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Gauchistes Et Conservateurs En Pratique


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Attention, en anglais "liberal" se traduirait par "gauchiste" en français.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47307-2004Aug7

Unconventional Wisdom column

By Richard Morin, morinr@washpost.com

2004.8.8

Forget   what   you've   heard   about   bleeding  heart  liberals  or

compassionate  conservatives.  When  it  comes  to trusting others and

acting  for the common good, neither political party or ideology has a

corner on generosity.

That's  what  Jeff  Milyo  of  the  University of Missouri and his two

co-authors   found   in  a  survey  of  college  students,  using  two

experimental  "games"  that  are  frequently  used  by  economists and

political  scientists to test altruism and trust. The researchers also

discovered that political liberals may talk the compassionate talk but

don't  walk  the  walk,  at  least  any  more  than  conservatives do.

Self-described  liberals  were more likely to support increased public

spending  and  redistributive  programs.  But  when asked to put their

faith  in  others or contribute money to the larger good, lefties were

no more munificent or trusting than right-thinkers.

"Some  would  argue  that  liberals  are  indeed generous, albeit with

others'  money,"  the  researchers  noted  wryly  in  a just-published

working paper provocatively titled "Do Liberals Play Nice?"

Milyo  and  his  co-authors,  Lisa Anderson and Jennifer Mellor of the

College  of  William  & Mary, surveyed a total of 196 William and Mary

students  to determine, among other things, which political party they

supported  and how politically liberal or conservative they were. Then

the researchers instructed the students to play the two games.

In the "trust game," test subjects were paired up, and one person from

each  pair  was  given $10. This person could keep all the money, send

only a portion of it to his or her partner, or send it all. Any amount

that  was  sent was tripled -- an incentive to pass on the money. Then

the second person could pass all, some or none of the money back. (The

game  was  played  repeatedly,  and after the experiment was over, the

actual  dollar winnings from one of the rounds, chosen at random, were

distributed  to  the pair. That kept the players trying hard each time

to  maximize  their  returns  while  keeping  down  the  cost  of  the

experiment, Milyo said.)

So  what  has this got to do with trusting others? "The payoff was the

greatest  if  players  trusted each other to repeatedly send along the

full amount," Milyo explained.

The second game was called the "public goods experiment." The students

were divided into teams of four. Each individual was given $10. Again,

they  could  keep  all  or any portion of the money and contribute the

rest  to  a pot that would be divided equally among all the players at

the  end  of the game, whether or not they contributed anything to the

pot.  As an incentive for the participants to donate more to the group

fund,  the  researchers  upped  the  ante  and increased the pot by 25

percent,  meaning  the  four players would each earn more if they gave

the  full  amount  to  the group fund than if they took the money. The

game  was  repeated multiple times, and once again one play was chosen

as the payoff round.

What  did  they find? "Bottom line: There was absolutely no difference

in either game between levels of trust or desire to put money into the

public  account  between  self-described liberals or conservatives, or

whether  you  lean  Republican [or] lean toward the Democratic Party,"

Milyo said.

James   Carville,  Ann  Coulter  and  other  fire-breathing  political

partisans should take heed . "Partisans tend to explain differences in

policy  and  partisanship  as  reflecting  character  flaws  of  their

opponents:   Republicans   are   mean-spirited  while  Democrats  lack

intelligence,"  Milyo  said.  "These  results suggest that both groups

really  behave alike and something other than character explains these

[partisan or ideological] differences."

Posté

Passionnant. Pour qui s'intéresse un peu à la psychologie évolutionniste et à la nature humaine, il n'y a là rien de surprenant…

Posté

Excellent texte lui aussi, tout à fait dans la lignée de ce que je sais du sujet. :icon_up: J'ai bien aimé le coup des urgences : si on meurt moins aujourd'hui d'homicide dans nos sociétés, ce n'est pas parce qu'elles sont plus pacifiques ou que nous sommes plus "civilisés", mais parce que la technique des soins médicaux d'urgence a prodigieusement diminué la mortalité des gens victimes d'une tentative d'homicide.

En un mot : merci à Ross et Carter ! :doigt:

P.S. Désolé gadrel ce n'était pas le sujet initial du post…

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