A ‘direct link’ between mental illness and Bush support

November 28, 2006

This probably won’t come as a big surprise to any of you, but it’s nevertheless helpful to have empirical data on the subject. (via Tom Tomorrow)

A collective “I told you so” will ripple through the world of [tag]Bush[/tag]-bashers once news of Christopher Lohse’s study gets out.

Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between [tag]mental illness[/tag] and support for President Bush.

Lohse says his study is no joke. The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse’s study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.

In this case, Lohse isn’t saying that conservatives are inherently psychotic, only that “[tag]psychotic[/tag] patients prefer an authoritative leader” like Bush. “If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be,'” Lohse said.

Apparently, it’s not an entirely new phenomenon — Lohse also noted a 1977 study by Frumkin & Ibrahim found psychiatric patients preferred Nixon over McGovern in the 1972 election.

What’s more, it’s not just limited to mental health; Rakfeldt, who backed Lohse’s study, found another noteworthy correlation.

The study used Modified General Assessment Functioning, or MGAF, a 100-point scale that measures the functioning of disabled patients. A second scale, developed by Rakfeldt, was also used. Knowledge of current issues, government and politics were assessed on a 12-item scale devised by the study authors.

“Bush supporters had significantly less knowledge about current issues, government and politics than those who supported Kerry,” the study says.

Raise your hand if you’re surprised.

Gawds, this is too perfect. Great fodder for some holiday dinner conversations!! 😉

  • I estimate the over/under on Krauthammer calling Lohse “crazy” or words to that effect is three days. Anyone want to take the “over” bet?

  • It lines up with what I’ve suspected. The three people I know who would vote for Bush (if Canadians were allowed to vote in US elections) are all on serious psychotropic drugs for various aliments and are noted for their stunning ignorance.

    I have a friend who always rants about emperical studies because he thinks they’re evil (he spends a lot of time trolling on right wing sites.) He’ll flip out about this. The thing about emperical studies is that they may not exactly identify the cause, but they certainly point in the right direction.

    And finally, the real proof is the article below on Limbaugh

  • I listen to Hannity religiously (he’s so smart). He says that this is just further proof that academics are crazy and that liberals are trying to take over the world. He says what we need is for all these Dems to just listen to the President and do whatever he says because he has our best interests at heart.

  • Let’s see, “makes their own reality” and being delusional sound similar, eh?
    Also, the link between lessened mental capacity, less knowledge about current issues, and preferring an Authoritarian is a finding that I will gladly cite from here to infinity.
    Thanks

  • Oh Please, just because the Insane favor BG2 doesn’t mean that the non-insane don’t.

    Of course, in 2000 most of everybody didn’t favor Bush 😉

  • psychiatric patients preferred Nixon over McGovern in the 1972 election

    Unfortunately, so did 60.7% of actual voters.

    But it does explain Republican strategy: throw out a lot of irrelevant flak to keep people confused and at the same time rely on short slogans endlessly repeated to cut through the noise. Watch Democrats flail around trying to counter the flak with rational arguments that will sail over the heads of the confused, making them think these slick talkers are trying to pull the wool over their eyes – unlike those straight talking Republicans. Repeat.

  • This dovetails nicely with the earlier study that showed how Kerry voters had a far better grasp of reality than Bush voters. I’d still like to see a survey where they study how many Bush backers still believe that WMDs and pre-2003 Iraq/AlQaeda ties were found. I would guess it’s a significant percentage, probably over half.

    But I think the mental illness/Bush voter correlation is probably just a reflection or subset of the preference highly religious people have for the latest authoritarian (Bush). The desire to find “a different reality” sustains many religiously unhinged people, and Bush’s people not only use dog-whistle terminology, they have flat-out admitted that they think they can create new “realities” which the reality-based community can only study before the Bushitters replace it with a new one.

  • Doesn’t surprise me in the least. You have to be bloody nuts to believe half of what these idiots believe in, and I’m not talking about the religious part, I’m talking about the nuts-and-bolts of governing.

  • I suspect this is more about those supporting war being more likely to have mental problems than about preferring authoritarian personalities.

    Reality is important to Republicans. That’s why they fake reality whenever they can.

    The insane: the OTHER white constituency.

  • Urrgh. This is a great example of why psychology will never be a hard science, why it shouldn’t be used in this way and why people often get the wrong end of the stick when citing psych studies.

    First of all, nothing can ever be proven in a psych or soc study in the way it can be proven in a chemistry lab. If the researcher has in fact said so, he’s being an irresponsible ass. Secondly, you can’t even come close to proving jack with such a small sample. Third, finding a correlation is…well, it’s very easy to find all sorts of correlations and so even in the field studies that do so aren’t the most respected studies out there. Finally it produces more stupidity about the mentally ill. Ho, ho, watch out for those crazy guys, they like Bush.

    Look at it this way, if the study were of 70 people who had been convicted of crimes and a researcher said he had proven there was a link repeat offense rate and voting Democrat, we’d all say So what? Or call the researcher a crank.

    Maybe I should shut up until I find the study but right now this looks like crack-pottery dressed up as science and the fact that it is unfavourable to Bush doesn’t make it any better.

  • I think this is hilarious, but I question if it has any real significance in the political debate. I also wonder if he found any research correlating support for Democratic presidents like Johnson, Carter, or Clinton among Psych patients. Without that control we don’t know but what ALL psych patients don’t support the existing president. What would that mean? Not much, which is about what this means in the context of the current administration.

    I always worry when Democrats(and I am a fervent Democrat) start looking at stuff like this. The reason to abhor this administration isn’t that crazy people support it. The reasons are manifold and have to do with such things as its initial illegitimacy, it’s incompetence in recognizing the clear threats to us before 9/11, its seizure of power, its presumption of the right to reinterpret legislation–and on and on ad nauseum.

    Studies of what crazy people think aren’t much to the point–they distract us from the issues, and by giving us something to laugh at, it dulls our sense of outrage.

  • We need to get the message out:

    If you voted for Bush twice, you should disqualify yourself from ever voting or voicing a political opinion again.

  • John Deans book covered a similiar aspect of the Right-Wing Authoritarian mindset.
    This is just another study that backs it up.

    Now, how about studying the delusion that capitalism actually works. I have not seen one,(that actually adds up), only to the contraire. Read Dr. David Kortens’ “When Corporations Rule the World”
    I mean, c’mon, since when does cleaning up after the Exxon Valdez disaster count as “positive” economic gain? Or clear-cutting a forrest to make 100 million, while doing 250million in damage to the salmon industry? Really, these guys went to business school to make 5 – 10 = 20??

    I expect to be attacked for these comments.

  • My apologies in advance to Former Dan for the cherry-picked quote—but it’s just too good an opportunity to refuse!

    The…people….who would vote for Bush…are all on serious psychotropic drugs for various aliments and are noted for their stunning ignorance.

    There. See what happens when you take a GOP weapon (in this case, “cherry-picking”), and turn it against THEM?!? Makes perfect sense to me….

  • So if I do my algebra correctl,:
    Psychosis = Support Bush = The base.

    I come up with,
    The Base = Psychosis

    Some please correct my math, please !!

  • It may be true that not all psychotics are conservatives, but that’s not like saying thaallconservatives are psychotics.

    Actually, most of those morons aren’t smart enough to rise to the level of psychotics – just garden variety paranoid schizophrenics, with Bush’s and Limpboffer’s voices in their heads.

  • It may be true that not all psychotics are conservatives, but that’s not like saying tha allconservatives are not psychotics.

    Geezzz… can’t even get my own double-negatives right.

  • This study makes some sense just from my own experience. The people I know who like and vote for Bush, while are not psychotic, do find comfort in authoritarian personalities. They like to be told what is right, what is wrong and what will happen. They dislike thinking of these things for themselves.

    So this does not surprise me

  • ScottW, @20,

    It’s not math, it’s *logic* that you’re trying to use there, as practiced all the way back in ancient Greece. And you made a “standard” mistake (false equation), which Tom Cleaver tried to correct but got bogged down in double negatives 🙂

    The particular rule of logic which applies here is:
    Every A may equal B but it does not , automatically, mean that every B equals A. In everyday, easy to remember terms (as I was taught in highschool), it’s:
    “every dog is a mammal, but not every mammal is a dog”

    So, even if every psychotic is a neocon, it doesn’t mean that every neocon is a a psychotic. And vice versa, of course.

    I agree with TAIO (@14); as a study, it stinks — small sample, only one (obviously pre-conceived) hypothesis tested, etc. As they say in Poland “If you want to hit a dog, you can always find a stick”.

    The only part of the study worth considering is:

    In this case, Lohse isn’t saying that conservatives are inherently psychotic, only that “psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader” like Bush. “If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be,’” Lohse said.

    Misfits, insecure, marginalized people — criminals, mentally ill/retarded, undereducated, very poor — usually do prefer simple and authoritative answers to their problems, as do children. But that’s nothing new…

  • tAiO, I tried to find the study. I couldn’t but I did find that Misty Giancola (sic) the person represented in the article as a statistician has has doctorate from Yale award in 2006 in developmental psychology. While may psychologists are very good applied statisticians this one is a little wet behind the ears

  • You dumbasses just don’t get it…Its not that Bush is the best choice. Of course not! But he’s a whole lot better than anything on the left. And somehow he keeps kicking their collective asses….too funny.

    • Comments are closed.