Book Review: The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

The book The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt moves into the psychology of political parties and political persuasion. People naturally accuse the other parties of not thinking clearly and following logic. Each views the other as duped! Yet in his work, he points out that since there are strong logical arguments that follow most parties, these rational choices are based on their intuition. The logic seems to follow as people find justification for their choices. This makes changing one’s ideological views very difficult for many people. 

Jonathan Haidt, University of Virginia social psychologist, believes that people first have intuition and then rational choice. That rational choice is based upon people’s intuition and subject to it. He does not discuss those who can find multiple paths to rationality, understand the various arguments, and find validity in each of these arguments to think critically about ideology. It would require a level of stepping outside oneself without the bias we all hold onto so dearly.

This stands to reason for many people that fall within the middle curve of human perception. It would seem that biological and social self-interest would dictate our behaviors. Yet each of these parties were started by great men who thought outside of conventional standards. Whether we agree with their logic or not it would seem that those who started the philosophies were pioneers who helped people view the world in different ways.  However, as a social psychologist looking at the middle of the bell curve Dr. Glaucon would be correct in his social based analysis of human nature. 

The book appears to be more of a personal self-quest for truth that makes it fun to read. Dr. Glaucon is a supporter of liberalism and searches for knowledge and understanding within his work. From the book, we can also see a leaning to libertarianism as the authors other justifiable approach to politics. It would seem that the author likes the concepts of personal choice and ideologically finds value in the left liberals and the right libertarians. This choice comes from the belief that the rights of individuals supersede governmental needs. Fewer restrictions are better in his perspective.

The book uses ethnography, evolutionary theory and experimental psychology to understand human nature. For the vast majority of people they quickly come to conclusions when asked ethical questions and then move onto justifying their answers using poor logic. It is a rare exception for someone to spend significant time thinking, weighing, and balancing all the possible options and choices. We as a species are subject to quick heuristics and intuitive responses without much scientific or thought to these questions.

He provides explanations of basic value systems that seem to make up the two largest political parties. Republicans focus on faith, patriotism, valor, chastity, law and order while Democrats focus more on caring and fighting oppression. Each is seen as having valid arguments based in the early life experiences provided by family, friends, and social networks. Most people grow up assuming their particular ideologies are correct unless they are forced to question them. This may be one of the reasons why it is difficult to change the way people believe using only logical arguments without a deeper level of appeal.

According to the book, people are becoming more polarized with less of the population in the middle and more people moving to the extremes on either ideological side. Such shifts are considered tribal and group pushes for social network adherence.  At the very lowest level of our personality are a number of factors that include threat sensitivity, novelty seeking, extroversion, and conscientiousness. These traits stay consistent throughout our lifetimes and influences the type of political leanings a person adopts. The traits lead us in particular directions that can be difficult to adjust or change unless the environment provides alternative methods of fulfilling these personality traits in new ways. When the environment encourages us to accept and propagate certain values as truths, many of us will do so without question.

The book is separated into three categories that includes Intuition, a wider understanding of morality, and the blindness of ideology. Each section has approximately four chapters that provide justification for each of the author's beliefs and theoretical points. The book will moves through ideology, beehive mentality, subjective nature of morality, and better ways of disagreeing with each other. It provides for a thorough understanding of human nature within a work of this size.

The book was interesting to me in understanding how people can become ideological staunch in their particular positions and beliefs. This rationality is argued in many ways with each being somewhat more logical than others based upon the depth of their personal analysis. The author himself seems to be leaning toward his own ideological beliefs rooted in his upbringing, education, and environment that becomes apparent in his choice of words. Psychologists may be more liberalism or libertarianism  due to the inherent push and focus on individual development. 

This development should be based in the development of the individual within the social context and needs of society. To me, it would seem that basic value systems proposed by religion, despite those religious ideologies, have a positive ethical benefit for society. Human psychological development is also based in part in religious and philosophical development of the individual. Each is a potential methodology of viewing human nature. Furthermore, law and ethics also has a benefit in encouraging certain behaviors that limit the ability of individuals to damage society or for society to damage individuals unfairly. Most people may agree that religion encourages positive values but people may choose to distort those messages for personal gain.

 Critical thinking requires first to understand the appeal of particular ideological stances before adopting them or countering their premises. Without this critical analysis, we are only accepting what others desire us to believe without evaluating the merits of the claims for ourselves. We must think for ourselves and accept those beliefs for ourselves if we are to own them. To persuade others requires appealing first to their emotions and then to their logic through understanding how they view the world. No matter what our ideological leanings we must ask the question “Is it possible to even have a society if people are stealing, cheating, injuring, failing to work together, being dishonest, having disrespect, or not showing a level of societal loyalty?” If there are no basic values that apply to all members of society then society may someday cease to exist as a collective whole. Yet those values should not purposely castrate individuals who desire to be part of society but have different experiences and perceptions as this would be counterproductive by nature and limit the potential of a nation by segregating people into staunch ideological understandings that damage the potential to grow and work together. First we must understand before we can change. Few things in life are as concrete as we believe them to be. 

As Abraham Lincoln stated in his famous Gettysburg Address, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Where we see ourselves divided can we also see ourselves together? Does our American culture rest in basic values that apply to all individuals despite our ideological leanings?

Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind-Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. NY: Vintage Books. ISBN: 978-0-307-45577-2

Blog Ranking: 4.6/5

Pages: Approximately 450

Price: $13

Political Moral Persuasion and Social Selection

As a human species we develop our political views with those around us who help shape our experiences, motives and attitudes through approval, information, and advice (Levitan  & Visser, 2009). Openness to persuasion depends on those who are immediately around us. The majority of people use others to evaluate and define their own beliefs and opinions.

When issues of morality come to the forefront of conscious people become more convinced of the rightness of their assumptions. Such people are less tolerant of those who disagree with them (Skitka et al, 2005) and become further beyond the influence of others outside their social networks. They double down on their convictions and begin to avoid those who disagree.

This avoidance further puts them on a particular stream of consciousness that seeks out confirming information while ignoring dis confirming information. The more alienated a person becomes from those who disagree the more they lack critical thinking skills to counter their perspectives. There is a natural push to confirm one’s morality through creating identifiable networks with similar beliefs.

Morality is open to general debate about its origin and make up. Some believe that morality arises from pure emotion that is independent of reason (Hume, 1739). Morality can also be seen as pure reason without including emotion (Kant, 1785). Evidence has supported the concept that morality is a dual process conceptualization where both emotion and cognitive assessments create moral judgments (Ben-Nun Bloom, 2009).

In all cases morality is a conclusion. It is a conclusion about how things should be and for what reason they exist. Using critical thinking and seeing multiple perspectives in any moral question brings out the ability to use both emotion and cognition to determine the “rightness” or “wrongness” of one’s conclusions. Those that are able to evaluate themselves and those within their networks can avoid the perils of group think and limited perspective.

A study conducted by Bloom and Levitan (2011) used 145 undergraduates from Stony Brook University which exposed students to two politically divisive issues. The study explored moral versus non-moral decision making as well as the heterogeneity of a person’s social network. In the study the students were first asked about their moral presumptions and their social networks. Once cued with messages they were asked to re-evaluate to see if there were any differences. 

Results: 

-Association of social network heterogeneity and morality condition.

-Three-way interaction between religiosity, network heterogeneity, and morality condition.

-Network composition and morality is valid across ideologies and different levels of moral conviction.

-When primed to think about morality issues disagreeing members were viewed less warmly when compared to when morality questions were not invoked. 

-Moral issues create a belief system that one is closer to their network. 

Analysis:

Morality is a social affair. When issues are not morally divisive people are willing to accept alternative explanations. However, when issues become more morally associated levels of alternative explanations are selected out. Those who hold varying points of view are seen as more different while those who hold the same beliefs are seen as more alike. People use their social networks to validate their beliefs and gravitate to those social networks that support their beliefs. Encampment is created as people separate themselves out into their particular social networks to validate their experiences and beliefs. 

Ben-Nun Bloom, P. (2009b). The moral public: Disgust, harm, and moral judgment. Paper presented at the meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Dublin, Ireland.

Bloom, P. & Levitan, L. (2011). We’re closer than I thought: social network heterogeneity, morality, and political persuasion. Political Psychology, 32 (4). 

Hume, D. (1978). A treatise of human nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Original work published in 1739).

Kant, I. (2002). The groundwork of the metaphysics of morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Original work published in 1785).

Levitan, L. C., & Visser, P. S. (2008). The impact of the social context on resistance to persuasion: Effortful versus effortless responses to counter-attitudinal information. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 640–649.

Skitka, L. Bauman, C., & Sargis, E. (2005). Moral conviction: Another contributor to attitude strength or something more? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 895–917.