Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve

Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday August 13, 2003
The Guardian

A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".
As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.

All of them "preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality".

Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1017546,00.html

by conservatives bears out what was reported. The conservatives don't like any hint of negative assessment--it has to be all good or all bad--just the sort of "no gray area" behavior the report describes.

Please review DU's rules regarding posting of copyrighted material--a maximum of four paragraphs may be excerpted.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules.html#copyright

Thanks,

Dirk - DU Moderator

Wasn't this already posted in the "Economic Issues" forum too?

Should have checked there too, huh?

This is a very interesting article. Thanks for the info!!

A brief article an't really present a study completely enough to know if it's valid. If is is, I'd like to print it out for my own archives.

Dug out a link to a pdf copyfrom the Principal author's personal web site: http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/Jost/_private/Political_Conservatism_as_Motivated_Social_Cognition.pdf