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Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Conservative More Honest?

(Hat tip: Holy Hyrax) Note: After taking a test Moshe sent me yesterday, I discovered I'm a "conservative-leaning centrist", despite being a registered Democrat. So I might be biased, but Pew isn't:

Is it OK to cheat on your taxes? A total of 57 percent of those who described themselves as “very liberal” said yes in response to the World Values Survey, compared with only 20 percent of those who are “very conservative.” When Pew Research asked whether it was “morally wrong” to cheat Uncle Sam, 86 percent of conservatives agreed, compared with only 68 percent of liberals.

Ponder this scenario, offered by the National Cultural Values Survey: “You lose your job. Your friend’s company is looking for someone to do temporary work. They are willing to pay the person in cash to avoid taxes and allow the person to still collect unemployment. What would you do?”

Almost half, or 49 percent, of self-described progressives would go along with the scheme, but only 21 percent of conservatives said they would.

It's an interesting piece; I think another excerpt shows the reason for this well:
Those with a “liberal outlook” who “reject the idea of absolute truth” were more accepting of cheating at school, according to another study, involving 291 students and published in the Journal of Education for Business.

A study in the Journal of Business Ethics involving 392 college students found that stronger beliefs toward “conservatism” translated into “higher levels of ethical values.” And academics concluded in the Journal of Psychology that there was a link between “political liberalism” and “lying in your own self-interest,” based on a study involving 156 adults.

Liberals were more willing to “let others take the blame” for their own ethical lapses, “copy a published article” and pass it off as their own, and were more accepting of “cheating on an exam,” according to still another study in the Journal of Business Ethics.

I think we've seen evidence of these ideas all over, including the J-blogosphere and the media in general. When people don't believe that absolute truth exists, it makes it much easier to rationalize certain actions - much more of an "ends justify the means" approach. This is true from waving off plagiarism as not a big deal to the major news media organizations justifying false stories because "the points the stories made are still important/true". Certainly one could argue that there are instances where believing in absolute truth can have negative consequences, but it does not take away from the idea that not doing so results in dishonesty, cheating, and the like. Again, it's an interesting piece, check it out.

11 comments:

  1. I think there's some truth to that (although you wouldn't know it from conservative pundits and politicians.) Conservatives tend to be more rule-oriented. This is a good thing when the rules are good and a bad thing when they're not.

    So yeah, maybe liberals are more likely to cheat on a test, but conservatives are more likely to "just follow orders."

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  2. So yeah, maybe liberals are more likely to cheat on a test, but conservatives are more likely to "just follow orders."

    As with anything, there's a balance. But I'd err on the rules side more often than the other - rules are generally made because they are meant to cover the majority of situations. There are exceptions to everything, so it's important to think and determine where those are, but as a base set? Conservatism seems to have the advantage.

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  3. Personally conservative and socially liberal is the best balance, I think.

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  4. Live by a set of rules yourself, but don't insist that everybody else live by the same set. For example, I prefer monogamous relationships, and I think they're generally a superior idea. However, if someone else wants to be polygamous, that's up to them. I don't smoke crack, but if someone else wants to, that's his business.

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  5. Live by a set of rules yourself, but don't insist that everybody else live by the same set.

    But doesn't that depend on the rules?

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  6. But doesn't that depend on the rules?

    I'm only talking about victimless crimes. I think people should make their own rules about that.

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  7. Conservatives often have religious tendencies. Or else an internal sense of personal responsibility. Studies have also found that they give humongously more charity. It all threads through.

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  8. JA - But that's essentially what I think most conservatives believe, or at least the ones I know. (The line, not the specific examples - one could argue that crack has a detrimental effect on society, and polygamous relationships do as well because of the emotions etc. involved. There was an interesting article a few months back on "Friends with benefits" which is to some extent the same thing as polygamy.) I think it's hard to find many examples which solely effect an individual's own self. I'm sure the most common example is homosexuality, and I think that even most religious conservatives aren't interested in raiding people's bedrooms; they just don't want it in the public eye.

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  9. This is true from waving off plagiarism

    Careful, we wouldn't want to offend anybody.

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  10. But that's essentially what I think most conservatives believe, or at least the ones I know.

    I think it's just the ones you know. Jewish conservatives are atypical, since they tend to, for example, be urban, educated, and not WASPs.

    they just don't want it in the public eye.

    That would be "public"ly conservative, then.

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