Listen Up with Host Al Neely
Hi, I'm Al Neely. I've spent most of my life asking, " Why do people behave a certain way? Why don't people understand that most everyone wants basically the same thing? Most everyone wants their fundamental need for peace of mind, nourishment, shelter and safety."
What I have learned is that because of an unwillingness to open one's mind to see that some of the people you come in contact with may have those same desires as you do. We prejudge, isolate ourselves, and can be hesitant to interact, and sometimes we can be belligerent towards one another. This is caused by learned behavior that may have repeated itself for generations in our families.
What I hope to do with this podcast is to introduce as many people with as many various cultures, backgrounds, and practices as possible. The thought is that I can help to bring different perspectives by discussing various views from my guests that are willing to talk about their personal experiences.
Hopefully we all will learn something new. We may even learn that most of us share the same desire for our fundamental needs. We may just simply try to obtain it differently.
Sit back, learn, and enjoy!
Listen Up with Host Al Neely
Blame and Political Attitudes: Dr. Gail Sahar on America's Cultural Divide
What if the real divide in America isn’t just about left versus right, but rather how we assign blame? Join us for a compelling conversation with Dr. Gail Sahar, a distinguished professor at Wheaton College and author of "Blame and Political Attitudes: The Psychology of America's Cultural War." Together, we unravel the complex cognitive processes behind how we perceive social issues like poverty and terrorism, challenging the narrative of a strictly polarized society. Dr. Sahar’s insights offer a fresh perspective on understanding these issues beyond mere political ideology, bridging the gap between academic research and public discourse.
We dive into the nuanced roles of blame in our society, tackling sensitive subjects such as unwanted pregnancy and sexual assault. With Dr. Sahar, we explore stereotypes and perceived control that shape public opinion and policy preferences, often dictating who receives sympathy and who faces judgment. The discussion touches on political contexts, including the support for Donald Trump, and the need for diverse social connections to break free from ideological echo chambers. Through education and awareness, we aspire to inspire a gradual reduction in prejudgment, even if it’s just one person at a time.
Our exploration extends to the broader political landscape, examining societal attitudes toward immigrants and minority groups. Dr. Sahar shares personal reflections, highlighting the impact of fear-driven rhetoric from leaders and the media. We discuss the influence of corporate capitalism on political priorities and the essential role of education in overcoming economic barriers, emphasizing the structural challenges faced by those trying to escape poverty. As we engage with these complex topics, Dr. Sahar’s hope is to encourage understanding and inspire change, offering a signed copy of her book as a token of appreciation for continuing the conversation.
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Hello everyone, I'm Al Neely with Listen Up Podcast and today we have special guest Dr Gayle Sahar. She is the author of Blame and Political Attitudes the Psychology of America's Cultural War. Let me give you a little bit of background about Dr Sahar. She's a professor at the College of is it Wheaton? Wheaton College yes, okay, and she's earned her Bachelor's of Art from University of Southern California and then she went on to earn a PhD in psychology from UCLA, and they're rivals.
Speaker 1:It's true.
Speaker 2:Major rivals. Okay. Dr Sahar's research and teaching focuses on social and political psychology. She's authored a number of academic articles and attitudes towards poverty, abortion, terrorism and other issues with her most recent book Blame and Political Attitudes the Psychology of American Cultural Wars the psychology of American culture wars. So, gail, is it okay? Would you prefer a doctor?
Speaker 1:Oh, Gail is fine.
Speaker 2:All right. So a lot of people you spend a lot of time getting that doctor. They want to be called doctor.
Speaker 1:That's true, I do know people like that.
Speaker 2:Don't call me anything other than that. Okay, so tell me how you came to write the book and what was your focus on with that particular topic.
Speaker 1:Ah sure. Well, I had been doing research for a long time about sort of how people view the causes of social problems, and my research suggests that, besides ideology we talk a lot about ideology all the time in this country, that we're polarized, et cetera but they kind of ignore the way people think about issues, and so my work is focused on kind of how people think about what causes poverty or what causes unwanted pregnancy or what causes terrorism, and so I've been doing that work for a long time, as I told you, like 30 years and I began to be a little frustrated by the fact that when you publish journal articles, it's just a handful of academics that read it right.
Speaker 1:You get people in your immediate field and it doesn't seem like very useful if we're doing science just for other scientists. So I kind of decided that I wanted to write something for a more popular audience, to get the ideas out there, because I felt they were important and I thought it explained a lot of the things that were going on in this country. I mean, I've been working on, I had worked on the book on and off for several years, but it just never stops. The kind of casting of blame for problems is just, it's throughout politics. I think it's gone on historically for very long and I don't see any sign of it stopping in the future. So I felt like it was important to get that word out to the general public a little bit more.
Speaker 1:And I also just wanted to de-emphasize the ideology part, because I sort of feel like we're the media is telling this story. Americans are so polarized. There are two different camps, there's red states versus blue states, and I think an awful lot of people don't really fit into those categories and I feel like they kind of get ignored. So we're really only talking about, you know, the pundits on Fox news and the liberal media et cetera. We're not talking about all the kind of moderate pragmatists that are, I think, that many Americans are, so that was sort of the goal.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. So, um, one of the things I I had a chance to read a little bit. I like to read before I have people on, so I didn't get a chance to read the entire book, but I read a little bit. You talk about cause, blame, emotion and behavior. So I thought it was kind of interesting when you're looking at two different sides of why. Can you kind of go over a little bit of that the cause, the blame, the emotion and behavior and how we don't realize that's what we're actually doing, that's causing.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, a lot of it is, I think, on an unconscious level. So the idea of the model I work with is that it assumes that people want to understand the causes of things around them. And this isn't just in politics, it's anything right. You walk by a homeless person on the street, you wonder, hmm wonder, what happened to them. Or a friend doesn't show up to meet you for coffee and you, right away, are going to think, well, why? Why did they not arrive? Was it? Did they get in a car accident? Do they not like me anymore? Right?
Speaker 1:So we're constantly trying to understand why things happen, and I think it's because we want to understand the world. Human beings are curious creatures, right? And if we don't understand why things happen, we can't stop bad things from happening in the future, etc. So the idea is that we do this all the time, and the type of cause we choose has a big influence on our thoughts, our emotions and then how we behave. So the simple example of the my friend stands me up for coffee, right?
Speaker 1:If I think to myself, oh, they probably had a car accident, I'm going to feel really differently than if I think myself oh, they probably had a car accident, I'm going to feel really differently than if I think, oh well, they're a jerk and they were inconsiderate, they didn't feel like showing up right, so right away. Those cognitions have a big effect on emotions, whether I'm angry or I feel sympathy, for example. Um, and if I blame them, the tendency is going to be to be angry, and if I don't blame them I'll probably feel a little bit more sympathetic, and then it affects my behavior the next time I see that person. Right, if I found out well, they had a car accident, I feel sorry for them. I'm going to still be their friend. If it's something else and I they just say I find out, they just didn't feel like it then I'm probably going to behave differently toward that person in the future. So that's the idea, and what I've done is sort of apply it to political attitudes.
Speaker 2:So just as?
Speaker 1:yeah, just as it applies in the social world, it applies at the political level. So if I think of you know, why is there homelessness? If I blame the individual, I probably feel angry with them, think I'm not going to help, right, and I don't believe in, you know, government assistance, et cetera. But if I in fact think it might not have been within their control like maybe they got fired or you know, all kinds of things could have happened to the person- Right.
Speaker 1:Then I'm going to feel sympathy and I'll be more inclined to help.
Speaker 2:Right more inclined to help Right, Did you last year? Did you follow the Daniel Penny and the homeless guy in the subway? Yes, yes, I don't know how much you stay on top of what's going on. I would imagine that's what you do. So what are your thoughts about that? Because there seems to be two camps with that and I actually think there's a third which I don't think anyone's thinking about, but that's just me. I like to ask why and what causes and things like that myself. So what were your thoughts about that? Why did we have when you take a look at it from a political standpoint you had basically conservatives looking at it from a particular standpoint that it was something that was needed, vigilante, yeah, what were your thoughts on it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I I'll say I haven't followed it as closely as some other issues, but I do. I am aware of the case and I have read a little bit about the two sides and I think I think you're absolutely right. I think part of it, I think, stems from whether or not you see the homeless person as basically a dangerous criminal versus somebody who is mentally ill, right and is having a struggling at the moment.
Speaker 1:So I think you're absolutely right. I think that conservatives are more likely to think he was intentional, he was threatening, and that the guy who attacked him did the right thing and protected other people, and I think liberals are more likely to say listen, mental illness happens, it's not our fault, it's uncontrollable. There's no reason to think he was going to harm someone and therefore I would feel sympathy for him and think, you know, maybe something should have been done, but not what happened.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and I'm curious what your third route is with the.
Speaker 2:I think you have to go a little bit deeper than Right, right have trauma, generation after generation, you get to a point where those things fall on one another, first of all his family, plus he didn't understand what was going on with him.
Speaker 2:Now we're just starting to make mental health, we're starting to push it to the forefront, so people are a little more cognizant about it. But I feel like when you're constantly in an impoverished situation and you're in a situation where you're black and you grow up like that, I feel like you're constantly dealing with mental health issues that the rest of society don't quite understand and then they see it as an act of aggression when somebody reacts in a way in which he reacts. But he probably should have been getting help from the very first time that he could talk or he would be able to speak with someone. He said he had schizophrenia, he was on several drugs, so there was an issue there and it's been something he's been dealing with his entire life, and I think that part is. I think that's never explained or never considered when you have those type of incidences.
Speaker 1:To make matters worse, I do in the book have a chapter about race and blame and about how blame is allocated differently depending on someone's race. And there's evidence suggesting that people automatically blame a black man more than they would a white man who did the same thing, and there's more of a stereotype that this is going to be an aggressive person. So I think there were so many things you're absolutely right that were feeding into the response.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's embedded in our society. So yes it's caused me to take a long. When I see someone or I'm dealing with someone on the street and they you could just tell that there's not exactly where they should be. On the mental standpoint I take, I make it a point to have patience with that person and take time, um, and try to understand, uh, whereas before I didn't. So um years and years ago.
Speaker 2:it's interesting the more I learned that um you also talk about um issues of um sexuality in your book. What have you discovered about that?
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, the the book um covers a couple of different things. Um about that. Yeah, the book covers a couple of different things about sexuality. One thing I talk about in the chapter is about people's abortion attitudes.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And that was actually my PhD dissertation was about people's beliefs about the causes of unwanted pregnancy and how that is related to abortion attitudes, and what I found was that people have a sort of stereotype of what a woman with an unwanted pregnancy is like, right, so is she just irresponsible using abortion as birth control? Or is she maybe a victim of sexual assault?
Speaker 1:right, and there's evidence that if it's something that happened that's out of her control, people tend to feel sympathy and think abortion might be justified. I think it's one of the reasons why sexual assault is one of the more acceptable reasons for abortion. Even among conservatives, they tend to be more likely to say yeah, in that case I would allow it Not all do, but some Whereas if it's something like where they see it as uncontrollable excuse me, as controllable, that person was irresponsible then they tend to blame her and say well, why should you have an abortion? You got yourself into this situation. They have a kind of you play, you pay attitude, right, so that's one section of it.
Speaker 1:Another has to do with beliefs about the causes of homosexuality. There's some evidence that people who see it as controllable, like a choice, are less in favor of gay rights, and people who see it as something that is outside our control it's just who we are tend to be more pro. You know, same-sex marriage and things like that. So even with issues of sexuality, blame seems to really kind of factor in. And then the last section is about specifically rape and sexual assault and the tendency that people have to blame even rape victims. People will often look for a reason why they deserved it. Right. Those questions like, well, what were you wearing and why were you out at midnight, or that kind of stuff that still goes on, right, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:It's really looking for a way to say you got yourself into this situation, so I don't feel sympathy.
Speaker 2:Wow, so you don't think we're ever going to get to a place where this isn't going to be taking place and we're not going to prejudge.
Speaker 1:I'm an optimist. I mean I wrote the book in part that I hoped it might make us aware and I don't mean to sound like I'm judging other people, and we all do it, like we all, I think, are pretty quick to blame Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I've just wanted people to think a little bit about it, like what evidence do I have that this was her fault? Why am I jumping to this conclusion? Right, so that was one of the goals. I don't think it will ever really go away, to be honest with you.
Speaker 2:I don't either. Probably one person at a time. Maybe if you get, you know, 10 people to buy the book, maybe one person to go? Oh okay, Maybe I should look at why I'm doing this, Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what I hope to do with the podcast. So yeah, just to educate people as to why they're, they're, uh, they do what they do and then hopefully I don't ever see it going away. But if I can do one person out of 10, that would be good.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:One of the things I've noticed when I talk to a lot of my conservative friends. Conservative friends, I've noticed that they tend to stay in a community where there's people that are like them and they're just bouncing the same ideas off of one another and they really do not go outside or explore outside of that community and you tend to get your strongest views and that's on both sides.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree yeah.
Speaker 2:I've always. What do you do? You know all I was. What do I tell? Usually what I tell them is maybe you should get some other friends that you should spend some time with that a little bit different than you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But in this last political you could just see it was all over the place. I had no idea what was going to happen. Going to happen. I think people are disappointed that believe that we're in a country that is so what I say so conservative in their thinking. And I don't know, I don't know, can we talk about the age of Donald Trump or what you think has brought that on?
Speaker 1:What makes him so appealing, you mean, to some people? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I think he part of the way I argue in the book that he managed to get so popular was that I think he places blame for problems in a way that does appeal to a certain segment of the population. So there are people who feel like, well, I'm not getting what I deserve. I thought I'd be making more money right now or I thought I would have a bigger house, and you know why are people of color getting special advantages? That kind of an attitude, and I think for someone like that, somebody who comes along and says, oh, the problem is immigrants, right, or you know, whatever it might be, the problem is, you know, critical race theory, or the problem is trans rights it's sort of an easy scapegoat for people to feel like, oh, okay, this guy knows what it is and he's going to come in and solve the problem. It sort of fits with their kind of worldview.
Speaker 1:And I think he did it even in his first presidency. You remember he was China was responsible for COVID and Muslims were responsible for terrorism, and there was all of this kind of rhetoric going on all the time, and I think it is a simple sort of rhetoric that appeals to people who are unhappy right and they want someone to blame, and I think it sort of preserves this view of a world they like where white men were on top. This view of a world they like where, you know, white men were on top and, you know, make America great again, to me means we want to go back to a point before everybody had rights.
Speaker 2:So that would appeal to someone right who feels like, oh, I would have been better off in that situation, right? Um, my question. One of the things I think about that is I look at it like people are in those communities that I was talking about and they don't go outside of those communities. Yeah, in my opinion, you're looking at the medical industry. You see foreign people, probably from India and the Middle East, that are really really good students in the medical field and I feel like that's a threat to white men.
Speaker 2:I've had a doctor tell me that. He's just told me he's an older white guy. He says it's just too many foreigners. But when you go to medical school now it's a lot of the better students are the Indians and the people from the Middle East, and that's just the bottom line and that's from hearing it from people that I know that are in medical school.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when you look at foreign people that start businesses in this country the, I believe, the two and three most um over the last five years, most of the business starts in this country have been from women and Hispanic people, especially Hispanic women. Their number, I think, their number two and three at business starts. I don't think this is going to stop. I feel why they're feeling like those are the challenges that they're dealing with. A simple way to say it is there's too many foreigners. Um, we don't want the DEI in schools. Um, we don't want immigrants over here. Um, what are some of the other challenges that they deal with? I got to tell you, um the people that I run into, the Hispanic guys. They work harder than Americans.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:You know. So when you say those things, I just see it on a daily basis, but I tend to look for it, so maybe I guess other people are not seeing it. So so your thoughts on what do you think's coming with With? I know it's hard to tell, but how do you foresee things going in the future with a Trump presidency?
Speaker 1:It's pretty unpredictable.
Speaker 1:I mean that's the thing about Trump you never know. You know there are doom and gloom scenarios where you can imagine things getting much worse, and you know, you know people being deported all over the place and all kinds of crackdowns. But there are lots of things. He threatened the first term that never really came to be. So I'm trying myself not to overreact, because some of it is a bit scary. I totally agree with what you were just saying. My father was an Arab immigrant and so I know firsthand like what the stereotypes are and what that, what it was like for him, etc. And so for people like me, yeah, it's particularly scary. I would definitely be on the bad list, right, yeah, but it's really hard to know. I've been trying to kind of sit back and watch. I mean, he really wants, I think, to be seen as a good president. I sometimes wonder if that might help a little bit that, whatever his impulses are, I think that in some ways he didn't do as much damage the last time as I feared.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was a little bit different with the people that were around him, but I've been following Donald Trump since the 80s.
Speaker 1:Oh, really yeah.
Speaker 2:So what I've seen over the years is he doesn't do a lot of what he says he's going to do. I don't really think he does a lot of anything that he likes, other than what he likes, which is probably playing golf and being in the spotlight. I don't really think he did much when he was president last time to help anything, yeah. So I don't know. He has different people around him now, so we'll see, but it's it's just interesting. So In your book you talk about ideology and the reason for hope, so can you address that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what the chapter is? It's about a few different things, and I was trying to end on a sort of a positive note. Right end on a sort of a positive note. So one of the things I say is that I don't think we're quite as ideologically divided as it feels, and I think part of it is the media driving it and politicians themselves are terrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's. No, you know, there's nothing like the equivalent of the sort of news shows we had as as kids, right, and so now every show is kind of like a spectacle and they're only like you were saying, they only appeal to one side, et cetera. So there's so little crossover. But when I talk to regular people, even people that I disagree with, I often find them to be more reasonable than you would be led to believe. Right, and I know, in my own classes I teach a course in political psychology and I've had some I mean most, most students in my college are pretty liberal, but I've had some very conservative students in that class and it's been really civil. I mean, people can disagree but everybody left feeling like, okay, I think I understand better their worldview. It's not, it's not as extreme or as, um, you know, offensive as I was imagining.
Speaker 1:I have a couple of breakthrough moments in my years of teaching where I've seen like liberal and conservative students interacting over some issue and realizing that you know they'll say like, oh, okay, I see why you might think that they can sort of see each other's thinking process a little bit better. But also there's a lot of evidence that people can, with new information we can change. So there've been studies where they show, for example, even little simple studies where they have somebody come in and do a like a poverty simulation, where they have to imagine living as a poor person. It's like a computer simulation and people come out of that blaming the poor less, because they realized, like for the first time, what it was really confronting you in that situation, right, right. So those kind of things give me hope. I do think that I think Americans in general are a little more reasonable than we're being led to believe, that everybody isn't on one extreme end or the other right. A lot of people are just not that engaged in politics.
Speaker 2:I've noticed that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like one-third of the country voted for Trump. Basically a little less than a third voted for Kamala Harris, and then a third did not participate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we have a lot, lot of apathetic Americans, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I can't understand why they're that way. And they just had no interest in voting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know I have to say I think maybe I'm being too generous to the general public, but I think part of it is politicians themselves are to blame. I really do think I have my own political attitudes, but I would say I don't think either party addresses the regular person as much as they should. I think there is a certain kind of condescending attitude they have, and I don't. I mean there are lots of things that Americans would agree about and I don't. I mean there are lots of things that Americans would agree about and I don't feel like either party does a particularly good job of giving people hope for the future. There are a lot of Americans now who say it doesn't really matter who's president. My life doesn't get any better, no matter what, when that's the case, then why vote?
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think you know a lot of what we're dealing with is corporate capitalism and influence, and I feel like that tends to be where the majority of the politicians focus on where their money's coming from. Yes, so and, and when you look at it as a whole in general society, I think certain classes the middle class and the lower class they tend to uh lose out when it gets to that point because, uh, you know they're not worrying about what they're if you're in you know your impoverished situation. They're not worrying about what they're if you're in you know your impoverished situation. You're not worrying about, you know, your 401k. You're worrying about how you're going to eat for the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and those people are left behind. I think you're right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then middle class you're worrying about how to pay for your insurance, your health insurance, because it's so high. Are we losing the skill to communicate, you think?
Speaker 1:I do worry that we are actually and I think part of it is exactly what you were saying earlier that we're increasingly isolated into our own little groups of people who agree with us, not only in human face-to-face interactions, but social media, right, and these algorithms that show us everything that we want to see so I do think that it is a problem, because there's a lot of evidence now that the hatred between people on the left and right is to such an extreme level, like there was a study a couple of years ago where they found that both conservatives and liberals were extremely horrified by the idea of their child marrying someone in the other party. So this idea that it's become a social identity like race, right. In fact, they were more upset by someone, by a child marrying someone in the other party than someone in another race, which you know. The history of racism in this country, right, that's really saying something, you know.
Speaker 1:If you hate Democrats more than you hate people of color or whatever. So it is worrisome and I do worry that I don't know how it's going to go away, because it just feels like the media feed it, the social media totally do. And we're increasingly living and you know, we're drawn to living in areas where there are people who are politically like us, right. So if I'm a liberal, I'm going to tend toward blue states, et cetera. So it is that worries me. I do worry that we're we're going to get to the point where it's so bad that it's unfixable. I mean, I don't think we're there yet. I like to think that things will swing back at some point, but it really does seem to be a problem. So I think we can learn things from hearing other people's viewpoints right, even if we don't agree with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, we can't just cancel them out. I think you should at least look and listen, because there's a book that you don't like. You shouldn't burn it, yeah right.
Speaker 1:The squelching of that stuff is a little bit scary yeah.
Speaker 2:Hey, I wanted to get your thoughts about the psychology of the shooter, that the person that went after that UnitedHealthcare CEO. Oh yeah, luigi, the reaction and, oh my God, it was all over the place with us, and I think that's kind of an example of everything we talked about, where a certain segment of the population is being ignored.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was the whole point with him. He just felt like he was being ignored. And then there was a segment of the population that thought what he did was despicable, and then some of them were touting him as a hero. I just want to wait and see about the trial and see everything that comes out before I make a decision on it. But what are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a really interesting case because, yeah, after it was publicized, all these people were coming out saying, oh, here's what the health insurance company did to me. They're denying a legitimate claim, et cetera. So it just goes to show you how deep the dissatisfaction is in this country with these companies. It just goes to show you how deep the dissatisfaction is in this country with these companies. They're making tons of money, charging like crazy and then refusing to cover things right, and so it's pretty despicable. And I think it does sort of show that sort of divide between the sort of very rich and everybody else. Right, I think most regular people can, kind of of most people probably wouldn't endorse murder, but they would say I can understand why he was frustrated and I think for the rich folks it's very threatening because it says, oh, my god, maybe we can't keep doing this anymore and yeah, it's, interesting you know, one of the things with trump's new term is that he's got these, these super rich I mean his whole.
Speaker 1:You know. He's got elon rich, I mean his whole. You know he's got Elon Musk and people like that, who are among the wealthiest people in the world, who have never been elected, have no official government position, but now we're going to be influencing politics. So I think it's like we're really going to an extreme, I think, in the way that money is kind of running things.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So for me that's what it laid bare was this feeling of frustration. I was really quite surprised by the reaction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a little scary to me because I can actually see it going in that direction. The people that are in his administration are the very similar to, I guess would be a CEO of a company, and if people don't feel as though they have a voice, I'm a little worried that things like this is going to are going to continue to happen. How are you going to protect people?
Speaker 1:No, it's true. Yeah, if someone's frustration is that deep and they have no avenue for getting any help, then, yeah, I agree with you. I think it is a bit scary that the situation has become so hopeless for so many Americans.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm really nervous now, sorry.
Speaker 1:It made you feel worse yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm nervous for where we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Trying to recall, I stopped listening to the news after the last election at all because they don't know what was going on. The influences that they're having on people are, um, they're, they're detrimental, negative, um, polarizing. Stop listening to them, Um, and then I asked why I'm listening? Most of the time I listen to podcasts or YouTube, and that you know. I know why these people are doing what they're doing. So, um, it's just, it's a little scary, it is. So what else articles have you written? What do you have out?
Speaker 1:Well, most of the stuff was from before the book, so I did one piece about, as I was saying, abortion attitudes. A long, long time ago I did one about attitudes toward poverty. So sort of the first big study I did about how people perceive the causes of poverty and that you know again, if they see it as controllable by the poor, they're lazy, et cetera they tend to be angry and not want to help. It's the sort of same model.
Speaker 2:What did you? And then, oh sorry, I'm sorry, I'm starting to get a little coffee here. What have you seen with not so much? Are you talking about? Not so much the cause, but the thought as to, about poverty, as to why people are still, after generation, stuck in it? Or tell me exactly what you were focused on when you were doing your research.
Speaker 1:Yes, so really, it was just asking people to rate how important various causes of poverty are. So things like, you know, is laziness a major cause of poverty or is lack of jobs? You know, some are societal causes, like lack of jobs, discrimination, lack of educational opportunity, things like that, and others were about the poor person themselves, like they're lazy they're on drugs, right, they're an alcoholic, they don't know how to manage money, that kind of stuff, and the results are pretty common sense really.
Speaker 1:It just confirms what you know already, which is that if you blame the person, then you think I'm angry with them, I don't think we should have welfare, et cetera, and if you blame the society, then you feel very differently. So it all kind of fits the pattern and there's a link with ideology, in that conservatives in general are more likely to hold the individual responsible. It's kind of a hallmark of being conservative, right, everybody has to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, that kind of stuff Whereas liberals are more likely to believe that society has some responsibility for giving people certain and maybe you know, maybe health care, maybe a certain reasonable standard of living, etc.
Speaker 2:So the usual kind of things that you would expect came out there. Yeah, yeah, all right, I'm going to question what is your, what are your thoughts to why people continuously stay in, uh, impoverished the the majority of, uh our culture stays in. The majority of our culture stays in an impoverished situation. If they're born in an impoverished situation, what is your thoughts about that? What do you think is the cause?
Speaker 1:You know it's a controversial topic. I'm sure you know about various politicians who've talked about the sort of culture of poverty that people just learn bad habits from being poor. I don't actually personally believe that. I think it's an incredibly difficult thing and there's a lot of data to show this. It is extremely hard to raise your social class. There are so many advantages you get from being middle class or rich in this country that if you really grew up in a poor, poor family, it's like starting 10 feet below the ground right, and so the climb is so much steeper, and so I think it's really naive to say well, anybody can succeed in this country, you just have to try hard enough. I don't think the data support that. I think they actually. I'm unwilling to believe that everybody born poor is lazy.
Speaker 2:I think you would just have huge disadvantages and it's extremely hard to pull yourself back out, right yeah yeah, yeah, I agree with you I've worked with some guys that I think the majority of it comes down to education.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think education is the equalizer to all those things, those rising above any situation. But I know guys that work hard, um, and they don't know how to manage money. They don't know what to do with it. Um, they weren't educated to, um, to figure out how to take one step and go to the next. They're just trying to survive. They just want to get something to eat for that day and feed their family.
Speaker 2:So I think and I right now, I just think that's where we are in the country People that are controlling the courts and everything believe that you should pull yourself up by your bootstraps right now, but they don't completely understand that these people are not educated enough to be able to do that. And it's not just books. It could be with anything you know. It could be with. You know just how simply creating a budget and staying on a plan every day yeah.
Speaker 2:And just doing that for a period of time will give you an opportunity to make progress.
Speaker 1:So I think that's where we are, yeah, and it's sad because now the things that we're putting in place to help people like that are being removed, so interesting it is scary, yeah, and I think people don't want to acknowledge that what the real cause is. I mean, if you look at so many countries in the world where education is free, it just makes a huge difference. Right One said when education is a commodity that you can either afford or not, it's not a very good recipe for equality.
Speaker 2:Right, right and people are leaving clues. That's why you have people coming here, going to our institutions, because they understand the importance of education. Yeah, and they're amongst the top earning groups in this country. So they figured it out. Yes, that's right. Yeah, yeah, they figured it out.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Interesting. So what else do you have coming up?
Speaker 1:Well, I'm actually thinking I took a little break after the book came out. I will tell you I was a little weird out. It's intense finishing a book.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I'm working on a couple of studies now, one of which is about people's beliefs about war and the kinds of appeals to peace that make the most sense to people. So one study I just started working on with a couple of colleagues is about whether or not people are more concerned about the human cost of war or the environmental cost of war. I don't know how much you follow this, but there's a lot of discussion, for example in Gaza, about obviously there was a huge human cost, but there are people who seem more concerned about what it's doing to the environment, or at least as concerned about it. So that's one thing to sort of think about. And then I've been I'm just in the beginning phases of another study. I'm really interested in people's reactions to the conflict in the Middle East, partly because I am Palestinian American myself, and so I'm in the beginning stages of a study in which I'm trying to present scenarios to people describing the conflict in various ways to see how it affects their attitudes.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, because in the popular press, right, they often talk about it as though the conflict started on October 7th, but in fact it's been going on for 75 years, right and so.
Speaker 2:Actually longer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, centuries, do you have any of the questions? Just test me if you can. Do you have any of that? I'm just curious.
Speaker 1:Oh. I'm not that far along yet.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, good All right, but um, when you you haven't uh, once you finish, I would love to have you uh come back and talk about that.
Speaker 1:Oh sure.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I find it. I find it fascinating and interesting. So, um, um, I I'm beside myself, I don't know where to come down on what side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I just I sympathize with both sides and I just the loss of human life is just, it's just devastating to me.
Speaker 1:It's horrible. Yeah, yeah, it's horrible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's very interesting, so I'm looking forward to that coming out. So energize yourself so we can get to that book.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Yeah, I'm about ready to get going again. As I say, it's exhausting writing a book and then you're doing very. You know events afterwards and everything, so I'm sort of just getting my research feet on the ground again. That I'll keep you posted.
Speaker 2:I would like to get a signed copy. I have a uh, a copy of my Kindle, but I would love to get a signed copy of of yours.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, Just yeah. Give me an address and I'll send you one. I'm happy to.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll pay for it.
Speaker 1:Oh, don't worry about it. You were kind to have me on your show, oh no, it was excellent to have you on.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you coming on and talking about these things. These are questions that people have and they don't have answers to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's. A lot of us are confused, right? It's a strange time in the history of the world. It feels like it's overwhelming sometimes.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, any final thoughts? No, I think I would just say try not to blame too much, Try to think a little more deeply before you assume somebody's at fault, have patience. Yes, and grace, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely I agree with you, doctor. All right, all right, that's it. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in to listen up. We will catch you next time on Listen Up. You have a great day. Bye. For anyone watching this channel, I ask that you please like and subscribe for upcoming videos.
