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crime wrote

Came here to say this.

I haven't read the study itself, but the article's presentation of it raises a lot of issues. How did they define "extremism"?

Also, I feel like there's more than a little irony in their presentation of the study as basically "extremists are stupid, they rely on extremism to simplify the world", and going on to say science may be able to identify extremists based on these results, essentially simplifying the complexities of extremism and dogmatic followers, and how people get to that point.

Plus, I'm veryvery not interested in pathologizing those deemed "extreme", which this seems like a step towards.

4/10. Would not participate in study.

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naut wrote

To summarize in from my own reading of the paper, the researchers essentially draw a correlation between more conservative and dogmatic modes of thought to the participants' ideologies (both tested and self-reported).

The paper doesn't straight up say "extremists are stupid," I think that bias is present more in the interview/article. I agree that we shouldn't use this as a pathological indicator, I see it more as a "here are the underlying processes that can lead to more extremist or dogmatic thought, let's dig deeper." My hope would be that further study would lead people to better understanding how different the lenses through which we see the world can be (being optimistic).

Thanks for your perspective, brains are weird.

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