Redstate...
Your grin for the day...The obvious response to
this would be
to outlaw the American flag
Posted by Bill
S
Thursday, July 21st
Or
at least that would be the response
I would expect from the Left.
Yesterday
the journal Psychological
Science published a paper (abstract here, original here*) that
demonstrates:
the
mere sight of the American flag
can subtly shift their political views… towards Republicanism. It’s an effect that holds
in both Democrats
and Republicans, it affects actual votes, and it lasts for at least 8
months.
This
is a fascinating finding in and
of itself, but even more so considering the other recent study that
showed
that
July 4th parades energize only
Republicans, turn kids into Republicans, and help to boost the GOP
turnout of
adults on Election Day.
So
apparently, patriotism is a
Republican thing. (Go
ahead now,
lefties, get all frothed up).
The
flag study is particularly
interesting because of the duration of the effect – the influence upon
the flag
“viewer” can last up to eight months.
From
the study:
In
contrast to people’s beliefs, we
report two experiments showing that the American flag introduces a bias
toward
the Republican Party over the Democratic Party.
A single exposure to a small American flag
while participants were
deliberating about their voting intentions prior to a general election
led to
significant and robust changes in participants’ voting intentions,
voting
behavior, and political attitudes, all in the politically conservative
direction. In a
separate experiment, we
replicated these patterns over a year into a Democratic presidential
administration.
We
also tested the longevity of this
priming effect on judgment and attitudes.
Flag priming effects may be especially potent
if they occur while a
person is consciously deliberating about politics and voting intentions. We exposed people to the
American flag once
during such an arguably critical psychological window, and found that
the effects
from this single exposure lasted up to 8 months later.
This represents one of the most durable
priming effects in the cognitive sciences literature, and shows that
contextual
effects can not only impact important political decisions, but can also
have a
robust and long-lasting influence.
This
pretty much explains the whole
flag-burning thing on the part of the Left.
There must be some sort of deep-seated hatred
for a symbol that reminds
them that their beliefs are just wrong.
My
next-door neighbor is a hard-core
lefty. I’ll be
putting out my flag
today.
Read
it with links at Redstate
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