The Liberal and Conservative Experience Across Academic Disciplines

Abstract

Inbar and Lammers asked members of APA Division 8 (personality and social psychology) about their political orientation, hostility experienced related to their political orientation, and their willingness to discriminate against others based on perceived political orientation. In this replication and extension, 618 faculty members from various academic disciplines across four California State University campuses completed an online questionnaire that added parallel questions about the liberal experience to the original questions about the conservative experience. Participants were overwhelmingly liberal in self-report across all academic areas except agriculture. The conservative minority reported experiencing more hostility than the liberal majority, but both groups expressed similar “in-group/out-group” attitudes. Results supported the ideological-conflict hypothesis for discrimination and a “birds of a feather flock together” interpretation of the lack of political diversity among the professoriate.

A Model of Political Bias in Social Science Research

“…We summarize additional studies here that were not included in their review as further evidence supporting their perspective. A replication and extension of Inbar and Lammers (2012) found that willingness to discriminate against one's ideological 7 opponents (which they found among social psychologists) extended to academics across the disciplines (Honeycutt & Freberg, 2017).…”

“…For example, referring to women in STEM, Dasgupta and Stout (2014, p. 24) argue that "Young adults identify with successful female role models whose presence allows them to think: 'If she can be successful, so can I' and 'I want to be like her.'" Given the support for the gender similarity hypothesis (Hyde, 2005), we know of no reason to believe that this sort of social psychological process is unique to women, and there are many to think that they probably apply widely (Reinero, 2019), including to political role models in the social sciences (Honeycutt & Freberg, 2017;Honeycutt, Jussim, & Freberg, 2019). If non-liberal students do not have faculty who share their beliefs and values, this may dissuade some from furthering their studies, and from pursuing academic careers (Redding, 2012).…”

Implicit bias, ideological bias, and epistemic risks in philosophy

“…When it comes to bias and discrimination against conservatives, however, this is less likely. The point is illustrated by the data introduced above (e.g., Honeycutt & Freberg, 2017;Schwitzgebel, 2008;Yancey, 2011). They suggest that an aversion against conservatives is considered less objectionable in philosophy.…”

“…However, their study has various shortcomings, see Shields and Dunn (2016, p. 76f ) for details. 7 For weaknesses with the study and a partial replication, see Honeycutt and Freberg (2017).…”

“…To be fair, the evidence of an underrepresentation of conservatives and bias and discrimination against them in philosophy is not very strong. But there is at least some such evidence (Honeycutt & Freberg, 2017;Yancey, 2011). And in other fields of study, the problem of ideological diversity has been highlighted for many years (Duarte et al, 2015;Haidt, 2011;Inbar & Lammers, 2012;Yancey, 2011).…”