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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday August 19 2015, @04:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the tell-it-like-it-is dept.

Melanie Tannenbaum has written several interesting blog posts about ambiguity intolerance and its connection to the early popular support Donald Trump is currently enjoying. Roughly speaking, people who are not comfortable without a plan of action or a path forward are said to have more ambiguity intolerance.

What may be surprising, however, is the research showing that people high in ambiguity intolerance feel so profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of uncertainty, they will often prefer a slightly negative yet certain outcome to a potentially-more-positive, uncertain one. In other words, people may find Donald Trump to be disagreeable, abrasive, or downright unlikeable. But because of his reputation for "telling it like it is" and "being honest to a fault," they also feel certain that they can believe Trump when he says he's telling the truth.

Tannenbaum points out that despite a record of Trump making contradictory comments in the past, people tend to believe his convictions on what he says because nobody would say those "non-normative" things if they really didn't believe it.


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  • (Score: 1) by Hyperturtle on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:00PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:00PM (#224975)

    Keep in mind that "Politically Correct" does not mean "Being Nice".

    One can be amazingly polite and yet use vulgar, uncouth terminology that would set one's virgin ears on fire.

    Political Correctness is nothing more than trying to fool people into thinking something else was said or state the argument presented is wrong because it does not fit some sort of ideal -- even if the argument is academically correct.

    As to Ikanreed's point, I agree with that as well. Politically correct is what matters the most in some situations, facts or not, and it was a good survival strategy in Communist Russia (and can be a good strategy for survival, if not in general, depending on the context).

    I made another post about critical thinking, and it seems that relates here as well--there is no room to critically think if there is no room in the ideology to support it. Being critical of such thinking -- that is politically correct! Be it workplace politics or something greater... Follow the leader unquestioningly, or you'll be a bad example used to show others what happens to those that question authority.