Politics - AllPsych

Narcissism Linked to Voter Turnout, Political Activity

Neil Petersen — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 00:04:35 +0000

Say what you will about narcissists, but at least they turn out to do their civic duty. That’s according to a new paper titled Narcissism and Political Participation from researchers in the United States and Denmark, who surveyed several thousand adults across both countries. The researchers found that people who score as having higher levels…

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Feelings of High Socioeconomic Status Can Lead People to Confuse Opinions and Reality

Neil Petersen — Wed, 27 May 2020 19:31:34 +0000

It’s sometimes said that wisdom is about knowing what you don’t know. If that’s the case, then the opposite of wisdom must be what psychologists sometimes call naïve realism – a tendency to believe that one’s personal view of the world represents objective reality. There are a variety of factors that might lead people to mistake their…

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The Demographics of Humor

Neil Petersen — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 05:29:44 +0000

Humor is a funny thing. Different people use it in different ways. I’ve touched on this topic in some previous blog posts. People with high self-esteem, for example, tend to use humor to build relationships with others. Undertakers, on the other hand, tend not to use it much at all. Now, a new study from…

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When Are Rich People More Entitled?

Neil Petersen — Sat, 05 Oct 2019 01:18:19 +0000

When a person has more of something, there’s always the risk that they’ll decide the reason they have more is because they deserve more. That’s the most self-serving interpretation, but then again, people are pretty good at coming up with self-serving interpretations. But does belonging to a higher social class necessarily mean having a greater…

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Attitudes to Inequality May Have Genetic Underpinning

Neil Petersen — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 23:46:16 +0000

It’s clear that we live in an unequal society, with some groups of people having more power and resources than others. What we don’t always agree on, though, is whether that’s a good or a bad thing. Psychologists sometimes measures people’s preferences for a hierarchical, unequal society by looking at social dominance orientation. Someone who…

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What’s the Role of Politics in Therapy?

Neil Petersen — Tue, 28 May 2019 23:42:58 +0000

Therapy is a place where anything can come up. The old adage about discussing politics and religion doesn’t necessarily apply. To learn more about how political views fit into the therapeutic process, researchers from New York recently surveyed 268 therapists from around the United States. In case you’re wondering, there’s a good chance your therapist…

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People Probably Agree With You Less Than You Think

Neil Petersen — Mon, 20 May 2019 23:27:01 +0000

If there’s one thing people never lack, it’s biases in how we think. One of these biases is what psychologists call the false consensus effect, where people tend to overestimate the extent to which other people share their views. To put it another way, people tend to assume that everyone else thinks the way they…

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People Care More About Climate Change After Experiencing a Hurricane

Neil Petersen — Wed, 27 Feb 2019 17:00:45 +0000

Climate change is an interesting psychological case study. It’s a big, scientifically unambiguous problem, but we’re more or less content to ignore it and go on with our lives as usual. Part of the reason for this nonchalance is that, for now, the effects of climate change seem distant and abstract. We all have immediate…

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Is Creationism the Ultimate Conspiracy Theory?

Neil Petersen — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 03:41:31 +0000

I’ve got one heck of a conspiracy theory for you. It goes like this: contrary to what scientists say, everything in the natural world exists because someone created it that way, not because it’s the result of evolution. The idea that the natural world was deliberately designed to function the way it does is an…

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Clinton Voters Still Haven’t Recovered Psychologically

Neil Petersen — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 17:06:16 +0000

The outcome of the 2016 election was a shock for many. And apparently, some Clinton voters still haven’t gotten over that shock psychologically. If you don’t believe me, just check out a recent study published in the journal Emotion. In the study, the researchers tracked three groups of voters in the United States: Trump voters,…

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