Do Liberals Play Nice? Findings By MU Researcher Indicate 'No'

July 28, 2004

Contact: Jeremy Diener

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Do Liberals Play Nice? Findings by MU Researcher Indicate ‘No’

COLUMBIA, Mo. — When the labels “conservative” and “liberal” are brought into a political discussion, the common perception is that Democrats, or “liberals,” are inherently more compassionate than Republicans, or “conservatives.” However, in the first study to test whether this perception conforms to reality, a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher found that liberals do not show any more compassion than conservatives in similar settings.

“Evidence from the survey on attitudes toward public spending and redistribution support the stereotype that liberals are more empathetic than conservatives,” said Jeff Milyo, MU associate professor of economics and public affairs. “However, we found that Democrats and liberals behave no differently than Republicans and conservatives in our experiments.”

Milyo, along with colleagues Lisa Anderson and Jennifer Mellor at the College of William and Mary, examined differences in the behavior of liberal versus conservative subjects in two experimental settings. The first experiment tested whether liberals were more likely to contribute tokens to a group account when such actions were contrary to self-interest. The second experiment tested whether liberals trusted strangers, or behaved in a trustworthy manner themselves, despite monetary incentives to the contrary.

Subjects were categorized as liberal or conservative after completing a survey about their political activities and beliefs. Contrary to popular perception, researchers found little difference in the behavior of liberal and conservative subjects. When presented with the opportunity to contribute to the public account, each group donated similar amounts.

“We take these results as evidence of the difference between our subjects’ self-reported generosity and their actual behaviors,” Milyo said. “While party and ideology are associated with attitudes about public spending, there is no evidence that these political leanings explain subject behavior in our experimental sessions.”

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