By: adam weseloh
A Historical Prospective
Duarte et al. (2015) noted that psychology was once a politically diverse field with and it has largely disappeared in the last 50 years. While the majority of psychologists identified as liberal there was still a strong minority of conservative psychologists. When looking at social and personality psychologists, they are on average more liberal than the general population (Inbar & Lammers 2012).
How Prevalent is Liberal Bias?
Haidt (2012 ) proposed a simple question to room of personality and social psychologist. In a room of close to 1000 social and personality psychologists 3 Conservatives self-identified. About 20 identified as Moderate and 12 as Libertarian. While this may seem surprising to some it is important to quantify how liberal psychologist truly are. When evaluating the spectrum of I ideologies (Inbar & Lammers 2012) found a liberal slant exist for social issues, economic issues, and foreign policy issues.
Self-selection?
Self- selection as it relates to this topic involves people who are more politically liberal selecting psychology as a profession because of the inherent traits it involves. In addition to this, some research showed discrimination of conservatives by liberal colleagues. There appears to be several different components that factor into reasons why there is lack of conservatives in psychology. Duarte et al. 2015 noted that self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination.
Conclusion
While several studies showed evidence for a liberal bias or a potential for bias as in Inbar and Lammer (2012). We need to better understand the impact of having a majority of one political party in a profession has. Conservatives were more likely to experience a hostile climate and face discrimination in a job hiring task based on their beliefs. This would seem to indicate that there is some evidence for a liberal bias.
References:
- Haidt, J., Jussim, L., (2016). Psychological science and viewpoint diversity. Retrieved from http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/psychological-science-and-viewpoint-diversity#.WPD4U_krLIV
- Inbar, Y., Lammers,J., (2012). Political diversity in social and personality psychology. Academic Psychology. 7(5). 496-503.
- Prentice, D.A., (2012). Liberal norms and their discontents. Academic Psychology. 7(5). 516-518.