II. Personality, Biology
& Politics, 2011
Personality
Biology:
Biology,
General:
1. Why have political scientists seemed so reluctant to study the
biological bases of social & political behavior? Practical, moral, historical issues? Are we reopening a
moral can of worms that is better left untouched? You might skim Suhay’s
paper, “ When
Does Biology Justify Ideology?” for clues to this question.
2. Why should political scientists care about
biology? What kinds of useful scientific or philosophical insights
might a greater knowledge of biology provide political scientists?
3. How might your own research benefit from the study of genetics and
politics?
Genetics
Research: John R. Alford, Carolyn L. Funk, and John R. Hibbing, 2005,
2008; Charney, 2008.
1. Why focus on genetics? What are the
findings of Alford et al about the degree to which heredity versus the
environment explains individual variation in political & social
attitudes? Which attitudes have a high heredity component &
which do not?
2. What are the implications for AFH’s findings for
the study of political behavior—e.g., environmental determinism, the properties
of heritable attitudes, political ideologies, human nature & rational
choice theories?
3. Why use twin studies? What are the
potential strengths and weaknesses of twin studies? Of AFH’s methodology,
broadly speaking?
4. How would you “score” the debate between Charney & AFH? In what important ways
has the position of AFH in response to Charney shifted
from their 2005 article?
5. You
might skim Suhay’s other paper, “The
Equal Environment Assumption in Twin Studies of Political Traits…”
for chinks in the armor of the methodology used to estimate the heritability of
political traits.
6. In another “Comment” (not required!) by AFH,
score the authors’ response to Beckwith & Morris, in the December 2008
issue of Perspectives on Politics, with respect to two issues:
a.
“whether widespread acceptance of the
fact that genetics plays an influential role in accounting for variations in
human behavior will make the world a better or worse place” (p. 796).
b.
and some of the limitations of their
methodology raised by Beckwith & Morris and point to some ways of improving
inferences based on various methods (employed by Fowler et al and AFH’s own
ongoing [unreported] research). How well does Fowler et al’s research address these issues?
Peter K. Hatemi, et al. 2010. A Genome-Wide Analysis of Liberal and Conservative Political
Attitudes.
7. Which
genes are associated with liberalism-conservatism, according to Hatemi (2010)
in his “A Genome-Wide Analysis
of Liberal and Conservative Political Attitudes.” Which
genes are linked to big differences in liberal-conservative attitudes?
a.
What are Hatemi’s
speculations about why particular genes are linked to liberal-conservative
differences?
b.
If this is a good
example of the state-of-the-art methodology for detecting biological markers
that underlie genetic covariation, what’s the chance of pinpointing the actual
biological mechanisms? To what extent is the genetic covariation likely to
remain a proverbial black box?
c.
Fowler & Dawes 2008. JOP
8. How do Fowler & Dawes (not required!)
contribute to the interactionist perspective in their research? How
would you explain their findings to an undergraduate class? Should
future genetics researchers be required to use a similar methodology? Why or
why not?
a.
Additional questions:
How do Fowler & Dawes take genetics research “to the next level,” how do
they improve on the AFH design?
b.
How do genes influence
turnout?
c.
How do environmental
factors interact with genetic influences to influence political behavior in
their design?
1.
How do they control for
spurious associations between genes and behavior?
2.
How does religious
activity enter into their explanation?
d.
Are the “genetic
effects” on turnout: Politically significant?
Should we care?
e.
Non-intuitive?
f.
Since genes are not
causally proximate to political behavior, can they be safely ignored?
g.
How does their
explanation improve upon current research on turnout & participation?
Oxley, et al. 2008. Political Attitudes
Vary with Physiological Traits. Science.
1. Is physical sensitivity to threat associated with political beliefs?
How do we know this, according to the authors?
2. Evaluate their findings in terms of internal and external
validity.
3. How convincing is their argument that political attitudes and responses
originate from biological sources and not socialization?
Personality
1.
To
what degree does the resurgence of biological and personality approaches in
psychology constitute a “paradigm shift” in terms of the way we normally
explain behavior, in general, and political behavior, in particular, especially
with respect to internal and environmental determinants of behavior?
2.
How
do Mondak et al and Gerber et al define theoretical constructs like personality,
traits, trait dimensions and trait structure and how do these constructs differ
from attitudes? What are the major
differences and how does this influence research in political behavior?
3.
How
do personality, biology and the environment interact to determine political
behavior, according to Mondak et al (Figure 1)?
How can personality effects help shed light on the “black box”
explanations that link biology to behavior?
Are the empirical connections between the Big Five personality dimensions
and political behavior simply a different form of “black box”? How does research on personality establish a
“much firmer and more explicit foundation for causal inference,” according to
the authors? Compare the role the
environment plays in shaping personality and political behavior in Mondak et al’s Figure 1 with the way it is studied in their
research. To what extent do their
findings match their theory?
4.
As
Mondak et al (2010) note, the early studies on political behavior and the Big
Five have been mostly silent on broader questions of theory. To what extent do Mondak et al and Gerber et
al fill this gap in the literature?
5.
What
are Gerber et al’s major findings with respect to
personality dimensions and political attitudes and how does the impact of
personality compare to the usual suspects, like education and, later,
Authoritarianism and Racial Resentment?
6.
How
do the effects of personality vary across race in Gerber et al’s
analysis and how do the authors explain the differences? Are the differences due to a weak or
culture-bound theory or “contextually different meanings” of political stimuli across
the races?