Understanding the Republican Mindset
Have you ever wondered what would make some of the most impoverished and working class Americans in contemporary American society vote for a party that rarely has their economic interests at heart? How could religious right, who so righteously profess being the nation’s moral guide, be on the wrong side of so many moral issues?
Social psychologists point out that for every issue there are three mental components. First we have the emotional part and the intellectual part which are based on biology and experience. Then secondly we have a cognitive component. This is the knowing element, language-based and conscious in nature and potentially more rational than the affective component. The third component is the behavioral component, how one behaves in confronting an issue. The problem with this process is that a person with an affective component that differs from that of the participants in a conversation, or with no emotional involvement in the issue, finds the conversation hollow, irrational, and lacking objectivity.
In the communication of ideas, the affective component goes toward the understanding of the information exchanged. If, for example, the affective component is shared by the participants in a discussion, the amount of information that needs to be passed between them is dramatically diminished because each knows the underlying implicitness of the stated messages. What this allows is a discussion that is abbreviated, deficient in content and lacking logic, because the participants intuitively understand each other and need only vague and superficial reference to the issue in the conversation.
Since we have these major components that govern our thought processes and behavior, we have three important issues that should be addressed in understanding how the Republican mind processes information.
1. How could any rational person be against issues that are so obviously right for the country at this time, things like our failing economy, environmental issues, funding of arts and humanities, universal health-care, patient’s bill-of-rights, freedom to burn the flag if one feels so inclined, and choice regarding abortion?
2. How could any rational person be in favor of issues that are so obviously wrong for the country at this time, things like organized school prayer, prejudice against gays and other out groups, more military spending, more war, etc?
3. How could any rational person claim to be pro-life yet be supportive of taking a human life in armed conflicts?
The article below suggests Conservatives Have An Entirely Different Moral Code and if Democrats want to understand what makes people vote Republican, they must first understand the full spectrum of American moral concerns. Here is an attempt to examine how psychological sciences merges with election-day choices.
Jonathan Haidt a Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia has conducted a study and reported “that strict parenting and a variety of personal insecurities work together to turn people against liberalism, diversity, and progress. But now that we can map the brains, genes, and unconscious attitudes of conservatives, we have refined our diagnosis: conservatism is a partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible, fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty, change, and death. People vote Republican because Republicans offer “moral clarity”—a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world”.
