From Ben Shapiro at Daily Wire:
You’ve undoubtedly seen those preening headlines from major outlets about how conservatives are more “authoritarian” by nature than Leftists. See, for example, here and here and here and here and here and here. But it turns out that this is nonsense. Such studies are generally vague and deliberately constructed to make it appear that conservatives are more “authoritarian” than Leftists. In reality, authoritarian personality types exist across the political spectrum. All you have to do is change the incentive structure in the questions, and you’ll suddenly find Leftists who hate freedom and conservatives who love it.
Jesse Singal of New York Magazine has a long and worthwhile piece about the scientific flaws in the authoritarian modeling.
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Confirmation bias has allowed too many members of the Left to ignore embarrassing scientific reversals like this one from 2016, when a study suggesting that conservatives were psychotic was actually recalibrated to show the reverse. More.
The principal question is and what to do about the fact that social psychology is — with a straight face — thought of as a science. In the meantime, we can afford a cackle or two at the people who wonder earnestly why the public does not trust science.
See also: How political bias affects social science research
Stanford Prison Experiment findings a “sham” – but how much of social psychology is legitimate anyway?
A BS detector for the social sciences
All sides agree: progressive politics is strangling social sciences
and
Study of causes of science skepticism sails right by the most obvious cause