Thread by @clim8resistance

"People with extremist views less able to do complex mental tasks, research suggests"

"... people with extremist attitudes tended to think about the world in black and white terms..."

Now we know why the Graun struggles to do journalism.

Paging Greta.

theguardian.com/science/2021/f…

"Participants who are prone to dogmatism – stuck in their ways and relatively resistant to credible evidence – actually have a problem with processing evidence even at a perceptual level, the authors found."

They were just trolling the Guardian.

'“For example, when they’re asked to determine whether dots [as part of a neuropsychological task] are moving to the left or to the right, they just took longer to process that information and come to a decision,” Zmigrod said.'

That said, I'm calling bullshit on this.

Here's why...

"People who leant towards the politically conservative tended to go for the slow and steady strategy, while political liberals took a slightly more fast and furious, less precise approach."

Psychologists impose their own political categories. >>

>> On its own terms, it's self-defeating bunk, partly because academic psychology is dominated by left wing orthodoxy.

You see, it's right, but it's wrong:

"political liberals took a slightly more fast and furious, less precise approach."

Academic psychology of this kind is nothing more than institutionalised self-justification. Yet it makes BIG promises, and pimps itself to government and other agencies.

It's a scam. Its 'insight' is pure bullshit.

I mean, who knew that contemporary left wing radicals tend to recklessness, whereas conservatives tend to cautiousness?

But there the prosaic influence of personality ends - just after it had told us nothing, but claimed a link between personality and ideology.

'The “psychological signature” for extremism across the board was a blend of conservative and dogmatic psychologies, the researchers said.'

Of course it was. Because that's what the "researchers" fear most, and which is the most different from the "researchers".

They didn't *actually* find any *actual* extremists.

They just invented a category.

They might just have invented a category called "SMELLS OF WEE AND HAS NO FRIENDS AND WE HATE THEM".

'The study, which looked at 16 different ideological orientations, could have profound implications for identifying and supporting people most vulnerable to radicalisation across the political and religious spectrum.'

Y'see -- this is their pitch to the state.

I would put psychologists (and journalists) who believe that psychometrics can identify individuals tendency towards 'extremism', so as to focus the state's intervention, into a category of political extremism.

The category is not without historical precedent.