So a German psychologist published kind of a bizarre paper in which he says that there are “dark characteristics” to people who protest for environmental change and engage others to care about the planet.
I think this is really pretty shocking. Especially when you look at his arguments and his methods. One big thing: he did not seem to get approval from a university Ethics Committee to do this research.
He used some kind of subterfuge: he got approval for a bland sounding study of German workers, then he (somehow) gathered data additionally for this report on environmental activists. This seems like academic dishonesty to me.
This is only what can be called “Tabloid” psychology. The paper doesn’t even have a scientific name. The paper is called “The Dark Side of Environmental Activism”.
It’s as he conducted secret, unethical research so he could send out biased findings to the conservative press so that they could splash headlines around the world: There are dark character traits behind people who say they care about the planet!
I think this article does a great job of attacking his methodology.
I think his university should be ashamed that 1) he avoided the ethics committee and 2) he started to spread UNSCIENTIFIC findings about people who are trying to do good in the world.
I think there’s something to the notion that dark triad personalities look for virtue signals that they can exploit as a narrative vehicle to explore their fetishization of dominance.
I really think that’s true.
But it’s true for basically any structure of virtue or authority that can be appealed to: religion, government, social causes and social justice…any construct of ethics or authority that can be appealed to as a structure of power…that can be used to equivocate away concerns about domineering others.
Environmentalism does fit that bill. But not any more than any other virtue signal people might find.
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So a German psychologist published kind of a bizarre paper in which he says that there are “dark characteristics” to people who protest for environmental change and engage others to care about the planet.
I think this is really pretty shocking. Especially when you look at his arguments and his methods. One big thing: he did not seem to get approval from a university Ethics Committee to do this research.
He used some kind of subterfuge: he got approval for a bland sounding study of German workers, then he (somehow) gathered data additionally for this report on environmental activists. This seems like academic dishonesty to me.
This is only what can be called “Tabloid” psychology. The paper doesn’t even have a scientific name. The paper is called “The Dark Side of Environmental Activism”.
It’s as he conducted secret, unethical research so he could send out biased findings to the conservative press so that they could splash headlines around the world: There are dark character traits behind people who say they care about the planet!
I think this article does a great job of attacking his methodology.
I think his university should be ashamed that 1) he avoided the ethics committee and 2) he started to spread UNSCIENTIFIC findings about people who are trying to do good in the world.
I think there’s something to the notion that dark triad personalities look for virtue signals that they can exploit as a narrative vehicle to explore their fetishization of dominance.
I really think that’s true.
But it’s true for basically any structure of virtue or authority that can be appealed to: religion, government, social causes and social justice…any construct of ethics or authority that can be appealed to as a structure of power…that can be used to equivocate away concerns about domineering others.
Environmentalism does fit that bill. But not any more than any other virtue signal people might find.