Government-Funded Study of Bush's Psyche Touches a Nerve

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Study of Bush's Psyche Touches a Nerve

> By Julian Borger

> The Guardian

>

> Wednesday 13 August 2003

>

> A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can

> be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in " fear and

> aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity " . As if that was

not

> enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked

> Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush

> Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.

>

> All of them " preached a return to an idealised past and condoned

> inequality " .

>

> Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the

> report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received

> $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science

> Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

>

> The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who

> turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for

> moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.

>

> " This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the

familiar,

> to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and

> stereotypes, " the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin.

>

> One of the psychologists behind the study, Jack Glaser, said the

> aversion to shades of grey and the need for " closure " could explain the

> fact that the Bush administration ignored intelligence that contradicted

> its beliefs about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

>

> The authors, presumably aware of the outrage they were likely to

> trigger, added a disclaimer that their study " does not mean that

> conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily

> false " .

>

> Another author, Arie Kruglanski, of the University of Maryland, said he

> had received hate mail since the article was published, but he insisted

> that the study " is not critical of conservatives at all " . " The variables

we

> talk about are general human dimensions, " he said. " These are the same

> dimensions that contribute to loyalty and commitment to the group.

Liberals

> might be less intolerant of ambiguity, but they may be less decisive, less

> committed, less loyal. "

>

> But what drives the psychologists? George Will, a Washington Post

> columnist who has long suffered from ingrained conservatism, noted,

tartly:

> " The professors have ideas; the rest of us have emanations of our

> psychological needs and neuroses. "

>

> (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is

> distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in

> receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

>

> http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/081403F.shtml

>