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posted by mrpg on Thursday March 01 2018, @05:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the what-if-I-have-rhinitis dept.

A new study showed a link between strong right-wing views and fear of disease and increased concern about hygiene.

The study showed that people who are more offended by bad odors are more likely to support authoritarian leaders, such as Donald Trump.

In the past, disgust at bad odors was important for survival. The scientists suggested that the disgust at unfamiliar odors may be linked to a desire to keep apart from "culturally unfamiliar" groups.

[...] In the new study, 160 people were rated on their aversion to bodily odours on a scale to one five and their responses compared to their political views. It found that each point higher on the disgust scale was associated with feeling 7.5 points more positive towards authoritarian leaders.

[...] It showed that people who were more disgusted by smells were also more likely to vote for Donald Trump than those who were less sensitive.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 01 2018, @08:23AM (18 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday March 01 2018, @08:23AM (#645677) Journal

    I haaaaaate bad smells. Absolutely loathe them. My apartment is full of those Glade plugins, though only on the lowest setting because that stuff smells bad in high concentrations too. This is probably compensation for my hearing and vision, but it's saved my life on more than one occasion (smelled the gas before anyone else did).

    And I voted Sanders in the primary, Clinton in the general, though with much disgust as I see much less daylight between her and Trump than between her and Sanders.

    So...yeah, anecdotes aren't data and n=1 makes for a crappy sample run, but there ya go. This study is another one of those "conservatives value perceived purity, liberals value perceived justice/fairness" ones that's been making the rounds for a few years.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 01 2018, @10:40AM (8 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday March 01 2018, @10:40AM (#645710) Homepage Journal

    You're a chick though. It's a simple, biological fact that chicks have a more sensitive sense of smell. Which is probably why you don't appreciate a good fart joke as much as us outdoor plumbing types.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday March 01 2018, @11:32AM (5 children)

      by Wootery (2341) on Thursday March 01 2018, @11:32AM (#645717)

      Which is probably why you don't appreciate a good fart joke as much as us outdoor plumbing types.

      Does not compute. In men there's a positive correlation between flatulence's stench and its comedic merit. If anything I'd say the function is super-linear. By your thinking, shouldn't women find it even funnier?

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 01 2018, @12:20PM (4 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday March 01 2018, @12:20PM (#645725) Homepage Journal

        Good point, that. Must be a cultural thing then.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday March 01 2018, @12:35PM (3 children)

          by Wootery (2341) on Thursday March 01 2018, @12:35PM (#645731)

          I'd say so - I imagine it ties in to gender-specific societal expectations of dignity. Men have far more leeway for gross-out laughs.

          Comediennes like Amy Schumer are sometimes tempted to base a substantial chunk of their material on this asymmetry.

          • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 01 2018, @12:44PM (2 children)

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday March 01 2018, @12:44PM (#645735) Homepage Journal

            Comediennes like Amy Schumer...

            Calling her a comedian is just over the top insulting to all comedians ever.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday March 01 2018, @12:58PM

              by Wootery (2341) on Thursday March 01 2018, @12:58PM (#645739)

              I'm not a huge fan either, she's just the best example of a female comedian who overuses gross-out gags.

            • (Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Thursday March 01 2018, @02:15PM

              by Oakenshield (4900) on Thursday March 01 2018, @02:15PM (#645765)

              Comediennes like Amy Schumer...

              Calling her a comedian is just over the top insulting to all comedians ever.

              Believe it or not, she used to be funny, but like a lot of people, fame went to her head and she thought it was a mandate to proselytize her politics.

    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 02 2018, @03:42AM (1 child)

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday March 02 2018, @03:42AM (#646195) Journal

      Eh...I think they're funny, it's just the actual smell that's awful. I laughed myself stupid the other day after I ripped ass in front of the air purifier and saw it go instantly from blue to red and spin up to turbo mode, and then went "welp, when the robot uprising happens, that's why they're gonna kill me." Because my inner child is still about 8 years old apparently?

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Wootery on Thursday March 01 2018, @11:28AM (5 children)

    by Wootery (2341) on Thursday March 01 2018, @11:28AM (#645716)

    This study is another one of those "conservatives value perceived purity, liberals value perceived justice/fairness" ones that's been making the rounds for a few years.

    Because it's true. Give people a bad smell, and they'll reliably fill in your political questionnaire with more conservative answers.

    Of course, Strong Right-Wing Views May Be Driven by a Fear of Disease is still stupid. Psychoanalysis is never a substitute for a proper refutation.

    Also, the summary is wrong to state that this is a new discovery. [newscientist.com] As you say, people like Jonathan Haidt have been writing about this for at least 6 years.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by VLM on Thursday March 01 2018, @09:17PM (4 children)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 01 2018, @09:17PM (#645996)

      Because it's true. Give people a bad smell, and they'll reliably fill in your political questionnaire with more conservative answers.

      Of course, Strong Right-Wing Views May Be Driven by a Fear of Disease is still stupid. Psychoanalysis is never a substitute for a proper refutation.

      Its a desperate attempt to sanitize the report into goodthink and away from badthink. All good people must love antifa riots and defecation filled homeless people and smelly alcoholics asking for spare change because it would be badthink not to like them, therefore theres a lot of abstract handwavy about why people think conservative when they smell stink. The reality is somewhat simpler, "oh god the smell, can't some strong man get rid of these stinkers?" Interpret "get rid of' how you want, and strong man is never going to be a leftist, not in this country, LOL.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @10:47PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @10:47PM (#646058)

        You so dumb, so very very dumb, you have a brain but its missing from your skull bum bum bum bum
        It went down the street bum bum bum bum to get a drink and forget its wooooes
        On it goes bum bum bum bum, traveling as far away as it can geeeeettt bum bum bum bum

      • (Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Friday March 02 2018, @01:38AM (2 children)

        by i286NiNJA (2768) on Friday March 02 2018, @01:38AM (#646151)

        I like knowing I can lose my job and there'll be enough for me to pull the pieces together and bounce back.

        Doesn't mean I'm pleased that there's a subculture devoted to exploiting charity and welfare for the purposes of staying wasted all day. They'd be in the red states except the police there are free to beat these guys to death without consequence and there is no social safety net for them to exploit. They wouldn't exist at all except some senile old republican movie cowboy destroyed our national mental health system and turned blue population centers into free range sanitariums.

        Hopefully we wise up and build a wall before your cash starved governments and economies collapse sending waves of refugees our way. If we can keep you folks where you are the red states will be nice places for cheap beach resorts and tax free booze after you sour our relationship with Mexico.

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Friday March 02 2018, @02:42PM (1 child)

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 02 2018, @02:42PM (#646380)

          They'd be in the red states except

          They'd die of exposure. Where I live is very red state outside a couple university neighborhoods and right now its many degrees below zero. According to google its only 50F in LA at this moment but looks like nice mid 70s next week. You can guess which town's sidewalks are covered in Hepatitis infected human poop. Given a long enough time period its possible that civilization is sustainable in areas with nice weather and nice geography. Look how nice Africa is and in millennia its never advanced up to the wheel in most areas (pre colonial, colonialism was a great civilization boost to Africa, until the whites gave up and the continent slid back). Its possible that on long term average, advanced civilization is not possible south of 40 degrees north.

          They wouldn't exist at all except some senile old republican movie cowboy destroyed our national mental health system

          Wikipedia seems to disagree on that count.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalization_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]

          A good analogy of the situation is our children and grandchildren will almost certainly get heavily propagandized that Trump started both Gulf Wars in Iraq and he's solely responsible for the war in Afghanistan and it'll be doubleplus ungood badthink to notice he wasn't in office at the time or mention in public that slogan is a falsehood.

          Or a better analogy with the situation that's almost contemporary to the problem, it would be like giving President Ford 100% total responsibility for the entire total experience of the Vietnam War merely because the last battle where Saigon fell happened during his term. Or honestly its so far fetched its almost like giving Carter total credit for the entire Vietnam War.

          I don't contest that Carter passed a budget trying in a small way to reverse a quarter century of steady deinstitutionalization, then two years later Reagan saw it was pointless and essentially reversed Carter's last spasm, putting the process back on track and ending the argument apparently semi-permanently, at least so far, but the winds of change and all that, the war was over and lost in the 60s and Reagan had virtually nothing to do with the fight. His position was like a boxing referee ending the fight when one boxer KO'd the other but the KOed guy wasn't totally out he was kinda moaning or something, I mean technically you can complain he could have done extend and pretend forever until the de-deinstitutionalization people (re-institutionalization, I guess) somehow reversed the course of an industry, but that wasn't realistic. He merely happened to be in office a decade after the war was lost and was present at the final mopping up operation.

          It was very educational to learn about from a propaganda viewpoint. I've certainly been indoctrinated in the media for decades that its all Reagans fault, Reagan is the root of all evil, blah blah and with minimal research that tired but popular old meme is example 246278909761 of outright propaganda fake news.

          • (Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Friday March 02 2018, @11:32PM

            by i286NiNJA (2768) on Friday March 02 2018, @11:32PM (#646701)

            You don't live in a red state unless you're talking about the former USSR. Anyhow it was freezing here last week and the crackheads were still out and about.
            Let me pull out a good Internet Research Agency classic and declare myself winner of this argument because you cited wikipedia.

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday March 01 2018, @09:27PM (2 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 01 2018, @09:27PM (#646007)

    I haaaaaate bad smells. Absolutely loathe them.

    Yeah, you know in the context of the article claims, that is kinda funny, because you know how you can always find the gay republican by finding the only republican who very loudly claims to dislike gays? It was sure like that decades ago when I was in the Army, as another example.

    I'm just sayin I happen to know someone who ridiculously loudly claims to dislike what is the now-mainstream 1488 wing of the Republican Party. Disgust at bad odors one day, Roman salutes the next day, stranger things have happened... Sometimes sub-conscious feelings know a truth long before its consciously acknowledged.

    Now don't fly all off the handle at me as usual, I'm typing this in the spirit of spirited debate, fellowship, and good humor, etc.

    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 02 2018, @03:10AM (1 child)

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday March 02 2018, @03:10AM (#646180) Journal

      Point is, I don't have the "conservative" mindset, but am one of those people who reacts to smells the way "conservatives" supposedly do. Oddly, I do *not* have the same type of visceral reaction to images of gore and death, and blood doesn't faze me at all, possibly from having seen too much of my own outside its proper container over the years.

      In other words, this one single method literally does not pass the sniff test.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Friday March 02 2018, @01:39PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 02 2018, @01:39PM (#646342)

        I've never been much of a fan of anecdote as data, although in this case I think we both finally have something we can agree on, that the "study" is entertaining to talk about, but is little more than clickbait. Have a nice day!