Study shows….. was the favourite expression of a long dead friend of mine. Say it with appropriate tones of cynicism.
Check the questions that were asked of the people in the study. This is a study a conservative might like to believe but, like anthropogenic global warming, deserves a wary eye.
Badly behaved children are more likely to grow up to be left-wing, a study has shown.
A study of 16,000 British people in their 30s found those with troubled childhoods were more likely to favour radical socialist policies.
The study was a follow-up to research conducted when they were children at the ages of five and seven.
Those whose parents reported they had ‘conduct problems’ at in primary school were more likely to favour radical socialist polices and to smash the status quo.
….The parents of the children in the study completed an assessment of their chilld’s behaviour at the ages of either five or seven.
They were asked to say whether their children had problems relating to anxiety, conduct or hyperactivity.
When adults – at the ages of 30 or 33 – the participants filled in questionaires that assessed a variety of traits.
These included economic conservatism, political cynicism, racism, authoritarianism, and attitudes about gender inequality.
The participants were asked how much they agreed with statements such as: ‘Government should redistribute income”, ‘People like me have no say in what Government does”, “Would not want a person from another race to be boss”, “law breakers should be given stiffer sentences” and “Men and women should have [the] chance to do [the] same kind of work.’ The researchers combined the scores into two broad factors: economic and political discontent and social conservatism.
(My own answers to those questions would be:
- It already does enough of that, thank you.
- no, and neither do you.
- It would depened on whether they were affirmative action candidates. I have seen enough over-promoted women French Canadian civil service managers to be skeptical of all forms of affirmative action in management, which always comes down to the idea that there are too many white males in positions of authority. Out goes Reginald Skippon from Yorkshire and in comes Claudette Blanchard from Rimouski to manage ship’s engine repair in the Coast Guard. You know the drill.
- Penalties are hard enough already. Someone should read the penal code if they disagree.
- Yes, they should. But see answer 3 above.)
Dr Lewis found that childhood conduct problems led to economic and political discontent in adulthood – and this was true across social classes and regardless of the individual’s intelligence.
He added that conduct problems in childhood may reflect difficulty with self-control and long-term planning or early rejection of authority – either of which could lead to economic or political discontent.
Dr Lewis said: ‘We all wonder from time to time why it is that those on the other side of the fence came to be that way,’ Lewis notes. ‘These findings take us a little further down the road to answering that question.’