Is Democracy Possible? Appendix

To make sense of this post, you must first read Part 1 and Part 2.

Kahan and his colleagues did not discuss differences between the responses of liberals and conservatives to his four contingency problems, in spite of the fact that political ideology interacted with his other variables in a way that was statistically significant.

The asymmetry thesis, most strongly identified with journalist Chris Mooney, states that politically motivated reasoning is greater among conservatives than among liberals. Social psychologist John Jost and his colleagues present evidence that conservatism is more strongly correlated with measures of dogmatism and resistance to change than liberalism.

There is evidence of ideological asymmetry in the Kahan experiment. Here it is:

Table 5

These curves represent the distributions of the responses in each condition. The high point of each distribution is the mean. To help us keep these findings straight, Kahan has drawn the liberals in blue and the conservatives in red. The top two figures are of little interest. They merely show that liberals and conservatives are equally likely to answer the questions about the skin cream incorrectly.

However, the bottom two graphs show ideological polarization. Specifically, the conservatives are more likely than the liberals to answer the question correctly when the correct answer corresponds with their expectations, and they are more likely than the liberals to answer incorrectly when the correct answer conflict with their ideology. This is true of both the low numeracy participants (on the left) and the high numeracy participants (on the right). Stated simply, the two red distributions are farther apart than the two blue ones.

Of course, since this study involves only a single issue, another way of interpreting these data is that conservatives care more about gun control than liberals do.

Table 6

You can also see this ideological asymmetry in the bottom figure of Table 3, repeated above, where, at most levels of numeracy, the two red lines are farther apart than the two blue lines. In a blog post, Kahan acknowledges this evidence of asymmetry, but contends that it less interesting than the fact that both liberals and conservatives show confirmatory bias at high levels of numeracy. He points out that the greatest evidence of asymmetry occurs at low to moderate levels of numeracy (inside the solid circle). At the very highest levels of numeracy (inside the broken circle), the two conservative groups appear to be converging, while the two liberal groups are diverging.

He's right about that. Committed liberals must acknowledge the disappointing performance of the highly numerate liberals. The only reasonable explanation is that bright, highly educated liberals are biased too. But that doesn't change the fact that, in this experiment, conservatives show more evidence of ideological bias than liberals do.

You may also be interested in reading:

Is Democracy Possible?  Part 1

Is Democracy Possible?  Part 2

Climate of Mistrust

The Open and Closed Mind

Motivated Reasoning

Is Democracy Possible? Part 2

You must read Part 1 before continuing or none of this will make sense.

A study was conducted by Dan Kahan of Yale University and three colleagues involving a demographically representative sample of 1111 American adults recruited by Polimetrix/YouGov, an online survey research firm. Preliminary questions were used to categorize the participants along two dimensions:

• Liberalism v. Conservatism: They rated themselves as very liberal to very conservative on a 5-point scale, and strong Democrat to strong Republican on a 7-point scale. These scales were combined, and the participants were divided at the midpoint into liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.
• Numeracy: Participants' numeracy was measured using nine real world mathematical problems. They received a numeracy score of 0 to 9.

Each participant was then asked to answer one of the four judgment of contingency problems shown in Table 2 of Part 1. These are labeled by the correct answer to the problem:

• Rash increases: The rash got worse when the skin cream was used.
• Rash decreases: The rash got better when the skin cream was used.
• Crime increases: There was more crime with the ban on concealed weapons.
• Crime decreases: The ban on concealed weapons reduced crime.

Table 3

The top graph presents the results for the skin cream questions. On the vertical dimension, the higher the line, the more people answered the question correctly. Horizontally, as you go from left to right, numeracy increases. The four groups all show almost the same results. As you would expect with content-neutral problems, as numeracy increases, more people answer correctly.

The bottom graph shows the results for the gun control questions. There is a tendency for scores to improve with numeracy, but the results are not uniform. The most striking trend is evidence of confirmatory bias. Participants are more likely to give the correct answer in the two conditions where it is consistent with their political views—the liberals when crime decreases and the conservatives when crime increases. When the correct conclusion is inconsistent with the participant's partisan ideology, the lines are almost flat, which means that the high numeracy people are not successfully correcting their biases. The numerate liberals claim that gun control is effective, even when the evidence shows it is not. The numerate conservatives claim that concealed weapons discourage crime, even when the evidence shows they do not. These labels may help to make the graph more clear.

Table 4

What is going on in the minds of these participants? It's likely that participants in all four groups initially engage in System 1 thinking. They look at the data and immediately believe what their political ideology leads them to expect. For the two groups in which the data are consistent with their prior beliefs, this is no problem. If they use System 2 to do the math, they will become more confident of the correct conclusion. But the two groups in which the data are inconsistent with their prior beliefs are faced with a conflict if they engage in System 2 thought. The results suggest that either they don't bother, or if they do, they manage to reinterpret the data in a way that confirms their expectations.

These data support the identity-protective cognition thesis rather than the science-comprehension thesis. It seems unlikely that additional math and science training would help these folks to draw the correct conclusion when that conclusion conflicts with their ideology. One commentator referred to these results as “the most depressing discovery about the brain, ever.” (Journalists have a depressing tendency to refer to the results of psychological research as discoveries about “the brain,” falsely implying that they are physiologically determined. I would say these results demonstrate the effectiveness of political socialization.) They are consistent with findings showing that giving people information which corrects common misconceptions sometimes backfires and causes them to believe them more strongly. It also supplements Kahan's previous finding that the most scientifically literate Americans are not more convinced that climate change is a serious threat, but are more ideologically polarized than those who are less scientifically literate.

Despite the fact that the authors proposed that such results would raise doubts about the possibility of rational self-government, they do not recommend that we curtail participatory democracy and turn over our more important decisions to Big Brother. Kahan sees the problem as a failure of scientific communication. He proposes that scientific issues be reframed so as to reaffirm the ideological beliefs of those who might otherwise be skeptical. For example, in another article he suggests that global warming be reframed as a technical problem to be address by corporations rather than a political problem to be addressed by government:

They [conservatives] would probably look at the evidence more favorably, however, if made aware that possible responses to climate change include nuclear power and geoengineering. . . Similarily, [liberals] are less likely to reflexively dismiss the safety of nanotechnology if they are made aware of the part that nanotechnology might play in environmental protection, and not just its usefulness in the manufacture of consumer goods.

Here is a video of Kahan discussing the results of his global warming studies and his suggestions for improving scientific communication.

Kahan seems to be suggesting that our ideological disagreements can be solved through clever marketing, but this seems an unlikely solution. For example, any serious attempt to curtail climate change through either nuclear power or geoengineering would encounter strong and well-founded objections from important members of the scientific community, and consensus would quickly disappear.

Before we throw up our hands in despair, Kahan's results need to be replicated with a broader range of issues. However, to be fair, global warming is such an important issue that failure to reach consensus on a solution will make all the other issues which we think we care about seem like the equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

However, there are some research findings that seem to offer greater hope of overcoming ideological polarization. I will discuss them in future posts. But first, for those that are interested, an appendix about the differences between liberals and conservatives.

You may also be interested in reading:

Is Democracy Possible?  Part 1

Is Democracy Possible?  Appendix

Climate of Mistrust

The Open and Closed Mind

Motivated Reasoning

Is Democracy Possible? Part 1

Let's not be naïve. Obviously, the political system we have now is more a plutocracy than a democracy. Our government has been captured by corporations and the people who own them. But suppose, by some miracle, we were able to enact effective campaign reform laws and politicians became responsive to public opinion. Are American citizens capable of making rational decisions based on scientific information?

Before we go any further, please take a look at this problem.

Table 1

The problem requires correctly interpreting a contingency table. Even bright college students often get it wrong. When deciding whether the skin cream works, some people only compare the numbers in the top row—the number of people who used the skin cream who get better or worse. But this ignores important information from the control group that didn't take the skin cream. Other people only compare the numbers in the left column—the number of people getting better who took the skin cream or didn't. But this ignores the fact that many more people took the skin cream than didn't. To correctly answer this question, you have to consider all four cells of the table. You must compare the percentage of people who used the skin cream who got better to the percentage of people who didn't use the skin cream who got better. Of the 298 people who used the skin cream, 223, or 75% of them, got better. Of the 128 people who didn't use it, 107, or 84% of them, got better. The correct answer is that the skin cream is ineffective.

Why is this problem so difficult? In part, it's because Dan Kahan and his colleagues—who did the study I'm about to report—put their thumb on the scales. They chose data such that, if you use either of the two shortcuts I mentioned—comparing only the numbers in the top row or the left column—you'll get the wrong answer. Fifty-nine percent of the participants in this study answered the problem incorrectly.

This problem illustrates the difference between System 1 and System 2 thinking, the central metaphor of this blog. According to Daniel Kahnemann, in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, we have two cognitive systems. System 1 is automatic and effortless. We simply say and do what feels right. The System 1 response to this problem is to say that the skin cream works, because that's what it looks like at first glance. System 2 is deliberate and effortful. It comes into play when we take the time to analyze a situation carefully. It can be used to correct the errors that System 1 is prone to making. In this case, System 2 requires that you do the math.

As difficult as this problem is, it has one thing going for it. We don't have any emotional investment in whether this skin cream works. But what if the issue were one about which we had a prior hypothesis? In this case, System 1 could lead us to a second source of error, confirmatory bias—the tendency the interpret new information in a way that is consistent with our prior beliefs and ideological biases. Compare the problem in Table 1 to these three other problems.

Table 2

Does a city-wide ban on concealed weapons increase or decrease crime? Conservatives would probably expect crime to increase (since people can no longer use their concealed weapons to shoot bad guys), and would be resistant to information suggesting that gun control actually works. Of course, the opposite is true for liberals. Kahan expected political ideology to affect participants' responses to the gun control questions, but not the skin cream questions.

Now let's introduce another variable into the mix—numeracy. (I realize this is getting complicated, but please bear with me. It's worth it.) Numeracy—analogous to literacy—refers to mathematical competence and a tendency to use quantitative reasoning in appropriate ways. You would expect numerate people to do better when making judgments of contingency, at least when evaluating skin creams. But what happens when numerate people encounter data contradict that their political views?

We know that liberals and conservatives clash over scientific issues such as gun control and global warming. Kahan suggests two theories to explain these political impasses. The science-comprehension thesis suggests that people don't have enough training in science and math. With better education, people would be capable of correctly interpreting the results of empirical studies. The identity-protective cognition thesis is more pessimistic. It argues that our ideological polarization is so great that it cancels out even the ability of well-educated people to utilize their math and science skills. If the confirmatory bias trumps numeracy, Kahan believes that this raises serious questions about whether Americans are capable of enlightened self-government. We may have to turn over important decisions to committees of experts. (But who will choose the experts?)

What do you think? The answer provided by Kahan's research comes in Part 2.

You may also be interested in reading:

Is Democracy Possible?  Part 2

Is Democracy Possible?  Appendix

Climate of Mistrust

The Open and Closed Mind

Motivated Reasoning

Climate of Mistrust

We know that conservative media, such as Fox News, deliberately attempt to undermine the public's belief that climate change is happening. Here is an 9-minute clip from Media Matters that documents this strategy.

One way to cast doubt on global warming is by questioning the credibility of scientists. In Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway review how industry-funded scientists have been running effective media campaigns to mislead the public about scientific research for five decades. Some of the same organizations that claim global warming is unproven developed this strategy to deny the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer. Here is Dr. Oreskes discussing her research.

A new paper by Jay Hmielowski and others, in the journal Public Understanding of Science, examines the familiar hypothesis that conservative media promote doubts about climate change, but demonstrates it more convincingly than in the past. Their argument states:

• Use of conservative media—in this case, Fox News and The Rush Limbaugh Show—is associated with a lack of belief that climate change is happening. Exposure to non-conservative media—ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR and MSNBC—is associated with greater belief in climate change.
• Exposure to these same conservative media is also correlated with a lack of trust in scientists; while exposure to non-conservative media is correlated with greater trust in scientists.
• Conservative media exposure causes distrust of scientists, which in turn causes climate change skepticism; while nonconservative media exposure causes trust in scientists, which causes belief in climate change. Another way of saying this is that the relationship between media exposure and belief in climate change is mediated by trust in scientists.

Previous research has shown that conservative media use is associated with lack of belief in global warming. However, correlation does not mean causation. It is impossible to say, for example, whether viewers are being influenced by Fox News or whether people who have already rejected global warming are attracted news media that reflect their views. However, the direction of causality can be clarified by collecting data at two points in time.

Hmielowski's data come from a panel study—a survey in which the same people are interviewed more than once—collected by Knowledge Networks. Their sample is representative of the American adult population. A group of 1036 people responded in the Fall of 2008 and again in the Spring of 2011 to questions about how often they watched conservative and non-conservative media, their trust in scientists, and their certainty that global warming was happening. To eliminate alternative explanations, several variables were statistically eliminated from the data: local media use, political ideology, religiosity, gender, race, age, education and income.

The hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation modeling, a statistical analysis that tests whether the correlations along a proposed path account for a significant percentage of variation in the outcome, belief in climate change. On the basis of this analysis, they found that conservative media use in 2008 is associated with a change toward mistrust of scientists in 2001 which is associated with a change toward lack of belief in global warming in 2011. There was also a similar path from nonconservative media use in 2008 to increased trust in scientists in 2011 to increased belief in global warming in 2011. Their results are shown in the diagram, with the pluses and minuses indicating where positive and negative relationships were obtained.

Although these are still correlational data, the 2½ year time lag increases our confidence that it is media exposure that influences beliefs rather than vice versa. However, since the participants themselves decided which newscasts to watch, the study does not control for self-selection bias. It is possible that the conservative viewers were exposed to other influences over these 2½ years to which the nonconservative viewers were not. We also can't be sure that the nonconservative media viewers, had they watched Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, would have been equally persuaded to mistrust scientists and reject global warming, or that the conservative media viewers would have had different beliefs if they had only watched the mainstream media.

It's also worth noting that distrust of science among conservatives predates Fox News, which began in 1996. Sociologist Gordon Gauchat compared survey data measuring trust in science among conservatives, moderates and liberals from 1974 to 2010. Conservatives actually began the period with slightly greater confidence in science, but showed a significant decline, while liberals and moderates did not. Those who report attending church frequently also became significantly more distrusting of science. Obviously, there is considerable overlap between the two groups. The greatest declines in trust among conservatives occurred during the Reagan and George W. Bush presidencies. Chris Mooney has suggested that mistrust began when scientists questioned the effectiveness of Reagan's missile defense shield (the “Star Wars” program).

You may also be interested in reading:

Reality Shows a Slight Gain

Two Different Worlds

No Longer in Mourning

Since I've been beating up on the Obama administration for the last 18 months, I should report that they have finally dropped their opposition to the over-the-counter sale of Plan B One-Step, the morning after contraceptive pill, to teenage girls. You can follow this story by reading my three previous posts on this issue, listed below.

However, before you start popping the champagne corks, here's the grim reality.

• The manufacturer first applied to have these pills sold over the counter in 2003. The Bush administration rejected their application in 2006. President Obama reaffirmed the Bush position in 2011. There is no way of knowing how many unwanted children have been born to teenagers as a result of this ten year delay.

• In opposing over-the-counter sale to minors, Obama rejected the unanimous advice of the FDA's scientific advisory board, which had sound research showing that adolescent girls had no difficulty using the product appropriately. This decision stood in sharp contrast to his campaign promise to allow policy decisions to be guided by scientific evidence.

• The President is still listening to the voice of his inner Republican. An administration spokesperson told the Washington Post that he has not changed his position, but has merely conceded that there is no realistic possibility of overturning the U. S. Court of Appeals' ruling that reversed Obama's decision.

Photo by kaymoshusband

Jeff Cohen published an op-ed today called “Playing the Obama Bumper Sticker Game.” Whenever you see a car with an Obama campaign bumper sticker, look for any additional bumper stickers that are present. “It's uncanny,” says Cohen. The cause advocated on the second bumper sticker is always one that Obama has betrayed during his presidency, i.e., “War is Not the Answer,” “We are the 99%,” “Ban Fracking,” etc. You know the rest.

When will we ever learn?

You may also be interested in reading:

The Mourning After

Sixteen Months After the Mourning After

The Mourning After Drama Continues

The Mourning After Drama Continues

At the end of our last episode, 24 days ago, U. S. District Judge Edward Korman had overturned the Obama administration's decision to deny girls under 17 access to morning after birth control pills without a prescription. The judge correctly noted that the age restriction contradicted the unanimous recommendation of the scientific advisory board of the Food and Drug Administration, which was in turn based on studies showing that adolescents had no difficulty understanding how to use the pills, called Plan B One-Step. The judge gave the Obama adminstration until May 6 to make the pills available over the counter to women of all ages.

Yesterday, the Obama administration attempted to compromise. They announced a change in the age limit. The pill will now be available without a prescription to girls 15 and over, provided they can prove their age. In addition, drug stores will be allowed to display Plan B on their shelves, rather than keeping it under the counter with the pornography. But this decision has at least two problems.

• Girls 15 and over must produce identification to prove their age. (The package will actually prompt the cashier to verify the customer's age.) For most people, this is a driver's license, but many teenage girls will not have a driver's license because they are too young, their family is poor, or they live in an urban area. The fallbacks are birth certificates and passports, but producing them would probably require parental help and might cause a delay of more than 72 hours after intercourse which would make the pill ineffective.

• The result of this decision is to increase the likelihood of an unwanted pregnancy, but only for girls 14 and under. This is awkward from both a moral and a social policy perspective. If we assume that unplanned pregnancy is the result of an unwise decision, it's not clear that younger girls should be punished more for their poor judgment than older girls. It's also pretty obvious that the younger the girl, the greater the disaster an unwanted pregnancy is for her personally, her child, and the society at large.

Strangely, the Obama administration announced that this regulatory change was not a response to Judge Korman's ruling. (Why do governments make such preposterous statements?) They also did not announce whether they would appeal the decision. I guess it's now up to the judge to decide whether he will accept these new rules. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit, has announced that they will continue to fight against any age restrictions on morning after contraception.

Stay tuned.

Update (5/2):  The Obama administration has appealed Judge Korman's decision that must be made available to all females regardless of age.

You may also be interested in reading:

Sixteen Months After the Mourning After

The Mourning After

Sixteen Months After the Mourning After

The second-ever post on my new attempt at blogging was a Bronx cheer for the Obama administration's decision to overrule the unanimous recommendation of the scientific advisory board of the Food and Drug Administration and refuse to allow Plan B One-Step, the morning after contraceptive, to be sold to girls under 17 without a prescription. The decision was announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, but President Obama publicly supported the move, describing it as “common sense” (which, of course, trumps science every time).

Yesterday, Federal Judge Edward Korman of the Eastern District of New York overturned Sebelius's decision, ruling that the morning after pill must be made available over the counter to girls of all ages. In a sharply-worded decision, he said, “(T)he secretary's action was politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and contrary to agency precedent.”

The petition to make the morning-after pill universally available was orginally filed in 2001. Judge Korman accused both the Bush and Obama administrations of acting in “bad faith” by delaying action on the petitition for over a decade. “Indeed, it could be accurately described as an administrative agency filibister,” he said.

Needless to say, the judge's decision was applauded by women's groups and criticized by the religious right. However, the prize for the most illogical response goes to the Catholic Church. A spokeswoman for the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops claimed, “Plan B does not prevent or treat any disease, but makes young adolescent girls more available to sexual predators.” How's that again? 

Press Secretary Jay Carney said yesterday that the President still supports Secretary Sebelius's decision. The Justice Department must now decide whether to appeal. The ball is in your court, Mr. Black Republican.

The Mourning After

Three years ago, President-elect Obama, while naming his science advisors, promised to take an entirely different approach to science than his predecessor. He said it was time to “once again put science at the top of our agenda.” Science is about facts and evidence, he said, that “are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology.”

It's about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it's inconvenient—especially when it's inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States.

One area where the Bush administration flagrantly ignored scientific evidence was reproductive policy. They rejected any change that the Religious Right mistakenly assumed would encourage gay or premarital sex. This included their outright refusal to allow the sale of Plan B One-Step, the morning after contraceptive pill, to anyone without a prescription in 2004, and their refusal to allow sale without a prescription to minors in 2006.

Of course, politics would never trump science with the Jackass Party in power, right?

The other day, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced that the Obama administration would reject the unanimous recommendation of the scientific advisory board of the Food and Drug Administration that Plan B be made available to teenage girls without a prescription.

In defending the decision, President Obama said that Secretary Sebelius was not sure that “a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old” would be able to understand how to use the product. The age reference is pure propaganda, considering how unlikely it is that a 10- or 11-year-old will first have sex, then be able to afford the $40-50 per dose fee, and, finally, find a pharmacist willing to sell it to her. But what is particularly upsetting thing about the President's statement is that the FDA conducted studies specifically to test teenagers' understanding of how to take the pill. The FDA Commissioner wrote:

CDER (Center for Drug Evaluation and Research) carefully considered whether younger females were able to understand how to use Plan B One-Step. Based on the information submitted to the agency, CDER determined that the product was safe and effective in adolescent females. . . . Additionally, the data supported a finding that adolescent females could use Plan B One-Step properly without the intervention of a healthcare provider.

Not only did Sebelius and Obama ignore this advice, they dishonestly spoke as if such research had never been done.

It's hard to believe that the President will pick up any votes from the Religious Right as a result of this decision. But with the way the 2012 campaign is shaping up—with the Elephant Party choosing among candidates who seem to lack an accurate conception of reality, and with no challenger from the progressive side—the President apparently feels free to poke his most loyal supporters in the eye with a sharp stick any time he feels like it.

Finally, let me give a shout-out to Marie McCullough, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette now has a cooperative relationship with the Inquirer, which undoubtedly allowed them both to lay off some reporters, but which resulted in her article being published in Pittsburgh. After describing pressure from the manufacturer to approve the sale of the drug, she made the following comment:

On the other side of the campaign were conservative religious and political groups. They believed easy access to contraception would lead teenagers to have earlier, riskier sex; overuse the backup method while neglecting more reliable birth control; avoid consulting physicians; and become victims of sexual abuse. With about a thousand studies of emergency contraception now in the medical literature, there is no evidence to support these beliefs, but conservatives continue to hold them. (Italics mine)

We live in a media environment in which reporters and editors slavishly follow a norm of false balancing in which every political opinion, no matter how far-fetched, is treated as equally credible, and reporters never mention evidence to suggest which side of a political controversy is factually correct. Ms. McCullough is to be congratulated. I hope she doesn't lose her job.