Comments on: The Situation of Ideology – Part II http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-situation-of-ideology-part-ii/ Wed, 22 May 2013 05:13:32 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: How Conservatives are Made and Kept http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-situation-of-ideology-part-ii/#comment-13368 Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:06:01 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-situation-of-ideology-part-ii/#comment-13368 [...] September 11th, 2008 by Attitude Must read: http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-situation-of-ideology-part-ii/ [...]

]]> By: Jon Hanson http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-situation-of-ideology-part-ii/#comment-12312 Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:10:40 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-situation-of-ideology-part-ii/#comment-12312 Jay: Thanks for your comment. I’m with you (and echo your suggestion to read your entire piece!), but want to underscore Grue’s commenet reflects an apparent misunderstanding of our definition of “situation,” which refers to factors around and within us that fall outside our dominant attributional schemas. We are not denying that there may be differences across people, differences that might even be stable and predictive. Similarly, we do not deny that individual “personality” can shape individual behavior. Our point is that the common beliefs for what explains those differences are generally mistaken. The sentence that Grue quotes, emphasizing the fact that “most people are surprised to learn” of the “stable differences” underscores our point that the insights are situationist, not, as Grue puts it, “anti-situationist.” (For more on this topic, see “Situation” Trumps “Disposition” – Part I & Part II.)

]]> By: Jay Dixit http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-situation-of-ideology-part-ii/#comment-12311 Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:28:21 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-situation-of-ideology-part-ii/#comment-12311 Grue: Fair point, the first part of the article is not about situational forces, but about the personality correlates of political orientation. But fear is a situational factor, and the second half of the article, not all of which is excerpted here, addresses how mortality salience affects political orientation.

]]> By: Grue http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-situation-of-ideology-part-ii/#comment-10676 Fri, 14 Dec 2007 03:35:31 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-situation-of-ideology-part-ii/#comment-10676 Hmm, this article seemed anti-situationist: “Most people are surprised to learn that there are real, stable differences in personality between conservatives and liberals—not just different views or values, but underlying differences in temperament.”

So apparently it’s not situation which distinguishes conservatives and liberals, it’s some kind of fundamental attribute of the person :)

]]> By: Alan Reifman http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-situation-of-ideology-part-ii/#comment-10633 Wed, 12 Dec 2007 23:07:01 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/the-situation-of-ideology-part-ii/#comment-10633 Ms. Stillwell’s experience, in which her initial post-9/11 attraction to conservatism on national security issues spilled over into several social/domestic issues as well, is similar to a phenomenon described by John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira in their June 19, 2007 American Prospect article, “Back to the Future: The re-emergence of the emerging Democratic majority.”

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=back_to_the_future061807

Judis and Teixeira document that there was indeed an appreciable subset of the American electorate that underwent the same transformation as did Ms. Stillwell after 9/11. However, Judis and Teixeira conclude from polling data that such a phenomenon was transient. They write of:

“… another psychological process, which might be called ‘de-arrangement.’ The focus on the war on terror not only distracted erstwhile Democrats and independents but appeared to transform, or de-arrange, their political worldview. They temporarily became more sympathetic to a whole range of conservative assumptions and approaches…

By the 2006 election, many more voters had become disillusioned with the Republicans as the party of national security. They now drew a distinction between the war in Iraq and the war on terror, and they saw the disaster in Iraq overshadowing any success in the war on terror. Others came to doubt the administration’s overall ability to protect Americans’ national security — either from terrorists or natural disasters. As this change in perception took place, the foundations for the Republican majorities in 2002 and 2004 crumbled. What one sees in the 2006 election is not simply a revolt against the administration’s conduct of the war but a return to the political perceptions of the two parties that was inclining the electorate before September 2001 toward a Democratic majority. Voters didn’t simply reject the administration for its conduct of the war; angered by its conduct of the war, they reembraced a center-left worldview on a whole range of issues. The electorate of 2006 was like the electorate of 2000 — only more so.”

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