We’ve written a few times about new research on Asian-Americans and so were eager to see a new chapter in a book on ethnic pluralism and its role in the 2008 election. It’s an intriguing treatise on the amazing diversity in the Asian-American community (composed of at least nine ethnic groups and 11 different religious affiliations).
“Asian-American” doesn’t mean one thing. It means many things. According to the chapter authors (So Young Kim and Russell Jeung), Asian-Americans are unique among American ethnic groups in that they do not predictably act as either a racial bloc or a religious bloc. Asian-Americans do not share a religious faith and 27% do not follow any religion per se. And despite their high levels of education and income–they are not particularly politically involved. In fact, Asian-Americans may have lower levels of voting than other ethnic groups (although it is hypothesized this could shift as the various Asian-American groups log in more time in the US and begin establishing a stronger pan-ethnic identity).
What is especially interesting to us is that the authors found patterns in voting among Asian-Americans during the 2008 Presidential elections. Overall, Asian-Americans were more likely to support Barack Obama during the 2008 elections than Caucasian voters with similar incomes and religious affiliations. However, within the Asian-American group, there were subgroup patterns that call out for recognition:
Asian-Americans who were agnostic, atheist, Hindu or Muslim were more likely to vote for Barack Obama (and were also reportedly more liberal).
Asian-Americans who were Protestant and Catholic and more conservative also supported Obama. (You weren’t expecting that were you?)
Finally, Vietnamese-Americans (many of whom are Catholic) were more likely to vote for John McCain.
Another important descriptor the authors use is disenfranchised. Many Asian-Americans feel they are not valued (and truly, they have not been studied to the extent of other ethnic groups in this country) and this is likely an important variable to consider in terms of identification with your case.
Religion, Race, and Barack Obama’s New Democratic Pluralism is a data-dense book with an emphasis on political shifts and ideology based on ethnicity (featuring chapters on mainline Protestants, Evangelicals, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Seculars, Women, African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans). What is most interesting from a litigation advocacy perspective is that this chapter shows us that we know a lot less than most of us think we know about Asian-Americans. There is not a blanket description of the Asian-American just as there is not a blanket description of American women, African-Americans, American Muslims or Jews, disabled people or other identifiable groups.
It’s a terrific reminder to not assume and to maintain curiosity about those different than us. They can often surprise you.
So Young Kim, Russell Jeung. 2012. Asian Americans, Religion and the 2008 Elections (Chapter 11). In Religion, Race, and Barack Obama’s New Democratic Pluralism, Gastón Espinosa, Ed. Publisher: Routledge.
We’ve talked before about mock jurors believing they can ‘see’ who is lying, using drugs, or other negative behaviors litigants (or anyone else!) would want to keep private. Now we have new evidence that some of those jurors may have good radar—at least when it comes to being able to identify certain religious group members!
It’s easy to ‘see’ some religious affiliations, especially those whose faith involves a high degree of integration of religious obedience and daily life. Think of the Amish and other religious groups who are identifiable by attire or facial hair or turbans or robes, or the attire of some Orthodox Jews, Sufis, or Muslims. But most of us are not wearing particular clothing or neat labels identifying religious affiliation. In fact, when asked, many of us even lie about just how often we attend religious services!
Consider, for example, the religious group of Mormons. Think you could pick them out of a crowd? Maybe you think you couldn’t. But the subjects in a recent study could! Even when their hair was removed, eyes and mouth covered, and images were turned upside down. That’s pretty strange. Here’s how it worked.
Researchers examined the folklore around intuition and found strong perceptions that we can ‘know things’ about people just from their faces. We think, for example, we can identify sexual orientation, age, gender—and we are so frustrated when we cannot, or race. They cite research finding that people (both Mormon and non-Mormon) were able to identify un-labeled Mormon faces at a better than chance rate. This held true both in areas with large Mormon populations and in areas with few Mormons—although Mormons were better at identifying fellow Mormons than were non-Mormons.
Ultimately, the researchers decided to explore what it was about Mormon faces that facilitated identification to the observer. They went to fairly extensive lengths to include plain faces without piercings, extra earrings, or extreme haircuts and kept all photos within a younger age range, so as to make discrimination of Mormons/non-Mormons tough. They also had people simply observe parts of the faces (like the eyebrows) and attempt to identify the person as Mormon or not. (As you might imagine, eyebrows don’t tell you much.)
The researchers concluded that while participants were indeed able to categorize Mormons and non-Mormons more accurately than chance—they were seemingly unaware of their ability to do so. The categorization of Mormons appeared to be drawn largely from the quality of facial skin—since Mormons do not drink alcohol, smoke or drink caffeine. Participants apparently infer overall good health from what they observe of the skin and identify (accurately) the participant as Mormon. So it wasn’t so much “Mormon” they were identifying, it was the attribution of what they thought of as a Mormon trait—“healthy”.
So what does this mean for litigation advocacy? The point of this post is that we all look at very subtle cues and inform ourselves about people. We make assumptions. We doubt there will be times when you are asking a jury to identify ‘who’s the Mormon’. But you will be challenged to deal with perceptions that someone has led a healthy or unhealthy life, that they seem virtuous or dissipated.
Many of us have read the research that says we can perceive basic things about people in split seconds. Jurors do that too. They look at you. They look at your witnesses. They look at the parties. And, in the absence of other data, they form conclusions about gender, sexual orientation, good/bad habits, character, and whether you dye your own hair or have it done professionally. You need to control this interpretation by giving jurors understanding for what they see. If you do not, they will make up their own interpretations—and you have no way of knowing what they’ll ‘intuit’.
Rule NO, Garrett JV, & Ambady N (2010). On the perception of religious group membership from faces. PloS one, 5 (12) PMID: 21151864
“acting from panic or passion when they killed someone who they either knew or found out was gay or transgender. Now they will face the full charges for their crime, just as if they had killed a heterosexual person. No more “momentary insanity” claims because someone of the same gender (or transgender) made a pass (or you thought they made a pass) at you”.
And it isn’t just California. Attitudes toward gay/lesbian people are changing across America. We see those shifts in surveys by secular polling groups routinely. But when we see them in surveys hosted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), we need to take notice. In June of 2014, PRRI posted a fact sheet on gay and lesbian issues based on recent survey results. In brief, here is what they had to say:
A majority of Americans favor legal same-sex marriage (53%) while just 41% oppose.
Democrats support legal same-sex marriage (64%) as do Independents (57%), but only a minority of Republicans have support for legal same-sex marriage (34%).
Young adults (aged 18 to 29) support legal same-sex marriage (69%) while senior citizens mostly do not (56% oppose).
Same-sex marriage and religion:
51% of Americans say same-sex marriage is against their religious beliefs, but 45% disagree.
Americans tend to perceive three religious groups as unfriendly toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people: the Catholic Church (58%), the Mormon Church (53%), and evangelical Christian Churches (51%).
Discrimination against LGBT people in American society and workplace protections:
More than 2/3 of Americans (68%) think gay and lesbian people face a lot of discrimination in the US.
72% favor laws that would protect gay and lesbian people from job discrimination. 23% oppose these laws. 75% of Americans think Congress should pass laws to protect transgender people from job discrimination, while 21% disagree.
Morality-Acceptance Gap on Gay and Lesbian Relationships:
51% of Americans say (despite the majority support for same-sex marriage) that sex between adults of the same gender is morally wrong.
Parenting and Adoption by Gay and Lesbian Couples:
58% of Americans favor allowing gay and lesbian people to adopt children, and 37% are opposed.
Nature vs. Nurture Debate About Sexual Orientation:
44% of Americans think being gay and/or lesbian is “something a person is born with” while 36% think it is “due to factors such as upbringing or environment”. 12% think it is some combination of the two (i.e., nature + nurture).
There is more in this fact sheet that we have not covered here. You can find information on the breakdown of attitudes by religious affiliation, attitudes about the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Federalism, a breakdown of attitudes by political affiliation, and attitudes on ordination of gay and lesbian people. Overall, it’s a good primer on where attitudes are now in the United States about wide-ranging issues related to gay lesbian people.
Fact Sheet: Gay and Lesbian Issues. 2013. Public Religion Research Institute.
After years of not having a way to measure those who consistently respond in a Libertarian direction, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) has offered us a new scale to do just that. We posted on Monday about their survey of Libertarians and this is the measure they used to determine who was really Libertarian, who tended to lean Libertarian, who was not Libertarian, and who was a mixture of Libertarian and non-Libertarian attitudes. It’s an intriguing scale. But first, some terminology is in order.
Libertarians are–in some cases rugged–individualists and thus notoriously (and probably proudly) difficult for researchers to pigeon-hole or label. A 1984 publication defined libertarianism as composed of two dimensions: personal freedom and government intervention. Since 1984, these current authors say, the “issue agenda has evolved” and they therefore used 9 separate questions to examine three dimensions of present-day Libertarianism: national security and international intervention, economic policy, and personal liberty issues.
Second, they define non-Libertarians as “Communalists”. Why? Because their responses were the opposite of the Libertarian responses on this scale. Libertarians score low in their desire for government intervention at the cost of personal liberties–while Communalists preferred (i.e., scored higher on desire for) government intervention even when it cost some personal liberties.
As you can see in the graphic illustrating this post, 54% of Americans have Mixed Libertarian and Communal attitudes/beliefs. Those who respond consistently Libertarian or Communalist each make up 7% of the population, while 15% lean Libertarian and 17% lean Communalist.
So. With those definitions in mind, the researchers asked the respondents if they would identify with the label “Libertarian”. Thirteen percent did (but their response pattern was less consistent ideologically than those who were identified by the Libertarian Orientation Scale as either Libertarian or Libertarian leaning). Without further ado, here are the questions (from page 7 in the full report) the researchers used to identify the Libertarians in their sample.
Each question was placed on a 7-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 to 7) with a low score representing the Libertarian position and a high score representing the Communal position. Thus, the most Libertarian score would be a 9 and the most Communal score a 63 for the total scale. Scores in this sample ranged from 12 to 63. Scores from 9-25 were classified as Libertarians, scores of 26-31 were classified as Libertarian Leaning, scores from 32-42 were classified as Mixed, scores from 43-48 were classified as having Communalist Leanings, and those with scores from 49-63 were classified as Communalists.
The remainder of the PRRI report looks closely at the difference between the groups (i.e., Libertarian, Lean Libertarian, Communalist, Lean Communalist, Mixed) as defined by this measure. It is interesting and easy reading, as well as a nice way to modify your beliefs (aka stereotypes) about this group. While these are not likely questions you can use in voir dire to classify potential jurors based on these categories, it is a clear look at the issues that may be particularly important to those with either Libertarian or Communalist leanings.
Libertarians, like the rest of us, have changed over the years. Thanks to PRRI for bringing our awareness up to date.
Back in 2010 we blogged on a survey of more than 150,000 Libertarians. We now have an update on Libertarians in America courtesy of the Public Religion Research Institute! Unlike the original survey, this one was based on a random sample of 2,317 American adults (from people who are part of GfK’s Knowledge Panel). Interviews were conducted online in both English and Spanish between September 21, 2013 and October 3, 2013. The results offer multiple tidbits potentially useful in voir dire (or simply for expanding your knowledge of Libertarians in America). The full text of their study is accessible online, but here are a few of the findings we found interesting.
Only 7% of Americans are consistent Libertarians although an additional 15% lean Libertarian.
Libertarians are nearly all non-Hispanic Whites (94%), male (68%), and under age 50 (62%).
Political affiliation skews more Republican (45%) than Democratic (5%) although (as we’ve pointed out in other posts on how the country is changing) half (50%) say they are either unaffiliated, politically independent, or belong to a third party.
Tea Partiers? A substantial portion are, but not entirely. 39% of Libertarians identify as part of the Tea Party movement but 61% do not. Libertarians are about 26% of the Tea Party movement while the majority of Tea Partiers (52%) describe themselves as part of the religious right and 35% say they are white evangelical Protestants.
Libertarians are more likely to pay attention to what is going on in government or politics than the average American. Only 38% of Americans say they pay attention to politics and government “most of the time or always”. Among Libertarians, the majority (56%) endorse this response option.
Libertarians are more strongly opposed than most to raising the minimum wage, Obamacare, and increasing environmental protections (all issues reflecting government involvement in economic policy).
The libertarian profile on social issues diverges from their conservative economic outlook: 57% of Libertarians support abortion rights, 70% support MD-assisted euthanasia, and 71% favor legalizing marijuana. Oddly, considering these liberal views on social issues–a majority of libertarians (59%) oppose same-sex marriage.
Libertarians have more positive feelings toward atheists (46%) than either Tea Party members (33%) or white evangelical Protestants (25%). They are also more positively disposed toward gay and lesbian peoples (49%) than are members of the Tea Party (44%) or white evangelical Protestants (38%).
Nearly 2/3 of Americans (65%) support making pornography more difficult to access on the internet. However, among Libertarians, only 31% favor making pornography more difficult to access while 68% oppose this movement.
This study offers a close-up view of those Americans who consistently respond to questions in a pattern the authors identify as Libertarian. Their responses, according to this report, are much more consistent than those who call themselves Libertarians but are not really identifiable as such based on their responses to a scale measuring political orientation. (We will write about this scale, the Libertarian Orientation Scale, in our next post.)
It isn’t at all clear whether there is a consistent notion of “I am Libertarian”, and whether those jurors and mock jurors we follow carefully are comparable to those in this study. Stay tuned to a post we have scheduled for Wednesday of this week, and we will let you know how to determine whether a person fits the definition of Libertarian used by researchers. And we will continue to observe and track the reactions of our mock jurors who say they are Libertarian and see how their responses relate to their eventual verdict.
Jones, RP Cox, D Navarro-Rivera, J 2013 The 2013 American Values Survey: In Search of Libertarians in America. Public Religion Research Institute.