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Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
Many commentators considered President Obama’s reversal on same-sex marriage an act of courage. But this isn’t how the public usually perceives moral mind-changers, according to a team led by Tamar Kreps at the University of Utah. Their findings0 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggest that leaders who shift from a moral stance don’t appear brave – they just look like hypocrites.
The researchers conducted 15 studies, of which I’ll focus on one example that illustrates the core approach. Nearly 800 participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk read scenarios where a member of the US Congress took a stance on either the death penalty or same-sex marriage. In some cases, their stance was pragmatic, indicated in their statement through phrases like “it’s a matter of not having to invest in the cost of changing government systems”. In other cases the justification for the stance was moral – “it’s a matter of justice.”
Participants rated their initial feelings about the politician and then learned that he or she had since changed their tune, again making a statement based on either pragmatic or moral reasons. For example, a statement might read “It’s still a moral issue for me…I’ve realized, though, that we can never be 100 per cent certain that the convicted party is guilty, and truly defending justice means never taking the risk of killing an innocent victim.” Finally, participants rated the politicians again.
When their initial stance was moral rather than pragmatic, the political leaders suffered costs and gained no benefits after changing their moral mind. Participants rated them as less effective, less worthy of support and more hypocritical, with the intensity of hypocrisy driving the other two negative judgments. Even those participants who agreed with moral mind-changers’ new position saw them as hypocritical, although slightly less so than other participants. At the same time, moral mind changers were seen as no more courageous, effective, or worthy of support, compared to the congress men and women who changed their initial pragmatically grounded position.
0Hypocritical flip-flop, or courageous evolution? When leaders change their moral minds. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000103)
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 01 2018, @09:17PM (2 children)
No. Trump's supporters won't abandon him because of sunk cost fallacy, plus some confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance.
Case in point, rewind 4 years. How did you react when President Obama...
1) Bowed to foreign leaders, such as the King of Saudi Arabia
2) Increase the US deficit by $1-trillion
3) Played something like 10-hours of golf each week
4) Appointed industry CEOs as regulators for their overseers
5) Refused to take questions from Fox news
6) Took money foreign governments in return for of special treatment
7) Had a policy of forcibly separating children from their families
8) Refused to divest himself of his private fortune, or reveal his financial entanglements or interests
Oh... wait... most of those are President Trump. So that makes it okay, doesn't it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 01 2018, @10:15PM
9) Continued the 7+ military interventions overseas
10) Continued the TSA
11) Continued the drug war
12) Continued the NSA's unconstitutional mass surveillance
etc.
Remember, it's not just what new things a president does that matters, but what practices they continue.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 02 2018, @12:11AM
I only voted for Trump to stop Hillary from continuing her felonies. I figured Trump would be useless, ineffective, and quite possibly as liberal as Hillary. Boy was I wrong! Trump turned out to be wonderful. He's in the running for best president ever. He clearly beats everybody since 1900 except possibly Ford, Reagan, and Theodore Roosevelt. Obama and Hillary make Nixon look saintly. Addressing your list:
1. Obama bowed to foreign leaders. So far, I am unaware of Trump having done so. On several comparable occasions, he notably did not.
2. The deficit... is complicated. It's a hazard.
3. Golf is fine. If you are golfing with China's Xi, as Trump did, it is probably good. Trump owns the course anyway, so he is just enjoying his yard.
4. Industry CEOs can be the best or worst, entirely depending on if they are willing to sever any connections that would be a conflict of interest. Both Trump and Obama did this, and there is no reason to complain.
5. Obama did refuse to take questions from Fox News. CNN gets all bent out of shape when Trump sometimes chooses others over them. CNN is abusive to Trump; they don't deserve a press pass.
6. Taking money from foreign governments... say what? That was Clinton era.
7. Obama continued to enforce a pre-existing law that required children to be separated, as did Trump, but then Trump got around it by speeding up the processing to beat the deadline imposed by the law.
8. Trump has the larger private fortune here, but it is shrinking as it ought to. Obama somehow got rich on a salary that would be rejected by any normal CEO in America. Of course, the one with the really disturbing financial secrets lost an election to Trump.