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interesting statistical analysis from vox showing that white male vote is radically different from everybody else on almost every issue
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8665401/nuclear-power-gender
If it is white males at issue, then the cause is probably not any inherent or biological difference between men and women. In fact, a recent literature review (and re-analysis) by Julie Nelson has dented if not destroyed the notion that there are deep, generic differences between the genders on risk perception. In fact, these effects vary widely based on circumstance and experimental design. The "risk-averse female" archetype now so common in economics probably reflects deep-seated social and gender assumptions more than research.
In short, the real gap on nuclear power is not between men and women, but between white men and everyone else. And this has far more to do with socialization than with any inherent or biological differences.
Perhaps white males see less risk in the world because they create, manage, control, and benefit from so much of it. Perhaps women and nonwhite men see the world as more dangerous because in many ways they are more vulnerable, because they benefit less from many of its technologies and institutions, and because they have less power and control.
That sounds about right. In fact, Yale's Dan Kahan (familiar to Vox.com readers) led a study showing that the differences in risk perception were almost entirely a function of what he calls "identity-protective cognition" among a very particular set of white males. It's not so much a "white male effect," he says, as "a 'white hierarchical and individualistic male effect' reflecting the extreme risk skepticism of men with those worldviews."
White hierarchical individualistic males were motivated to resist claims of environmental and certain other risks, we conjectured, because the wide-spread acceptance of those claims would justify restrictions on markets, commerce, and industry—activities important (emotionally and psychically, as well as materially) to the status of white men with those outlooks.
The conjecture, he says, has held up in the face of subsequent evidence.
So we've narrowed in here. What looked like a gender divide on nuclear power is in fact mostly a function of the "extreme risk skepticism" of "white hierarchical and individualistic" males. (In the US, "white hierarchical and individualistic" males generally go by the more economical "conservatives.")
Interesting study
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8665401/nuclear-power-gender
If it is white males at issue, then the cause is probably not any inherent or biological difference between men and women. In fact, a recent literature review (and re-analysis) by Julie Nelson has dented if not destroyed the notion that there are deep, generic differences between the genders on risk perception. In fact, these effects vary widely based on circumstance and experimental design. The "risk-averse female" archetype now so common in economics probably reflects deep-seated social and gender assumptions more than research.
In short, the real gap on nuclear power is not between men and women, but between white men and everyone else. And this has far more to do with socialization than with any inherent or biological differences.
Perhaps white males see less risk in the world because they create, manage, control, and benefit from so much of it. Perhaps women and nonwhite men see the world as more dangerous because in many ways they are more vulnerable, because they benefit less from many of its technologies and institutions, and because they have less power and control.
That sounds about right. In fact, Yale's Dan Kahan (familiar to Vox.com readers) led a study showing that the differences in risk perception were almost entirely a function of what he calls "identity-protective cognition" among a very particular set of white males. It's not so much a "white male effect," he says, as "a 'white hierarchical and individualistic male effect' reflecting the extreme risk skepticism of men with those worldviews."
White hierarchical individualistic males were motivated to resist claims of environmental and certain other risks, we conjectured, because the wide-spread acceptance of those claims would justify restrictions on markets, commerce, and industry—activities important (emotionally and psychically, as well as materially) to the status of white men with those outlooks.
The conjecture, he says, has held up in the face of subsequent evidence.
So we've narrowed in here. What looked like a gender divide on nuclear power is in fact mostly a function of the "extreme risk skepticism" of "white hierarchical and individualistic" males. (In the US, "white hierarchical and individualistic" males generally go by the more economical "conservatives.")
Interesting study
