Comments

1
Wow - an interesting new framework for strategizing ways to actually start reaching tea partiers to replace the benefit they derive from rationalization with something less harmful to the nation.

Ironically, this framework also provides a view of why the political will to find new ways to engage the tea partiers to bring them around can get drowned out, internally and externally, by the primitive wish to preserve tea partiers as a permanent group toward whom we can enjoy a feeling of superiority, and whom we believe we can mock with impunity. Talk about rationalization.
2
So instead of "seeing some good in everyone" we'd be better off understanding the bad in everyone. And there is clearly a lot of bad, especially those who loudly proclaim their own virtue, like Sarah Palin's crowd.
3
Scientific evidence of nice guys finish last?
4
The nice guys are the first to be voted off the island.
5
Isn't the argument from the elderly teapartier grounded in the fact that they paid taxes their entire working lives? What about unemployed welfare recipients? Seems there'd be a gray area between labeling them as either generous or selfish... perhaps pitiable.
6
Dangit, the full text is behind a paywall.
7
we had a roommate who was a "nice guy"... he'd always offer us beers and it'd seem like it was ok to just take them whenever, and when we bought beer he was of course always welcome to them. but he never took our beer. it was baffling because we were kind of like "come on, if you want a beer take a goddamn beer. we know you know we owe you". by not ever taking our beer he quickly became disliked in the house.

so yeah, that study seems about right.
8
They had to do a study to figure this out?

Isn't the evidence staring us in the face:

http://www.restoredtraditions.com/images…
9
@Celebrandy

Was that roommate named Craig Parks or Asako Stone, per chance?
10
@7 - I've had this happen too! WHY DO WE DO THAT???? I'd feel better if my roommate would occasionally bum stuff from me, and I'm thrilled when he does.
11
@7 - I've had this happen too! WHY DO WE DO THAT???? I'd feel better if my roommate would occasionally bum stuff from me, and I'm thrilled when he does.
12
I think some of it has to do with with perceived debt.

If everyone involved is contributing somewhat evenly or proportionately by various metrics, then it's easy to feel good about the dynamic. You're square with the members.

When someone is not only contributing out of proportion, but staving off attempts to square the account, there may be a feeling that they are building up to an unspecified obligation that may be onerous to discharge.

In some ways, they pose a looming threat to our future.
13
Explains why people can be suckered into thinking that Ayn Rand makes sense.
14
@11 - everyone wants to help others out, nobody wants to be helped out. You may now ponder how these behaviors were selected for.
15
The reason they threw the gay guy off of Big Brother wasn't that he was a nice guy, it was that he was a strong competitor that had to be taken out.

Plus, he messed with the Brigade.
16
A few words to describe my initial reaction to this study: counterintuitive, puzzling, troubling.

I like how the study's authors caution that the participants' stated motivations might not be their real motivations; they might just be rationalizations.

I will say the anonymous commenter @12 gives as good an explanation as any:
When someone is not only contributing out of proportion, but staving off attempts to square the account, there may be a feeling that they are building up to an unspecified obligation that may be onerous to discharge.

In some ways, they pose a looming threat to our future.

I'd also give a mundane "identity politics" explanation. You're more apt to exclude from your group people you don't understand or identify with.
17
@7: That's why, though I won't try to mooch off of others, I never turn down a drink offered to me. As my zaydeh (may he rest in peace) used to say: "When somebody offers you money, take it."
18
Old news. The Replacements: The ones who love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest. The ones who love us least are the ones we'll die to please.
19
@17,

It can be considered rude to refuse help from others, like you're too good for it or something. I don't know if that impression factored into this specific study though.

@7,

I wish I had your roommate. I always had the opposite, those assholes who will mooch off of you constantly and say "you can have anything of mine" and meanwhile they never bought any food/drinks of their own.
20
I figure it's a self image thing.
We dislike those we secretly feel are "better than us", and we tolerate arseholes because we secretly feel "better than them".
21
Or maybe we secretly fear that arseholes are ENTITLED to act that way BECAUSE they are better than us...

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