Source: Martin Falbisoner / Wikimedia Commons

Here’s a story about a former neighbor, someone who would give you the shirt off his back. And as a highly skilled mechanic, he was willing to help fix the kids’ bikes, build a treehouse, and more. Just a great guy.

He and I happened to disagree strongly on broad political matters (although we never spoke about it). In 2016, for example, he put a (relatively small) Trump sign in his front yard (I identify politically as a socialist and I am happy to exercise my right to declare this fact publicly). This fact did not surprise me and we never held our different political views against him. I think it’s important to keep the scale POLICY and personal relationships separate when possible (and I have found that it usually is).

As found in a previous study we conducted (Geher et al., 2015), people are often not good at processing information about large-scale politics; we’re much better at processing information about small-scale politics (like who should sit next to whom at the Thanksgiving dinner table, or figuring out who would make a good ally and friend in a hostile work environment).

In this study, we found that when it comes to large-scale politics (like who should be the president of one of the world’s most important countries), people don’t always process information that well. I would argue that these data provide a strong justification for keeping personal relationships separate from large-scale politics. Given this information, along with his affable nature, I never let my neighbor’s political views get in our way. friendliness.

On this point, a very timely paper, soon to be published in the academic journal Psychological studies questions that are relevant at this time:
Are people less likely to help those with whom they disagree on major political issues?
And vice versa: Are people more inclined to help those who agree with them on broad political issues?
In short: Is a progressive more likely to help another progressive than an ultra-conservative? And vice versa.

This work (Fitapelli and colleagues, in press), which was the result of an honors class on the positive evolutionary psychology that I taught a few semesters ago at SUNY New Paltz, helps illuminate the situations so many of us face in times leading up to major elections. Times like now.

The study on the help of people from the political spectrum

In our study, we collected data from over 200 American adults. Some identified themselves as “strongly progressive”, while others identified as “strongly conservative”. All participants were randomly assigned to read either a short vignette (story) about someone they met briefly at a gas station. In half of the cases, participants were presented with a person wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt, while the other half read a vignette in which the target person at the gas station was wearing a Blue Lives Matter shirt. In the US in recent years, these sentiments have corresponded largely to a progressive versus a conservative political outlook, respectively.

There were four experimental groups:

• Political progressives who met a likely progressive individual
• Political progressives who met a likely conservative individual
• Political conservatives who met a likely progressive individual
• Political conservatives who have met a likely conservative individual

Participants were then presented with a measure designed to see how much they felt they would help the target person with a variety of problems (see Ruel et al., 2022).

All participants also provided their age and gender along with measurement data:
The The Dark Triad of Personality: Machiavellianism (manipulativeness), narcissism (focusing too much on himself) and psychopathy (lack of emotion for others) (see Paulhus and Williams, 2002).
Triad of Light: Humanismthe tendency to believe in the good of people, regardless of where they might come from or other background factors; Kantianismthe belief that other people should be treated with respect and not exploited for their own gain; and Faith in humanitycorresponding to the belief that people are basically “good”.

We measured these variables to see whether, beyond experimental manipulation, people with certain personality traits are likely to help others.

Summary of results

Our main findings are summarized as follows:

• People of one political orientation were no more likely to help than those of the other political orientation (ie, conservatives and progressives appear to be equally helpful to strangers in general).
• Targets who wore a “Blue Lives Matter” shirt were no more (or less) likely to receive help than targets who wore a “Black Lives Matter” shirt.
• There was a statistically significant interaction: people who identified as very progressive were significantly less likely to help the target with the “Blue Lives Matter” T-shirt. The reverse was not found for conservative participants. They were just as likely to help the target regardless of whether that target identified with the “Blue Lives Matter” or “Black Lives Matter” movements.
• All three facets of the Light Triad (belief in humanity, Kantianism, and humanism) were positively related to helping regardless of experimental condition (ie, people high on the Light Triad of personality are relatively helpful to strangers, regardless of politics). ).
• One of the facets of the Dark Triad, narcissism, was negatively related to helping a stranger (narcissists, regardless of context, seem uninterested in helping a stranger).

conclusion

However, we cut it, the upcoming presidential election is huge, and as we’ve seen in similar situations in the past, the build-up has been divisive.

The study described here was designed to see whether people’s political orientation has effects at the personal level, the main question being whether people who identify with a political orientation are differentially helpful to a stranger who identifies as being “on the same team” from political point of view as to whether that foreigner is “on the other team” politically.

Interestingly, perhaps our most striking result was that people who identify as strongly progressive were substantially and significantly less likely to help someone on the “other team” (in this case, someone wearing a Blue Lives Matter) than was true under any of the other conditions. This result may stem from the outrage that so many progressives have experienced with the US political landscape over the past few years.

We also found that people high on the Triad of Light—people who truly believe in people in a general sense and truly embrace our shared humanity—tended to be helpful, regardless of political orientation or any other factors included in this study. Perhaps, despite how things play out with the upcoming presidential election, the world could benefit from more people truly believing in our shared humanity. After all, we all have a ticket for the same journey.

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Thanks to the SUNY New Paltz Honors Program, led by Dr. Pat Sullivan, who provided the opportunity to conduct this research. And thanks to all my collaborators on this project (delineated in References) — the dream team.