PSYCHOLOGY: ANOTHER BUNDLE OF LAUGHS

I referred recently to the Solomon, Greenberg & Pyszczynski research summarized by Judis. The interpretation of the research findings concerned was highly speculative and unparsimonious in that the effect of priming people to think about death was somehow magnified into telling us something about "worldview defense". The point of the theoretical extravaganza was of course to portray conservatives in a bad light. I suggested a more straightforward interpretation of the findings which was rather supportive of a conservative view of the world.

In the end, however, I concluded that the research concerned really told us nothing at all about anything because it was not based on any kind of representative sampling. Solomon, Greenberg & Pyszczynski obviously disagree with me on that, however, so I have found another study based on their kind of "sampling" that should interest them. A study by Shariff & Norenzayan also looked at the effect of "priming" people's perceptions. Where the Solomon, Greenberg & Pyszczynski research showed that priming people to think about death caused them to become more conservative, however, the Shariff et al. research showed that priming people to think about God caused them to become more altruistic and kinder towards others! It tends to show that Christians are nicer people, in other words. I wonder what Pyszczynski and friends think about that? One thing they CANNOT consistently do is dismiss the finding on the grounds of unrepresentative sampling!

Update:

I originally gave the wrong link for the "God" study above. Now corrected.

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ELSEWHERE

A good comment on "Bush=Hitler": "If George Bush is the fascist these people claim how come they are not at Gitmo? Actually letting them loose with their paranoia is much more fun. It is a great way to discredit their arguments. How diabolical!"

Doug Ross covers the story of the big Toronto bomb scare that the MSM are ignoring. Must not mention Muslim bombers if it can be avoided!

Big strike on Iran? "The Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians' military capability in three days, according to a national security expert. Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for "pinprick strikes" against Iran's nuclear facilities. "They're about taking out the entire Iranian military," he said. Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: "Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same." It was, he added, a "very legitimate strategic calculus".

Surprised "analysts": "American combat deaths in Iraq have dropped by one third in the three months since the buildup of 28,000 additional U.S. troops reached full strength, surprising analysts and dividing them as to why. U.S. officials had predicted that the increase would lead to higher American casualties as the troops "took the fight to the enemy." But that hasn't happened, even though U.S. forces have launched major offensives involving thousands of troops north and south of Baghdad. However, while the U.S. combat casualties have dropped to their lowest levels this year, violence involving Iraqis remains high".

Wheel reinvented: "Michael Keane, professor of economics at the University of Technology, Sydney, said a person's future earning capacity could be determined at the age of five and sealed by the age of 16. His research, presented at the university last night, found that IQ tests on five-year-olds could predict whether they would complete high school and go on to university. "If you know the kid's IQ test scores at age five, that is a better predictor than the parents' IQ or income," he told the Herald yesterday. "The only sort of intervention that economists have found that seems to have a large impact on subsequent labour market outcomes are these kind of early childhood high-quality day-care interventions," Professor Keane said. "There is no evidence of any adverse effects on kids of formal child care. It would seem logical for government to focus more resources in that direction."

Sh*t-hiding bird a symbol of Leftism: "The beaver is one of Canada's national symbols and now a senior Liberal wants to make the puffin the symbol of the country's self-proclaimed natural governing party. Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff says the industrious little seabird -- with its black and white plumage, distinctive striped beak and orange feet -- is a "noble'' creature that exemplifies Liberal values. "It's a noble bird because it has good family values. They stay together for 30 years,'' Ignatieff said Thursday outside a Liberal caucus retreat in the Newfoundland capital. "They lay one egg (each year). They put their excrement in one place. They hide their excrement. ... They flap their wings very hard and they work like hell. "This seems to me a symbol for what our party should be.'' [Far be it for me to disagree]

Barbarians kill as West drifts : As Islamist terrorism, however despicable, became mundane occurrence in the daily news cycle, the deafening silence of Muslims -- except for lonely voices of feeble opposition -- has given credence to growing numbers of non-Muslims that Islam is as much a religion of peace as the Klansmen's politics is an expression of multiculturalism. But there is another side to this abject reality. The Muslim majority's silence is greatly compounded by the appeasement mentality in the West of the mainstream liberal-left media, politicians trolling for ethnic votes and bureaucrats running public institutions.... There is now a pattern in al-Qaida bombings arranged to influence American public opinion during key moments in public policy debates and general elections. But the liberal-left media, such as the New York Times, remains fixated with faulting the Bush administration for the savagery of Islamists while providing oxygen to apologists of terror spinning their endless refrain of "root cause" being oil and Israel for violence originating in the Middle East."

Market Signals Relieve Pain At The Pump: "Many summer headlines have been bemoaning high gas prices, but now that prices are falling, the pundits are strangely silent. While Congress struggles to address the issue, prices are coming down on their own and should continue to do so in the coming months. This good news is worth sharing. This past spring, prices at the pump hit an all-time nominal high, averaging $3.22 per gallon nationwide. Refinery maintenance troubles and oil production constraints kept gas prices high in the face of rising summer demand. In response to booming markets, suppliers imported more gasoline from abroad, and refiners and blenders produced more domestically. As the free market economists say, "The cure for high prices is high prices." The summer season demand at these higher prices in turn signaled producers to increase output, causing prices to fall. Most recently, gasoline prices have averaged $2.75 per gallon, a 15% drop from the high reached this spring. American gasoline production and imports went up, and prices went down."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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