Zach Goldberg Profile picture
Wokeness Studies scholar researching all things woke @ManhattanInst. All views are my own.
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Dec 19, 2023 6 tweets 4 min read
1/3 Most studies of the relationship between big 5 personality traits and political ideology examine the effects of broad or domain-level traits (e.g. 'Conscientiousness', 'Agreeableness'). However, the results of such studies can be misleading insofar as groups may have different or opposite scores on facets within those domain-level traits. For example, if liberals score higher than conservatives on the 'compassion' facet of agreeableness, and conservatives higher than liberals on the 'politeness' facet, these differences are likely to offset, resulting in a domain-level correlation with ideology that is small or indistinguishable from zero.

Given this issue, a relatively recent paper opted to examine the domain-level AND facet-level relationships with ideology. The chart below (you'll probably have to zoom in) visualizes/summarizes the estimates of these relationships.Image 2/3

Together, studies 1 and 2 found that A) the Openness (vs. Intellect) facet of Openness/Intellect (aka 'Openness to Experience) to be the strongest predictor of ideological liberalism. In fact, net of Openness, Intellect had no influence on ideology; B) after Openness, the 'Withdrawal' facet of Neurotism and the 'Compassion' facet of Agreeableness emerged as the 2nd and 3rd strongest positive predictors of ideological liberalism; and C) all facets of Conscientiousness were positively predictive of ideological conservatism, though the facet of 'Orderliness' showed a stronger relationship than that of 'Industriousness'; D) Some facets of extraversion appear to be mildly predictive of conservativism, which is interesting given that past studies have not found domain-level extraversion to be an ideologically-relevant trait.

Study 4, which utilized a different personality inventory, provides a substantive replication of these results: A) Aesthetic sensitivity, which is part of the 'Openness' facet, emerged as the strongest positive predictor of left-wing/liberal ideological orientations. Intellectual curiosity also has an independent positive influence, but one that is half the size of Aesthetic sensitivity; B) the Compassion and Respectfulness facets of Agreeableness were again positively predictive of left-wing/liberal and right-wing/conservative ideology, respectively; C) while comparatively more weakly, the Depression (and, to a smaller extent, Anxiety) facet of Neuroticism showed a significant positive association with left-wing/liberal ideology; D) All facets of consciousness were positively predictive of right-wing/conservative ideology, though 'Productiveness' was relatively more influential; E) Facets of Extraversion were again weak if significant predictors of ideology overall, though certain facets (e.g. Assertiveness) appear to point in the right-wing/conservative direction.
Nov 10, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
1/Strange. Palestinian Christians face the same oppressive occupation as their Muslim peers, and yet they are consistently vastly less likely to support acts of terrorism against Israeli civilians. Such a mystery. Image 2/2 Socioeconomic, geographic, and other demographic variables hardly explain the difference. Again, such a mystery. Wonder what it could be. Image
Aug 10, 2023 58 tweets 14 min read
1/ I'm thrilled to release my latest @ManhattanInst report, which presents findings from the most comprehensive study to date of public perceptual accuracy with respect to the prevalence and racial distribution of police use of force manhattan.institute/article/percep… 2/Until now, pretty much the only data we had on this topic was a 2021 @SkepResCenter survey, which featured a question that asked people to estimate the number of unarmed black men killed by police + the black share of deaths by police in 2019.
Jul 14, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read
1/ Similarly (and relatedly), while there are a few widening sex differences among 12th-graders on measures of depression, self-esteem, life satisfaction, self-derogation, and loneliness... https://t.co/GYpBJcbfCY
Image 2/ ...the increasing ideological differences on these measures are far larger and more numerous Image
Mar 3, 2023 9 tweets 3 min read
1/ Update of an earlier/2020 thread () with additional data+more groups: the median unarmed black police shooting victim now returns 21x the # of article results for a white victim, and 7-11x the # for Hispanic and 'other' (Asian, Native American) victims. Image 2/ 93% of black victims returned at least 1 article result vs. 60% of white, 70% of Hispanic, and 80% of 'other' victims. 40% of black victims were featured in at least 1 NYT article, as compared to 10% of white, 12% of Hispanic, and 10% of other victims.
Mar 1, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
Schools might be a good place to start. None of this appears inevitable, at least by the data showcased in my and @epkaufm's latest @ManhattanInst report Image See also this chart from the appendix Image
Feb 23, 2023 29 tweets 9 min read
1/ I'm excited to announce the release of my and @epkaufm's full @ManhattanInst report on the prevalence and effects of CSJ/CRT-related school exposure among recent high school graduates. manhattan-institute.org/school-choice-… 2/ For those that missed it, a preview of some of our main findings was previously published in @CityJournal (city-journal.org/yes-critical-r…), which I also summarized in this thread
Feb 17, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read
1/ There's been some chatter of late (most notably from @Musa_alGharbi and @balajis) about a possible 'receding' of the Great Awokening. At least as far as attitudinal trends go, it may still be too early to know for sure (I'll have a better idea when more 2022 data drops). 2/That said, here are where things currently stand in my racial liberalism index (which I assembled as part of my dissertation work). First, slope among nonwhite Dems is leveling off. Slope among white Dems still pointing upward (hence the growing gulf between them and nw dems).. Image
Feb 2, 2023 34 tweets 9 min read
1/The Dem Party is on the cusp of becoming majority-minority. However, in my first @ManhattanInst issue brief, I argue that if current trends persist, it is likely to become a maj-min. party that is inordinately and indefinitely governed by a highly educated white minority. 2/Researchers of American politics have noted a growing 'diploma divide', which is particularly pronounced among whites. Whereas a college degree (and vocab test scores) was traditionally positively associated with GOP identification among whites, this association has flipped.
Jan 12, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
1/n To continue with an earlier thread , the idea that blacks and other 'PoC' suffer higher levels of stress (on account of racism/bias) is not borne out in the data either. 2/n Indeed, across 6 different datasets/measurements, levels of self-reported stress among blacks were consistently either significantly lower or statistically indistinguishable from those reported by white respondents.
Jan 4, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
1/n These patterns are quite remarkable when one considers the rampant white supremacy and oppression that PoC regularly endure. Or perhaps this speaks more to 'white fragility' (?) 😄. 2/n Results in terms of monthly or more.
Oct 20, 2022 20 tweets 5 min read
1/ To what extent, if at all, is CRT being taught or promoted in America's pre-tertiary public schools? @epkaufm and I recently conducted a nationally representative survey of 18-20 year-olds to find out. While a full report of our findings will be published in the coming... 2/ ..months, we give you a preview of some of them in our latest @CityJournal article city-journal.org/yes-critical-r…

What follows is a summary thread.
Sep 8, 2022 59 tweets 14 min read
1/n I'm pleased to announce the release of my first (of what will hopefully be many) @ManhattanInst research publications. The current report examines racial gaps in Dem pro-depolicing attitudes through the framework of 'luxury beliefs' theory. manhattan-institute.org/is-defunding-t… 2/n What follows is a 🧵summarizing notable findings, the most interesting of which, I think, is that support for depolicing policies among white Democrats either increases or shows no sensitivity to local violent crime levels. More on this later.
Sep 2, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
1/n If 2016 was the year white liberals started rating non-whites more warmly than whites, 2020 was the year they started.. a) rating whites as more violent than blacks Image ..b) rating whites as more lazy than blacks Image
Dec 30, 2021 7 tweets 2 min read
1/n After trailing them somewhat in 2016, white Dems (51.8%) are now significantly more likely (p=0.001) than non-white Dems (43.6%) to prioritize the use of 'inclusive'/PC language over speaking frankly about issues and problems facing the country. Little change among white Reps 2/n Disaggregating the Dem racial/ethnic groups, whites are sig. more likely to give this response than blacks and hispanics, but are virtually tied with their Asian counterparts (who, as some contend, do their best to ape woke white elite sensibilities )
Dec 17, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
1/n 53% of white liberals (48% of white Dems) think that white people should feel guilty about racial inequality 2/n Needless to say, this is more or less the purpose of equity-oriented K-12 curriculums--i.e., cultivate white support for race-conscious/anti-white policies via the inculcation of collective guilt and shame.
Dec 8, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
1/n Very briefly (I'm vacationing in India atm), the 2016 CCES Team Module of American University shows that 30% of white liberals (19% white cons) don't think there ANY IQ diffs between wealthy and poor people. Among those that believe there *are* diffs.. 2/n 32.6% of white liberals (vs. ~18% of cons) indicated that genes were 'not important at all' in these differences, which was their modal response choice
Nov 26, 2021 7 tweets 2 min read
1/n Ah, forgot to give an update: I successfully defended my dissertation (in fact, fwiw, my committee members thought so much of it that they are nominating me for a best doctoral dissertation award), so I guess I’m now a ‘doctor’ 🤷‍♂️ 2/n The years of research/work I put into this dissertation will now serve as the basis for many of the articles (and ultimately the book) I’ll be writing in the months and years ahead. Tl;dr of dissertation: White guilt and shame are central to..
Nov 20, 2021 5 tweets 2 min read
1/n Someone asked me to compile these data, but I'll share them here as well: top 10 unarmed (i.e., no lethal weapon found) white vs. black deaths at the hands of police in terms of ProQuest news article search results Image 2/n Had to create separate graphs because a single graph would have obscured the bars for white victims (as below) Image
Nov 10, 2021 7 tweets 2 min read
1/2 The Mapping Police Violence database counts many cases in which off-duty police officers (for instance) murder their families or lovers (and each family member is counted as a separate victim). I mean..I get that these acts were committed by police officers. But are they.. ImageImage 2/2 ...but can they *really* be reasonably construed* as cases of lethal police force? I call bullshit.
Nov 3, 2021 7 tweets 2 min read
1/n To update an older thread , after decades of relative stability, tolerance for racist speech continues to plummet, particularly among white liberals. Tolerance among white conservatives, meanwhile, has remained relatively stable. 2/n Combined scale