Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:...l.pone.0042366
Sample text I thought was interesting (for typology purposes or w/e):
Empathizer-Systemizer Scale
The Empathizer-Systemizer scale (adapted from Baron-Cohen [62]) measures the tendency to empathize, defined as “the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion” and to systemize, or “the drive to analyze the variables in a system, and to derive the underlying rules that govern the behavior of the system.” In short, empathizing is about understanding the social world whereas systemizing is about understanding the world of inanimate objects and nature. We selected 20 items from the full 40-item empathizer scale, and 20 items from the full 75-item systemizer scale to create a single survey that could be completed in less than 10 minutes. Cronbach's alphas for these measures were .80 (systemizer) and .84 (empathizer). The measure was completed by 8,870 participants (4,532 men, 6,525 liberals, 877 conservatives, and 637 libertarians).
Results.
Table 3 shows that libertarians score the lowest of any group on empathizing, and the highest on systemizing (also see Figures 3 and 4). In fact, libertarians are the only group that scored higher on systemizing than on empathizing. Given that these traits are known to differ between men and women, it is important to examine these effects in each sex separately. Table 3 shows that the same effects hold when looking only at men, and when looking only at women.
Figure 4. Libertarians exhibit a reason-based cognitive style according to a variety of measures.
Interpretation.
Research by Baron-Cohen [62] has shown that relatively high systemizing and low empathizing scores are characteristic of the male brain, with very extreme scores indicating autism. We might say that liberals have the most “feminine” cognitive style, and libertarians have the most “masculine.” These effects hold even when men and women are examined separately, as can be seen in Table 3. Indeed, the “feminizing” of the Democratic party in the 1970s [63] may help explain why libertarians moved increasingly into the Republican party in the 1980s.
Need for Cognition
The Need for Cognition scale [64] is a measure of the extent to which people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities. People with high need for cognition are more likely to form their attitudes by paying close attention to relevant arguments, whereas people with low need for cognition are more likely to rely on peripheral cues, such as how attractive or credible a speaker is. The measure was completed by 8,035 participants (4,242 men; 5,888 liberals, 760 conservatives, and 657 libertarians).
Results.
Table 3 shows that libertarians scored slightly higher than liberals and moderately higher than conservatives on Need for Cognition (also see Figure 4).
Interpretation.
This pattern is consistent with the libertarian valuation of logic and reasoning over emotion. Libertarians may enjoy thinking about complex and abstract systems more than other groups, particularly more than conservatives.