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The psychology of choice for President

LostInNerSpace

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Second time lucky. My last attempt got merged into the McCain vs. Obama political thread because it actually did become a general discussion about McCain vs. Obama.

This thread is related specifically to the psychology of choice for president. If it is general opinion / discussion about McCain or Obama please refer to this existing thread:

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/politics-history-current-events/5630-mccain-vs-obama.html

Here is the theory behind this experiement:

People create their own realities. The conscious mind represents only about 5% of total cognition. The other 95% is where the real decision making goes on. People experience the world through models. A typical Democrat's model would be different from a typical Republican's model. The models are at least in part comprised of metaphor, stories, imagery and evaluated with emotion.

There was fascinating research done surrounding the phenomenon whereby amputees experience phantom pain in their amputated limbs. In one study, the subject was an amputee with a missing hand. This amputee had a persistent feeling that his fingernails in the amputated hand were digging into the palm of his hand and causing excruciating pain. The researcher rigged up a kind of mirror box which the amputee put his other good hand into to give the appearance that his amputated hand was intact--the pain disappeared. The pain returned when he removed his hand from the mirror box. This shows the disconnect between what goes on in the subconscious mind and what goes on in the conscious mind.

Decisions are made on a relative basis in the subconscious mind and our conscious mind applies "logic" to the emotional decision to arrive at a rationalization. Rationalizations are not rational at all because we have no way of knowing exactly how our subconscious minds arrived at the answer it did.

We can get some clues by looking for the underlying metaphors, and we can do this by looking at metal imagery.

This then is the topic of this post.

What we want here is mental imagery. What do pictures do you see in your mind's eye?
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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It seems like there is quite a stretch between missing a hand and who you vote for. Even if the decision making is unconscious it might not be that different from conscious decion making. For example one person might be poor and that is why they want the government to give them health care. Another person might be rich, so they don't want to government to take their money and spend in on poor people. Is it really more complicated than that?
 

LostInNerSpace

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It seems like there is quite a stretch between missing a hand and who you vote for. Even if the decision making is unconscious it might not be that different from conscious decion making. For example one person might be poor and that is why they want the government to give them health care. Another person might be rich, so they don't want to government to take their money and spend in on poor people. Is it really more complicated than that?

The missing hand was really a quick way to get people upto speed on the basics of the psychology. It simply attempts shows how our subconcious minds create our reality. It would take a whole book or more to properly explain the psychology. I can recommend those books if anyone is interested.

This is based on solid research conducted by a Harvard professor by the name of Gerald Zaltman. Zaltman identified several deep metaphors that form the basis of peoples subconscious thinking.

Poor people are more focus on survival; they are more likely to be “resource” oriented. Higher income people can afford to focus on other things. One such thing may be transformation (change). Resource and Transformation are two of the deep metaphors identified by Zaltman.
 

htb

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Is it really more complicated than that?
It's even simpler when voters identify a number of issues on which candidates differ, and support the candidate whose policies would match their preferences.

This is sort of interesting, albeit titanic over-thinking.
 

Jeffster

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It's what I do best. Nobody got pictures for me. Come on! Close your eyes and tell me what you see.

You seem to be doing lousy on the psychology so far with me, in the other thread you state that I seem very angry, apparently because I oppose Obama on principles. ;)
 

LostInNerSpace

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You seem to be doing lousy on the psychology so far with me, in the other thread you state that I seem very angry, apparently because I oppose Obama on principles. ;)

No, I asked if you were angry. You stated several things as fact, including that he's a lier. None of those were facts. That's an emotional response. Unless that is you can in some way substantiate your claims with evidence.


EDIT: Maybe I did say you seem angry. I stand by it. That's an emotional response. I can see it a mile off even if you can't. Your rationalization is not rational at all.:D
 

Jeffster

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No, I asked if you were angry. You stated several things as fact, including that he's a lier. None of those were facts. That's an emotional response. Unless that is you can in some way substantiate your claims with evidence.

I did do that. Just because you dismiss it, doesn't mean it didn't happen. And I'm still not angry. ;)
 

Owl

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When I close my eyes, all I see is black. Does this mean I'm going to vote for Obama?

I agree we all have an interpretive model, but I don't think this model is necessarily, exclusively evaluated by emotion. A person may be more or less conscious of his framework, and it would behoove each person to use that 5% of his mind you mentioned to critically examine what constitutes his model; for the more conscious a man is of his model, the more integrated his actions become with his thoughts, and then he needn't rely on the other 95% of his mind to make his decisions. This is beneficial because, as his thoughts become more consistent as a result of critical examination, he will recognize, and thus be free from pursuing, inconsistent ends; furthermore, the 95% of the mind that is not rational is not equiped to evaluate truth claims, whereas the rational part of the mind is, and, insofar as what is good for a man is a truth claim, the rational mind ought to examine this claim.

Rationalizations are not rational at all because we have no way of knowing exactly how our subconscious minds arrived at the answer it did.

We can get some clues by looking for the underlying metaphors, and we can do this by looking at mental imagery.

How did Zaltman decide it was possible to identify the underlying metaphors that constitute a person's model? How did he decide upon the criterion a metaphor must meet before it may be considered to form the basis of a person's model? If these decisions were the result of an inscrutable, subconscious process, then how are they any more authoritative than contrary answers generated by another person's incrutable, unconscious process?

Just wondering.
 

LostInNerSpace

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When I close my eyes, all I see is black. Does this mean I'm going to vote for Obama?

You are looking with your eyes. Try to see with your mind's eye. I also see black when I close my eyes. A better word might be imagine. I'm going to assume you are a man for arguments sake. Can you picture now in your mind what a beautiful women would look like? What would it feel like for her to sit on your lap and ask with a wanton gaze if she could feed you strawberries. Unless you are a woman or swing the other way, you probably have some idea what that might look like and that it would feel good. That's what I mean by see pictures.

What thoughts, feeling, images does the Obama va. McCain decision conjure up in your mind?

I agree we all have an interpretive model, but I don't think this model is necessarily, exclusively evaluated by emotion.

Based on research. Read: "How Customers Think"

A person may be more or less conscious of his framework, and it would behoove each person to use that 5% of his mind you mentioned to critically examine what constitutes his model; for the more conscious a man is of his model, the more integrated his actions become with his thoughts, and then he needn't rely on the other 95% of his mind to make his decisions. This is beneficial because, as his thoughts become more consistent as a result of critical examination, he will recognize, and thus be free from pursuing, inconsistent ends;

I don't agree. Have you ever tried to quit smoking? Is smoking a rational habit? People try desperately for many year to try to quit and never succeed. I quit in Feb '01. I realized that I was trapped in a cycle of always having the comfort of another cigarette to fall back on if I fail to quit on any given attempt. Furthermore, all of my smoking paraphernalia had become part of my identity as a smoker. I had to let go of all of that stuff. I had to throw it all out; favorite lighters, ash trays, everything; I had to commit to never smoking another cigarette again; I also raised the pain of smoking above the pain of going without a cigarette by punishing myself for each puff. I made a commitment to always buy packs of 20 along with a relatively expensive lighter--but I could only take one puff and had to throw out the whole pack and the lighter. Finally since my smoking habit was associated with the places in my life I had to move house to leave the habit in the old house. I also happen to work from home at the time.

furthermore, the 95% of the mind that is not rational is not equipped to evaluate truth claims, whereas the rational part of the mind is, and, insofar as what is good for a man is a truth claim, the rational mind ought to examine this claim.

Yes and no. The unconscious mind is not equipped to evaluate truth claims. But the "rational" mind is not a computer. Take smoking. There are powerful forces moving you to smoke another cigarette. These are unconscious forces; your conscious mind at this point is cooking up rationalization to support your decision to go for another cigarette--I'm under a lot of stress now; If I stop smoking now I will put on a pile of weight; I will have one final cigarette and then quit tomorrow. As soon as you had that cigarette you feel like cr@p. You are asking yourself why you did it, and why you keep doing that.


How did Zaltman decide it was possible to identify the underlying metaphors that constitute a person's model? How did he decide upon the criterion a metaphor must meet before it may be considered to form the basis of a person's model? If these decisions were the result of an inscrutable, subconscious process, then how are they any more authoritative than contrary answers generated by another person's incrutable, unconscious process?

What Zaltman calls metaphor is not a new idea. Milton Erikson talked about symbolism. Many people have written, thought and talked about these things. If you read one of Zaltman's books you will see just how many books this guy has read. I'll be a monkey's uncle if he is not an INTP. I do a similar amount of reading to piece the together in my own puzzle. He has also interviewed thousands of people, which over time allowed him to spot common themes. He labeled these themes Deep Metaphor

Just wondering.

Me too. Thanks!
 

Owl

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What thoughts, feeling, images does the Obama va. McCain decision conjure up in your mind?

A twisted pain in my groin drives me to my knees and then boils into my throat before a fleshy, Vesuvian expulsion of blood and mucous erupts from all of my orifices, staining both my clothes and the coarse earth as my mind slips between the shadows of Hades.

And there I see Obama staring wantonly at McCain as he feeds him strawberries.

Based on research. Read: "How Customers Think"

Customers think?

I don't agree. Have you ever tried to quit smoking? Is smoking a rational habit? People try desperately for many year to try to quit and never succeed. I quit in Feb '01. I realized that I was trapped in a cycle of always having the comfort of another cigarette to fall back on if I fail to quit on any given attempt. Furthermore, all of my smoking paraphernalia had become part of my identity as a smoker. I had to let go of all of that stuff. I had to throw it all out; favorite lighters, ash trays, everything; I had to commit to never smoking another cigarette again; I also raised the pain of smoking above the pain of going without a cigarette by punishing myself for each puff. I made a commitment to always buy packs of 20 along with a relatively expensive lighter--but I could only take one puff and had to throw out the whole pack and the lighter. Finally since my smoking habit was associated with the places in my life I had to move house to leave the habit in the old house. I also happen to work from home at the time.

Yes and no. The unconscious mind is not equipped to evaluate truth claims. But the "rational" mind is not a computer. Take smoking. There are powerful forces moving you to smoke another cigarette. These are unconscious forces; your conscious mind at this point is cooking up rationalization to support your decision to go for another cigarette--I'm under a lot of stress now; If I stop smoking now I will put on a pile of weight; I will have one final cigarette and then quit tomorrow. As soon as you had that cigarette you feel like cr@p. You are asking yourself why you did it, and why you keep doing that.

I think the smoking example reinforces my point. Smoking has many benefits, (some of which you listed), and it is rational pursue these benefits. But not one of the benefits associated with smoking is the good--the end in itself--that which is sought for its own sake and not for the sake of something else. In the case of smoking, a rational agent will realize that smoking is a hindrance to pursuing higher order goods, and he will exercise discipline in order to bring his desires in line with what his mind believes to be more valuable--just as you did: rational reflection and critical examination of your actions caused you to ask questions, and, once prompted by these questions, you concluded that not smoking was more valuable than smoking--despite the benefits of smoking, despite the urges that bubble up from your unconscious mind--and you quit. From what you wrote, it seems this process was not unconscious at all. You did it very deliberately.

Not that Zaltman has said nothing valuable. Many people don't bother to think deeply about what is good for them, and they let themselves be tossed about by their unconscious, listening only to their desires and passions without ever subjecting them to critical examination--and because of this they can be easily manipulated. They ignore that 5% of their mind, what it needs, like a ship with sails and no rudder, and they go wherever the wind takes them.
 

ygolo

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When I close my eyes, I see red and blue balls for lightning, bothe spinning and revolving around their common center of mass. The red lightning is more jagged and angular, while the blue lightning is linear and like long poles.

I have no idea what this means other than for the fact that I was reading something political before I started imagining.

Also, as a side note, Martin Seligman asserts that the candidates that win elections are the more optimistic ones. He claims a higher success rate in the elections of 1988, on this principle, than political experts had.
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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I think the best theory I've heard (this might be from Keirsey, I don't remember) is that an SP candidate is the one most likely to be elected. To me this makes sense if you assume that most N's lean liberal and most SJ's lean conservative. That leaves a good chunk of SP's who are independents, and they basically decide who the president will be. All else being equal an SP will choose another SP.
 

LostInNerSpace

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I think the smoking example reinforces my point. Smoking has many benefits, (some of which you listed), and it is rational pursue these benefits. But not one of the benefits associated with smoking is the good--the end in itself--that which is sought for its own sake and not for the sake of something else. In the case of smoking, a rational agent will realize that smoking is a hindrance to pursuing higher order goods, and he will exercise discipline in order to bring his desires in line with what his mind believes to be more valuable--just as you did: rational reflection and critical examination of your actions caused you to ask questions, and, once prompted by these questions, you concluded that not smoking was more valuable than smoking--despite the benefits of smoking, despite the urges that bubble up from your unconscious mind--and you quit. From what you wrote, it seems this process was not unconscious at all. You did it very deliberately.

I did it deliberately and with rational reasoning, but the rational reasoning was directed at changing the pain of smoking in relation to another pain--the pain of spending money. I raised the pain of spending money above the pain of not smoking. I also pictured in my mind a particularly nasty ad whereby a surgeon squeezed white puss out of the arteries of a smoker. And I changed the emotional attachment I had formed with places that I had associated the habit of smoking by moving house. In effect I was purposefully working on changing the emotional attachment I had formed with the smoking habit.

Not that Zaltman has said nothing valuable. Many people don't bother to think deeply about what is good for them, and they let themselves be tossed about by their unconscious, listening only to their desires and passions without ever subjecting them to critical examination--and because of this they can be easily manipulated. They ignore that 5% of their mind, what it needs, like a ship with sails and no rudder, and they go wherever the wind takes them.

True to some extent. But can you honestly say you are in complete control of all of your emotions?


When I close my eyes, I see red and blue balls for lightning, bothe spinning and revolving around their common center of mass. The red lightning is more jagged and angular, while the blue lightning is linear and like long poles.

I have no idea what this means other than for the fact that I was reading something political before I started imagining.

Also, as a side note, Martin Seligman asserts that the candidates that win elections are the more optimistic ones. He claims a higher success rate in the elections of 1988, on this principle, than political experts had.

:party2:Woo hoo! Something to work with. I know the spinning and revolving is a common theme identified by Zaltman--containment I believe. Containment being one of his seven deep metaphors. I will think some more and post later. Thanks! :D

EDIT: Balance is another deep metaphor.
 

Jeffster

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I think the best theory I've heard (this might be from Keirsey, I don't remember) is that an SP candidate is the one most likely to be elected. To me this makes sense if you assume that most N's lean liberal and most SJ's lean conservative. That leaves a good chunk of SP's who are independents, and they basically decide who the president will be. All else being equal an SP will choose another SP.

That makes a lot of sense to me, and yeah, according to Keirsey, the only time an SP has ever lost a general election is when he was opposed by another SP. Opposed by any other temperament, the SP has always won the general election. 3 out of the last 4 presidents have been SPs, the only exception was SJ Bush, Sr. And he was the only one of the four to not be re-elected. Even though I didn't support Clinton, I can understand why a lot of my fellow SPs would support him over SJ "fogies" like Bush 1 and Dole. Personally, when someone rides a wave of "cult of personality" the way Clinton did, and Obama is doing, that's one of the surest ways to get me to NOT support someone, as I HATE following the crowd, and am likely to rebel against those kinds of hot-air-filled bandwagons. The more Bush's popularity slipped, the more I liked him! I have an instinctual compulsion to support the underdog and the attacked, and to rebel against mob mentality of any kind.

I think the history will hold true again and that more people who make up their mind at the last minute (a lot of them likely to be SPs ;) ) will vote for McCain.
 

LostInNerSpace

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I think the history will hold true again and that more people who make up their mind at the last minute (a lot of them likely to be SPs ;) ) will vote for McCain.

That's an interesting and insightful analysis. Is there anthing at all that might tempt you you consider Obama?
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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I think the history will hold true again and that more people who make up their mind at the last minute (a lot of them likely to be SPs ;) ) will vote for McCain.

I think this is probably true. If the polls are close the week before the election, then it will probably go to McCain. Though if Obama has built himself a decent lead up to that point, then I think he'll probably win. McCain has several strikes against him that most other SP candidates didn't have, so I think it could go either way at this point.
 
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