Neatness, Messiness and Political Leanings

by David Safier

A Scientific American article says it looks like liberals have messy rooms and conservatives like things more orderly.

This is one of those very tentative conclusions that shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but since it fits with my preconceptions of what liberals and conservatives are all about, I’m going to say, it makes sense to me.

According to a controversial new study, set to be published in The Journal of Political Psychology, the bedrooms and offices of liberals, who are generally thought of as open, tend to be colorful and awash in books about travel, ethnicity, feminism and music, along with music CDs covering folk, classic and modern rock, as well as art supplies, movie tickets and travel memorabilia.

Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to surround themselves with calendars, postage stamps, laundry baskets, irons and sewing materials in their personal spaces, according to the study. Their bedrooms and offices are well-lighted and decorated with sports paraphernalia and flags—especially American ones.

[snip]

“It’s pleasurable for liberals to think more. They gravitate toward art, to things that are not as concrete,” says Carney. “Conservatives have a need for order, for there not to be ambiguity. There you see that expressed by being more orderly, having more cleaning supplies, needing to have everything lined up and organized so that one feels one’s environment is predictable and therefore safe.”

Conservatives want things orderly. Good guys are good guys, and bad guys are bad guys. Either you love America uncritically, or you hate America because you find fault in some areas. Either you love free market, unrestricted capitalism and unbridled accumulation of wealth by the richest among us or you’re a socialist.

Liberals are more likely to see their worlds in shades of gray. You might say it’s better for the Middle East and the U.S. to leave Saddam in place rather than invade Iraq while at the same time you acknowledge that he’s a despicable despot. You might think the free market system only works when its freedom is kept in check with careful government regulation. You might think the accumulation of wealth is fine, but the rich should have to give up a greater proportion of their wealth than others to allow government to function without going into massive debt and to make sure others don’t live in dire poverty without hope of reasonable education or health care.

I like the idea that this has nothing to do with one group being more intelligent than the other. The study seems to say, conservatives use their intelligence to arrive at comfortable “yes or no” answers while liberals use theirs to see the world as a series of overlapping “maybes.” Brilliant people can arrive at either conclusion.

Since I’m a liberal, I’m going to leave room for doubt here. Probably all of this is too simplistic, too neat and orderly. Brain science has a long way to go before it can come close to understanding where our DNA, environment and political leanings intersect. And the variations inside each group are sure to be huge.

But this tentative finding, along with the idea that conservatives have a more highly developed startle reflex than liberals, makes a lot of sense to me.