Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Keith Payne (on the psychology behind the political divide)
Wed, 13 Nov 2024
Keith Payne (Good Reasonable People, The Broken Ladder) is a professor and author. Keith joins the Armchair Expert to discuss the effects of economic segregation, the roots of our current divisions, and how some people feel about dating others with opposite political views. Keith and Dax talk about the psychological immune system, the better-than-average effect, and how tribalism plays a role in people’s politics. Keith explains the geopolitical effects of the Mason-Dixon Line, how education levels can predict someone’s political affiliation, and the misconceptions of how income is effecting our politics. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the psychology behind America's political divide?
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman.
Hi. Hi.
Hi, I have for six and a half years spoke about one of my favorite books called Broken Ladder. And the author of that book is Keith Payne, who is a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Very esteemed school.
Very. Is it?
Yeah, it is. Of public schools, it's like it is one of the best ones.
Par excellence. Yeah.
Probably with UCLA.
Berkeley.
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Chapter 2: How does economic segregation affect political views?
Yeah, and you point out that there is some reigning theories, right? There's one theory that if you give liberals and conservatives these personality tests, you're going to see that liberals score higher on the open-mindedness personality trait and go on down the line. But as you point out, you're looking at, in the best case, if they were choosing out of five, it's like a difference between one.
It's like 10%. It doesn't nearly approach the explanation we would need.
Right. It's true that Democrats score a little higher on openness to experience, for example, than Republicans do on average. But like you said, out of a five point scale, it's like one point difference. It's not these massive differences.
It doesn't come anywhere close to explaining why like 90 percent of black Americans would vote for Democrats and 60 percent of white Americans would vote for Republicans. You can't explain 90 percent effects with a 10 percent difference. Right. And is it really that all of these groups that vote for Democrats are just wildly open to experience? Probably not.
Yeah, I found myself getting defensive about your rejection of that because mine that I hung on to is in either the Molecule Amore or Dopamine Nation. And you do find different dopamine levels in liberals and conservatives, which would explain the willingness for change. But again, that level of dopamine difference is probably in the single percentages of how different their dopamine levels are.
Right. There are some real differences in terms of personality and things like you're pointing out. In research studies, if it's statistically different from zero, we go, yay, we found an effect. And we so often don't look at how big the effect is.
It's just amazing that with a handful of questions about what social groups you belong to, we can predict like with 90 percent accuracy how you're going to vote.
Yeah, there's most certainly some black Americans with lower dopamine levels than a lot of conservatives. So that can't be the smoking gun. Right. So let's get into some of those things. Tell me about Lincoln's map, this term we all know, kind of Mason-Dixon line, where that originates.
Mason-Dixon line was drawn by these astronomers, Mason and Dixon, who were brought over from England to the United States to draw the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Penn family wanted to know where Pennsylvania ended and where Maryland began. So they drew this line, but it just happens to also line up
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Chapter 3: What role does education play in political affiliation?
Okay.
Favorite night of the year.
Your favorite.
You haven't commented on my new hat.
Well, we were talking about serious stuff.
We were really talking about some serious stuff.
But I did notice it, and it's very cool.
Isn't it cute?
Yeah.
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