Thread by @JeffreyASachs

Interesting article on "woke" rhetoric, electability, and policy support from @RichardHanania George Hawley, and @epkaufm. It also gets at something I think is important about political correctness.

A quick thread.

psyarxiv.com/uzkvf/

The gist of the paper: White people are read Kirsten Gillibrand quotes about white privilege, affirmative action, and reparations. If they're libs, they grow a bit more liberal, but if cons or mods, they grow MUCH more conservative. Here's a good summary:

heterodoxacademy.org/social-science…

So far, so clear. Lib(con) PC speech is generally a turn-off for con(lib) voters. It makes the speaker appear strategic and inauthentic, a dynamic that played out to Trump's benefit in 2016.

link.springer.com/article/10.100…

jspp.psychopen.eu/article/view/7…

BUT! There's a twist.

Hanania, et. al. also find that while "woke" rhetoric about white privilege (WP) and reparations decreases support for Gillibrand, it *increases* support for those ideas/policies themselves. The WP effect is small, but the reparations increase is not.

In other words, "By taking left-wing positions on race, Democrats may suffer consequences at the ballot box but help move the American public further left."

Folks, we've seen this dynamic before.

Hundreds of people are paired off and told to debate race. In some pairs, one partner is told to be PC. In others, they're told to be un-PC. Afterwards, the other half of each pair is asked for their impressions of their partner.

static1.squarespace.com/static/5c171ac…

No surprise, the un-PC person comes across as cold but sincere, while the PC person is nice but fake. Just like we expect.

But here's the kicker: *the PC person was more persuasive*. Something about the approach works. I don't know what, but it does.

This is significant. It suggests that there may be a trade-off between authenticity and persuasiveness. That trade-off may not be worth it if you're a politician looking for votes, but if you're an activist and all you care about is changing minds, PC could be a winning strategy.

But the kind and method of PC matters. In the cases above, people were *exposed* to PC speech, but not coerced into adopting it themselves. In fact, coercive PC norms may actually create blowback, entrenching the targeted belief.

researchgate.net/publication/51…

Though I hasten to add that even when coerced, there are contexts where PC norms may be welcomed and used to resolve ongoing problems. There's no one-size-fits-all answer to the PC question.

faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/chatman/papers…

Moreover, subtle changes in language, even when introduced artificially, may influence social norms. E.g. use of a new gender neutral pronoun in Swedish reduces feelings of sexism and homophobia.

(Not endorsing this paper, but it is interesting)

pnas.org/content/116/34…

And for a general rundown of the effects of politically correct-vs.-politically incorrect language on beliefs and behavior (e.g. in jury instructions, job descriptions, etc.), see here.

pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e014/a42614c66…

OK, so why does any of this matter? Well, we all know there's been a huge shift in public opinion on issues like race and gender. The "Great Awokening", etc. It's concentrated among white libs, but by no means exclusively. Even some cons are changing.

pewsocialtrends.org/2019/01/17/gen…

The question is whether various "woke" tactics are causing this shift, are merely expressions of it, or (worst of all) are parasitic on it.

We know what anti-SJW critics believe. Frankly, some of their arguments have merit. See the Legault, et. al. article above.

But it's quite likely that the opposite is also true and that PC norms, among other woke tactics, are genuinely part of the reason that so many people are shifting leftward on issues of race, gender, sexuality, and immigration. Which, if correct, seems significant.