Imagine a group of psychologists conducting research on politically charged topics such as race, sex differences, stereotyping, and morality. Imagine that these psychologists generate novel hypotheses and empirical findings that had scarcely been considered by the predominantly liberal social psychology community. Imagine further that these psychologists face accusations that their research is biased by a conservative political agenda, and, as a consequence, they face some degree of stigma and exclusion from the liberal establishment within the field.
Now imagine that these psychologists, rather than being political conservatives who have been drawn into the field via high-effort recruiting processes, are just as liberal as their social psychology peers.
This reality can be experienced in the flesh at the annual conference of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, or at the annual Society for Personality and Social Psychology Evolutionary Psychology Preconference. A casual observation of the researchers who attend these and similar meetings will suggest that evolutionary psychologists are just as liberal as other psychologists (one might even see more environmentalists and vegans). Such observations would correspond with the only empirical investigation into the political attitudes of evolutionary versus non-evolutionary psychologists. In a sample of 168 Ph.D. students from six U.S. universities, Tybur et al. (Reference Tybur, Miller and Gangestad2007) found that two of the 31 evolutionary psychologists (6.5%) – compared with 21 out of the 137 non-evolutionary psychologists (18.1%) – identified as Republican or Libertarian. When asked to place themselves on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from −3 (strongly conservative) to +3 (strongly liberal), all 31 of the evolutionary psychologists in the sample categorized themselves as more liberal than the scale midpoint. These data coincide with the fact that some of the highest-profile evolutionary behavioral scientists of the 20th century, including Robert Trivers (a member of the Black Panthers), John Maynard Smith (a registered member of the Communist Party of Great Britain) and E. O. Wilson (one of the world's leading conservationists), favored (sometimes radically) liberal politics in their personal lives. Simply put, evolutionary psychologists and social psychologists have similarly liberal political attitudes, and they often research similar topics.
Despite being just as liberal as non-evolutionary psychologists – and, seemingly, carrying the same personal political beliefs that could bias their research – you won't find many suggestions that evolutionary psychologists should strengthen their science by adding more political conservatives to their ranks. If anything, many liberal academics have erroneously argued that evolutionary psychologists are conservative activists who use their research to promote a conservative political agenda (for overviews, see Lyle & Smith Reference Lyle and Smith2012; Segerstråle Reference Segerstråle2000; Tybur et al. Reference Tybur, Miller and Gangestad2007).
So, why have evolutionary psychologists been labeled as ideologically conservative even though the data indicate that they are as liberal as non-evolutionary psychologists? Why can they, despite their liberal ideologies, conduct the type of “diverse” research on morality, prejudice, and sex differences that Duarte et al. urge social psychologists to consider? One of the benefits of an evolutionary perspective is that it is, by nature, an apolitical theoretical framework, as long as scientific readers or practitioners do not succumb to naturalistic or moralistic fallacies. When scientific practitioners and consumers are mindful to avoid leaping from “is” to “ought” or vice versa, the hypotheses derived from an evolutionary perspective can differ quite strikingly from those that would be generated from a liberally biased perspective, and they do not always fit simple liberal moral intuitions. For example, consider Navarrete et al.'s (Reference Navarrete, McDonald, Molina and Sidanius2010) proposal that aspects of race-based prejudice might be rooted in evolved psychological mechanisms designed for adaptive coping with threats posed by aggressive outgroup men. Far from conducting this research to justify prejudice against outgroup men, Navarrete (himself left-of-center and a member of a minority group) hopes that the research would, if anything, be used to attenuate such prejudice. Or consider Thornhill and Palmer's (Reference Thornhill and Palmer2000) suggestion that sexual coercion could be better understood by considering an evolutionary perspective. Merely proposing this hypothesis was broadly interpreted across academia as “justifying” rape, and Thornhill (who himself has strong liberal values and abhors sexual coercion) experienced personal harassment as a result. Indeed, detractors attempted to break into his home and left death threats on his home answering machine (Thornhill, personal communication).
If evolutionary psychologists are personally liberal, how are they able to conduct research that departs so markedly from liberal intuitions? And can the answers to these questions inform solutions to social psychology's problem with liberal bias?
We suggest that a robust, multidisciplinary theoretical framework can act as a buffer between researchers' personal political beliefs and their research questions. Duarte et al., while correct in pointing out social psychology's liberal demographics, miss a critical ingredient that allows such demographics to metastasize into widespread, biased research: the lack of a coherent, overarching theoretical framework that can be used to generate testable predictions. Indeed, social psychology has frequently been criticized for lacking such a framework with integrative support from other disciplines (Kelley Reference Kelley2000; Krueger & Funder Reference Krueger and Funder2004; Pinker Reference Pinker2011b; Tooby & Cosmides Reference Tooby, Cosmides, Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby1992). With a dearth of theoretical boundaries from which to guide research questions and generate hypotheses, researchers might instead use their own political biases to guide their research questions and methods, even if unwittingly.
If this line of thinking is correct, then social psychology's problem with liberal bias is not due to its liberal demographics alone; it is due to a combination of liberal demographics and the lack of a rigorous, apolitical theoretical framework. There are two strategies that could be used to correct the field's liberally biased research, then. The first is that outlined by Duarte et al. – to pepper the field with conservatives who can introduce their own political biases to offset those of the liberal majority. An alternative would be to commit ourselves to avoiding moralistic and naturalistic fallacies and to shore up the foundations of social psychology with theories that are grounded in apolitical realms, such as evolutionary theory. We favor the latter strategy; we believe it would be easier to implement, and it would have additional benefits beyond correcting politically based biases.
Imagine a group of psychologists conducting research on politically charged topics such as race, sex differences, stereotyping, and morality. Imagine that these psychologists generate novel hypotheses and empirical findings that had scarcely been considered by the predominantly liberal social psychology community. Imagine further that these psychologists face accusations that their research is biased by a conservative political agenda, and, as a consequence, they face some degree of stigma and exclusion from the liberal establishment within the field.
Now imagine that these psychologists, rather than being political conservatives who have been drawn into the field via high-effort recruiting processes, are just as liberal as their social psychology peers.
This reality can be experienced in the flesh at the annual conference of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, or at the annual Society for Personality and Social Psychology Evolutionary Psychology Preconference. A casual observation of the researchers who attend these and similar meetings will suggest that evolutionary psychologists are just as liberal as other psychologists (one might even see more environmentalists and vegans). Such observations would correspond with the only empirical investigation into the political attitudes of evolutionary versus non-evolutionary psychologists. In a sample of 168 Ph.D. students from six U.S. universities, Tybur et al. (Reference Tybur, Miller and Gangestad2007) found that two of the 31 evolutionary psychologists (6.5%) – compared with 21 out of the 137 non-evolutionary psychologists (18.1%) – identified as Republican or Libertarian. When asked to place themselves on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from −3 (strongly conservative) to +3 (strongly liberal), all 31 of the evolutionary psychologists in the sample categorized themselves as more liberal than the scale midpoint. These data coincide with the fact that some of the highest-profile evolutionary behavioral scientists of the 20th century, including Robert Trivers (a member of the Black Panthers), John Maynard Smith (a registered member of the Communist Party of Great Britain) and E. O. Wilson (one of the world's leading conservationists), favored (sometimes radically) liberal politics in their personal lives. Simply put, evolutionary psychologists and social psychologists have similarly liberal political attitudes, and they often research similar topics.
Despite being just as liberal as non-evolutionary psychologists – and, seemingly, carrying the same personal political beliefs that could bias their research – you won't find many suggestions that evolutionary psychologists should strengthen their science by adding more political conservatives to their ranks. If anything, many liberal academics have erroneously argued that evolutionary psychologists are conservative activists who use their research to promote a conservative political agenda (for overviews, see Lyle & Smith Reference Lyle and Smith2012; Segerstråle Reference Segerstråle2000; Tybur et al. Reference Tybur, Miller and Gangestad2007).
So, why have evolutionary psychologists been labeled as ideologically conservative even though the data indicate that they are as liberal as non-evolutionary psychologists? Why can they, despite their liberal ideologies, conduct the type of “diverse” research on morality, prejudice, and sex differences that Duarte et al. urge social psychologists to consider? One of the benefits of an evolutionary perspective is that it is, by nature, an apolitical theoretical framework, as long as scientific readers or practitioners do not succumb to naturalistic or moralistic fallacies. When scientific practitioners and consumers are mindful to avoid leaping from “is” to “ought” or vice versa, the hypotheses derived from an evolutionary perspective can differ quite strikingly from those that would be generated from a liberally biased perspective, and they do not always fit simple liberal moral intuitions. For example, consider Navarrete et al.'s (Reference Navarrete, McDonald, Molina and Sidanius2010) proposal that aspects of race-based prejudice might be rooted in evolved psychological mechanisms designed for adaptive coping with threats posed by aggressive outgroup men. Far from conducting this research to justify prejudice against outgroup men, Navarrete (himself left-of-center and a member of a minority group) hopes that the research would, if anything, be used to attenuate such prejudice. Or consider Thornhill and Palmer's (Reference Thornhill and Palmer2000) suggestion that sexual coercion could be better understood by considering an evolutionary perspective. Merely proposing this hypothesis was broadly interpreted across academia as “justifying” rape, and Thornhill (who himself has strong liberal values and abhors sexual coercion) experienced personal harassment as a result. Indeed, detractors attempted to break into his home and left death threats on his home answering machine (Thornhill, personal communication).
If evolutionary psychologists are personally liberal, how are they able to conduct research that departs so markedly from liberal intuitions? And can the answers to these questions inform solutions to social psychology's problem with liberal bias?
We suggest that a robust, multidisciplinary theoretical framework can act as a buffer between researchers' personal political beliefs and their research questions. Duarte et al., while correct in pointing out social psychology's liberal demographics, miss a critical ingredient that allows such demographics to metastasize into widespread, biased research: the lack of a coherent, overarching theoretical framework that can be used to generate testable predictions. Indeed, social psychology has frequently been criticized for lacking such a framework with integrative support from other disciplines (Kelley Reference Kelley2000; Krueger & Funder Reference Krueger and Funder2004; Pinker Reference Pinker2011b; Tooby & Cosmides Reference Tooby, Cosmides, Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby1992). With a dearth of theoretical boundaries from which to guide research questions and generate hypotheses, researchers might instead use their own political biases to guide their research questions and methods, even if unwittingly.
If this line of thinking is correct, then social psychology's problem with liberal bias is not due to its liberal demographics alone; it is due to a combination of liberal demographics and the lack of a rigorous, apolitical theoretical framework. There are two strategies that could be used to correct the field's liberally biased research, then. The first is that outlined by Duarte et al. – to pepper the field with conservatives who can introduce their own political biases to offset those of the liberal majority. An alternative would be to commit ourselves to avoiding moralistic and naturalistic fallacies and to shore up the foundations of social psychology with theories that are grounded in apolitical realms, such as evolutionary theory. We favor the latter strategy; we believe it would be easier to implement, and it would have additional benefits beyond correcting politically based biases.