Academic Bias: Anti-Conservative Social Psychologists

Here is an excellent article on academic bias (thanks for the pointer, Tyler Cowen). Social psychology is a particularly liberal discipline, but does this actually have an effect on the few conservative social psychologists? Indeed, it does.

Researchers found significant willingness to discriminate against conservatives. The extent of this is alarming, as we often assume professors to be fair and professional.

The questions on willingness to discriminate against conservatives were asked in two ways: what the respondents thought they would do, and what they thought their colleagues would do. The pool included conservatives (who presumably aren't discriminating against conservatives) so the liberal response rates may be a bit higher, Inbar said. 

The percentages below reflect those who gave a score of 4 or higher on a 7-point scale on how likely they would be to do something (with 4 being "somewhat" likely). 

Percentages of Social Psychologists Who Would Be Biased in Various Ways

	Self	Colleagues
A "politically conservative perspective" by author would have a negative influence on evaluation of a paper	18.6%	34.2%
A "politically conservative perspective" by author would have a negative influence on evaluation of a grant proposal	23.8%	36.9%
Would be reluctant to extend symposium invitation to a colleague who is "politically quite conservative"	14.0%	29.6%
Would vote for liberal over conservative job candidate if they were equally qualified	37.5%	44.1%

The more liberal the survey respondents identified as being, the more likely they were to say that they would discriminate.

This anti-conservative bias is likely to keep any conservative ideas out of social psychology. Even if one disagrees with particular ideals, we all benefit from hearing other perspectives. A unilateral view can't be healthy for any academic discipline.

This research studies only one field, but it leads us to wonder if other academic disciplines are similarly biased. Academic bias is a problem that was always expected, but now that we can see the extent of it, it's time to look at it more seriously.