Liberals Are Psychopaths

The headline is misleading, but no more so than the headlines about this study you’ll read in the MSM.

The MSM takeaway from the study is that conservatives are more fearful than liberals.

But The Last Psychiatrist has a few observations about the study.

The methodology is fine– but the interpretation is so demonstrably flawed that they are actually interpreting the results backwards.

The typical use for such tests of startle and fear aren’t to see how scared people are, they are used specifically to find out how scared people aren’t. For example, they are used to evaluate psychopathy, and the results are the same as here– psychopaths have decreased responses, compared to normal people, to aversive photos.

So which is it? Are conservatives fearful, or are liberals psychopaths?

So, as usual, don’t believe anything you read in the press. It’s usually wrong.