filedrawered results
projects that I started that I either don’t want to finish, or aren’t worth finishing.
political agency small study:
Data
Agreeableness was measured using a short 12 item likert scale test.. MIRT scores were extracted from the composite of the 12 items.
Political interest was measured using four different questions. MIRT scores were extracted from these items.
General Knowledge was measured using an abbreviated version of the openpsychometrics general knowledge test. These items were selected based on having the highest g-loadings.
Vocabulary size was assessed using an abbreviated version of the openpsychometrics vocabulary IQ test. These items were also selected based on the highest g-loadings and lowest pass rates to artificially impose a ceiling onto a relatively short mental test.
Trust in experts was assessed by extracting the MIRT scores of 3 different questions which asked the individuals how much they trusted their own judgment over those of experts.
Political advocacy was assessed by measuring the agent's response to a hypothetical scenario where the individual must act in 3 different ways. This is considered to be a facet of political agency, which contributes to the agents ability to advocate for political causes they consider to be important.
The reliability of these constructs was calculated using the empirical reliability function from the ‘mirt’ package in R, and the values have been displayed in Table X. The questions, loadings, and scoring scheme for each factor are available in the appendix.
Right wing views and authoritarianism were assessed using a self-reported 0-10 scale.
Results
Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to ascertain the strength of the univariate relationships between
Agreeableness (r = 0.12, p = .19), general knowledge (r = 0.16, p = .079) and trust in experts (r = 0.15, 0.12) were not robustly correlated with political agency. Vocabulary size (r = .22, p = 0.018) and crystalized ability (r = .22, p = .023) were potentially truly correlated with political agency.
possible that the correlation between cognitive ability and political agency is a product of the correlation between cognitive ability and political interest. To determine this, regression analysis was used. Cognitive ability was found not to correlate with advocacy at all (p = .97) after controlling for political interest.
Table X. Regression model predicting political advocacy after controlling for political interest. *** -> p < .001.
Other variables that were politically relevant such as authoritarianism and right wing political beliefs were tested out of curiosity, but without a strong prior that they correlate for political advocacy. A correlation matrix of all of the variables measured in this study is available in Table X.
Table X. Correlation matrix of variables measured in the study.
Paper 2: the relationship between conspiratorial beliefs and verbal ability (pdf)
Main findings:
General conspiratorial belief and vocabulary size were correlated at r=-0.211 (p<e-10, {-0.253, -0.167}), indicating that increased vocabulary was associated with less endorsement of conspiracy theories. The correlation extracted from spearman’s method and pearson’s method were roughly identical (-0.211 vs -0.214), indicating that this is not an artifact of violations of normality. After adjusting for unreliability inferred from internal consistency, this correlation rose to -0.231.
This relationship was robust after adjusting for age, gender, race, education, and urbanicity. Out of the 13 confounding variables examined, only 2 passed the non-significance level. Identifying as Black (p=0.002) or female (p=0.00036) were associated with a 0.55SD and 0.164SD increase in conspiratorial beliefs respectively.
Although it is clear there is a direct relationship between conspiracy beliefs and vocabulary size, this relationship could change depending on the belief. To evaluate this, the correlation between vocabulary size and conspiratorial beliefs was calculated and are exhibited in Table 1. Conspiracy theories revolving around aliens, secret societies that control the world and science are the ones most negatively associated with verbal ability, while conspiracy theories revolving around malevolent conspiracies or concealed information were not nearly as associated with lower vocabulary.
