Reply #26: That's Classic Projection--REPUTABLE Testing Has Shown that

[Demeter]

Conservatives are suffering from real, diagnosible and treatable mental illness.

What motivates Conservatives

Several researchers have arrived at an explanation of the underlying
motivations for taking conservative attitudes.


Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about
the psychology of conservatism report that


at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a
tolerance for inequality,


and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political
conservatism include:


Fear and aggression


Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity


Uncertainty avoidance


Need for cognitive closure


Terror management


"From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of
contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either
independently or in combination," the researchers wrote in an article,
"Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," recently published
in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin.


The avoidance of uncertainty, for example, as well as the striving for
certainty, are particularly tied to one key dimension of conservative
thought - the resistance to change or hanging onto the status quo, they
said.


The terror management feature of conservatism can be seen in post-Sept. 11
America, where many people appear to shun and even punish outsiders and
those who threaten the status of cherished world views, they wrote.


Concerns with fear and threat, likewise, can be linked to a second key
dimension of conservatism - an endorsement of inequality, a view reflected
in the Indian caste system, South African apartheid and the conservative,
segregationist politics of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-South S.C.).


http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml


Of course we know that conservatives will not accept this, because they
don't like scientists.


From the Washington Monthly
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0307.thompson.html


http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2007/09/20/liberal-conservative-brain-differences/