness in China has been decreasing since 1990 up to 2000. o This corresponds with improvements in the living standards of its citizens and brought a lot of people out of poverty. o Why would it drop then? •Because improvements in the national economy often mirror increases in economic inequality. •Thus, individuals make more social comparisons with others, sense of dissatisfaction about one’s own income and this leads to overall life dissatisfaction. o It begun to rise again after 2003 but China’s overall happiness levels are still below that of 1990.
Is Inequality in Wealth more Important than the Nations Wealth as a whole?
E.g. The spirit level article
- Found that social problems
are higher in countries with
less economic inequality.
e.g. mental health, drug use,
crime rates etc.
- Scandinavian countries have
no economic inequality and
are the happiest in the
world.Research Example:
Cross-Sectional Data
a. Comparing richer and
poorer individuals
(diener et al. 1985)
b. Comparing richer and
poorer Nations
(Diener et al. 1995)
Q: Is there a correlation between wealth and SWB?
c. A larger scale Nations
Cross-sectional study
(diener et al., 2010)
o Found a weak association between wealth and well- being o Differences are most commonly found at the extremes, very rich or very poor, and NOT in between. o Identified a curvilinear relationship between wealth and wellbeing.
Q: Is there a correlation between wealth and SWB?
Well-Being:
(A) Happiness
(B) Life Satisfaction
Measured:
(A) Individualism
(B) Inequality
Results:
(A) Basic Needs: had a
curvilinear function on
SWB. Where SWB
increases for poor people
as income increases but
only until their basic needs
are met and then it tapers
off.
(B) Purchasing Power (ability
to buy goods): A linear
relationship where higher
income correlated with
higher SWB (in both poor
and rich nations).
But- this effect became insignificant once individualism was added to the analysis.
Why? One explanation is that individualism is linked to having freedom to pursue one’s own goals-which is a great source for happiness.
*Highlighting that wealth may not be the most important source of happiness!
c.
o Extension of their earlier work but included more nations in their study o Also included social psychology factors: Respect Could you rely on others in an emergency situation? Yesterday: •Did you learn something new? •Did you do what you do best? •Choose how to spend your time?
Well-being measures:
(A) Life Evaluations
(B) Positive or Negative
Feelings
oResults: Income predicted life satisfaction (r = .44) more so than in their previous study. One explanation is that more studies were included with where poorer nations. Social psychological factors better predicted affect than income did. Why? because nations which have lower corruption, higher social support, helping other is linked to a happier nation.
Note: That NZ was the highest rated nation in positive affect-an intriguing finding considering our high suicide rates and income inequality!
Are There Cultural Differences in Well-Being?
- Is individualism (being a better
predictor for happiness than
income) a culturally specific
finding?
e.g. In Taiwan, individual’s happiness is linked to the welfare of their family and society- more collectivist society relative to western cultures who are individualistic.
2. Asians have a different
concept of happiness!
(A) Western cultures: linked to
looking happy, elation and
smiling.
(B) Asian cultures: linked to
serenity, meditation a peace
(Buddhist’s)
*Highlights that researchers need to take into account different cultures conceptualizations of happiness in cross-sectional research.
Motives for Money are Important:
Their work identified that motives for money mediate the relationship between money and well-being. Factor analysis revealed three main types of money motives: Positive: security, family, achievement Negative: social comparison, self-doubt Freedom: leisure, freedom, impulse.
- negative motives for obtaining money were negatively correlated with well-being
- positive and freedom motive produced mixed findings.
Their work implies that the motivation for obtaining money may be more important than income in affecting individual’s wellbeing.
Other Negative correlate with wellbeing:
Other research found that too much individualism and choice negatively correlated with well-being.
Should We Research What Makes Us Happy?
(A) Some governments see the
value in this research into
what makes people happy
and actually found research
into this field.
(B) A Critique to this is “false
consciousness” i.e. the
government funding
research into the causes of
happiness can be used, in
some cases, as a ploy to
distract individuals from
their misfortunes.
(C) Happiness research is a
legitimate field of enquiry
because many people think
they intuitively know what
makes them happy but
research has already
identified that money is not
a good predictor for
happiness (for most people).Why Positive Psychology?
o Traditional psychology
research has focused on
the negative i.e.
depression, drug abuse,
anxiety or violence.
o Research indicates that
happy people live longer
and get sick less often.
o Happiness research is not
localized to positive
psychology but extends into
other domains such as
economics.
