Thursday, May 23, 2019



Posh privilege? Upper class people's 'belief that they are better than others' helps them to find jobs, study finds

This is just another example of the old halo effect.  In this case the halo emanates from the fact that a person is in a prestigious position. That tends to suggest other desirable attitudes in the person. I suppose the interesting thing here is the demonstration that the priviliged person himself perceives the halo.

And in this case there is good reason for the effects discussed below.  High status persons tend to have higher IQs and IQ does have wide-ranging positive effects.  So the privleged person has good grounds for feeling that he will do well on various tests.

So what we have is a demonstration of what Jesus said:  "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance" (Matthew 13:12).

Self confidence is in some ways nearly as advantageous as high IQ



People from higher social classes believe themselves to be more capable than those of lower class, even if they are equally as qualified.

This leads to better outcomes in life-changing scenarios like job interviews as they are more confident than their less-privileged peers due to an inflated sense of self.

In a large scale study, scientists saw this to be true across the board, from business owners to undergraduates.

Dr Peter Belmi of the University of Virginia and lead author of the study, said: 'Advantages beget advantages. Those who are born in upper-class echelons are likely to remain in the upper class, and high-earning entrepreneurs disproportionately originate from highly educated, well-to-do families.'

Researchers from the University of Virginia conducted four separate investigations to look at the connection between social class and overconfidence.

In each study, they discovered that those from higher social classes tended to be more overconfident.

In one study, this overconfidence was shown to be misinterpreted by others as a higher level of competence.

In the biggest study, which involved business owners, researchers obtained information about the individual's income, education level and where they thought they stood in society.

The participants were also required to complete a psychological assessment that rated their self-perception.

'Posh privilege' occurs when people of a higher social class perceive themselves to be better than those of lower classes — even if such is unfounded.

Factors that lead to people developing posh privilege include higher levels of education, greater income and perception of belonging to a better  social class.

Others perceive this excess of assuredness as real and deserved confidence.

This leads to better outcomes in life-changing scenarios like job interviews as they are more confident than their less-privileged peers thanks to their inflated sense of self.

In a large-scale study, researchers found that this privilege applied universally — affecting everyone from students to business heads.

One experiment was a flashcard game where individuals were shown an image that disappeared after they press a key, before being replaced by another image.

They then have to determine whether the second image matched the first.

After completing 20 rounds, they were asked to rate how they think they performed compared to others on a scale of 1 to 100.

When the researchers compared the actual scores with the predicted scores, they found that people with more education, more income and a higher perceived social class had greater belief they performed better than others.

Two other groups each with 1,400 online participants found a similar association.

In one, the researchers gave participants a trivia test and those from a higher social class thought that they did better than others.

Again, when the researchers examined actual performance, no difference was found between the social classes based on this belief.

In the last experiment, researcher recruited 236 undergraduate students, and asked them to complete a 15-item trivia quiz and predict how they scored compared with others.

They were also asked to rate their social class and their families' income and their parents' education levels.

A week later, the students were brought back to the lab for a videotaped mock hiring interview.

More than 900 judges, recruited online, each watched one of the videos and rated their impression of the applicant's competence.

Not only were the higher social class students more confident, this overconfidence was interpreted by the judges who watched their videos as greater competence.

'Our research suggests that social class shapes the attitudes that people hold about their abilities and that, in turn, has important implications for how class hierarchies perpetuate from one generation to the next,'  they write in the study.

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

SOURCE  






Philadelphia’s Absurd Soda Tax Bombs… As Predicted

Back when Philadelphia decided to join the ranks of liberal cities fleecing its inhabitants with a soda tax to “improve their health,” we predicted here that it was going to backfire. The effects were felt almost immediately when workers starting losing their jobs at Pepsi. But still, they persevered and stuck with it. Surely people would start opting for healthier beverage options and those big tax revenues would begin streaming in to fill the city’s coffers. Now that they’ve been at it for well over a year, how did it work out?

Sales in local retail outlets have plunged by more than 50% and mysteriously people are still drinking soda.


The CNN report:

"Implementing a sales tax may help get Americans to stop drinking sugary drinks, if a new study about Philadelphia soda consumption is any indication.

In 2017, Philadelphia became the second US city to put a tax on sugary drinks and soda. In the wake of the tax, sales on those beverages dropped by a whopping 51% in the first year, according to a study published Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA.

The study compared beverage costs and sales in Philadelphia — following implementation of the 1.5 cents per ounce tax — with Baltimore, which has a similar demographic but doesn’t have the same sales tax. With the tax, beverages in Philadelphia jumped from 5.43 cents per ounce in 2016 to 6.24 cents in 2017."


Take note of how CNN chooses to open the story and the way they phrase the results. Having a sales tax of this type “may help get Americans to stop drinking sugary drinks.” Oh, so it “may,” eh? If all you read was the first few paragraphs, you might come away with the impression that this was the goal all along and it must have worked, right? A 51% decline in sales surely must mean healthier lifestyles are sweeping the city.

But that’s only if you stopped reading there. Just as happened in so many other municipalities, the report shows that soda sales in neighboring counties and towns mysterious shot up at the same time. From the article, emphasis added:

While researchers found that sales of sugary beverages fell in Philadelphia after the tax, beverage sales in nearby towns and counties without the tax went up. That suggests people may have been traveling to get their soda at a reduced price.

Wonders never cease. People stopped buying their soda in the city (and almost undoubtedly a lot of other shopping list items) and decided to shop where prices were lower. The study they reference also goes on to note that there was no corresponding increase in sales of bottled water or healthier beverage options. And as for the revenue question? They don’t even delve into that, but you can do the math easily enough. The tax on soda increased by 17%, but the sales fell by 51%.

So, let’s look at this assuming one million ounces of soda was sold anually before the tax went into effect. If sales had remained the same, the city would have realized $62,400.00 in revenue instead of $54,300.00. But with the volume cut in half, they managed to slash their revenue to $31,200.00. (I was told there would be no math. Apparently City Hall in Philadelphia was operating on the same assumption.) Great job, guys. You gutted your revenue stream, caused layoffs in the beverage industry and depressed sales in the city’s retail outlets, likely impacting entry level jobs.

But how can we blame them? I mean, who could possibly have predicted this? Well… anyone who was paying attention. The same thing happened in Chicago. It happened again in Seattle. And it nearly happened in several more California cities until the governor was forced to agree to a ten year moratorium on new soda taxes.

Dear Democrats. Please refer to the classic definition of insanity as being the practice of doing the same thing over and over again and somehow expecting different results.

SOURCE  







British doctor under investigation for racism after asking Muslim woman to remove face veil

A GP forced out of work for asking a woman to remove her niqab has attracted more than 20,000 signatures on a petition demanding his reinstatement.

Dr Keith Wolverson could be struck off after “politely” asking a Muslim mother to remove the face veil so he could hear her properly as she described her daughter’s suspected tonsillitis.

The family doctor, who was practising at a walk-in centre at Royal Stoke University Hospital, says the woman consented without raising any objection, but that her husband turned up shortly after and made a formal complaint.

Dr Wolverson has since received a letter from the General Medical Council (GMC) informing him he is under investigation for racism and could be kicked out of the profession.

The locum, who has 23 years unblemished experience as a GP, says he has found it impossible to secure work since the incident last June and is considering taking on non-medical cosmetic work, such as injecting Botox, in order to pay the bills.

The affair has provoked outrage among many doctors and nurses online. A petition calling for the GMC to “treat this man fairly and look at all the evidence”, gained more than 20,000 signatures in little over a day.

“I’m not racist - this is nothing to do with race, religion or skin colour, it’s about clarity of communication,” Dr Wolverson told The Sun.

“I found it difficult to understand what the woman was saying behind her veil, so politely asked her to remove it. “I needed to hear what was wrong with her daughter, so I could offer the safest possible care.”

According to the complaint forwarded to the GMC by the hospital, the woman said she felt “victimised and racially discriminated against”, and that Dr Wolverson was “rude” and “gave her a dirty look”.

The family alleges Dr Wolverson refused to continue the consultation until she removed her niqab, which he denies.

GMC rules contain no explicit mention of patients' niqabs or face veils.

However, the organisation said doctors are expected to respect patients’ choice of religious dress and to consider the potential for distress if patients are asked to expose a part of their body they would rather conceal.

Dr Wolverson said most of his Muslim patients automatically remove the garment upon entering the consultation room.

He described the investigation as a “major injustice”, adding: “Doctor’s quest to perform the very finest consultation for the safety of the patient has been misinterpreted in a duplicitous manner to suggest there has been an act of racism committed.

“I absolutely no longer want to be a doctor.”

SOURCE  







Australia: 'I'll burn for you': Pentecostal PM energises Christian voters

Scott Morrison declared his election victory a “miracle,” told an interviewer he saw people as “agents of God’s love” and used a National Press Club address to promise voters “I will burn for you” - a phrase used by some Pentecostal Christians to signify working tirelessly, often for Jesus.

One of his first acts during the campaign was to allow the cameras to record him worshipping at his church, Horizon.

Mr Morrison is not the first government leader of faith (John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott were all Christians) but in his political language, the re-elected Prime Minister is arguably the most overt.

According to the Australian Christian Lobby’s Martyn Iles, this language - coupled with the PM’s support for religious freedom - is re-energising religious communities and turning them to the Liberal Party.

“It does give people of faith a degree of confidence when they see a Prime Minister who is clearly Christian,” Mr Iles said.
“It doesn’t surprise me when it seems like religious communities played a role in the rising support for the Liberal Party, because I think that confidence probably did play into the psychology of their vote.”

Macquarie University professor Marion Maddox, an expert on the intersection of faith and politics, said Mr Morrison’s overtly religious language was “unfamiliar territory for Australian politics”.

But it comes at a time when trust in politics has been eroded, so it could appeal to a much broader audience than just those who already have faith.

“It's saying: I have a belief in something bigger than myself, I have a belief in ideals," Dr Maddox said. "It's particularly useful when party ideology is no longer a ready reference point.”

Preliminary analysis of Australian Electoral Commission and census data suggests that a number of the key seats that swung against Labor overlap with higher-than-national-average rates of Christian households.

The seats include the Queensland seats of Herbert and Longman, where Christianity makes up the biggest religious grouping in those electorates (65 per cent and 62.4 per cent, respectively) and the Tasmanian seat of Braddon (58 per cent).

In Victoria, volatile electorates such as Deakin cut through Melbourne’s outer eastern “bible belt” and have a tendency to switch between the parties. But this also remained Liberal this year, defying Labor's hopes.

At this election, the Australian Christian Lobby also ran its first ever federal field campaign, which pointed out where the parties stood on issues such as “supporting faith-based schools to uphold their values”; “the legalisation of assisted suicide” and the “public funding of abortion”.

They distributed hundreds of thousands of leaflets, made phone calls, and undertook an extensive online campaign across six electorates: Chisholm in Victoria; Boothby in South Australia, Bass in Tasmania, Canning in Western Australia; Petrie in Queensland and McMahon in NSW. Most, with the exception of Boothby and Chisholm, recorded anti-Labor swings.

Mr Morrison’s social media platforms now show thousands of comments from people expressing religious sentiments in support of his re-election.

“Congratulations Prime Minister! We have been longing for a dedicated Christian leader here in Australia and we finally have one!!!” wrote one voter on his Facebook page. “Can’t wait to see how God is going to work in and through you in this term.”

“May God bless and guide your leadership, Scott! Praise the Lord for this miracle win,” wrote another.

In policy terms, the Australian Christian Lobby has called the Coalition’s victory a “win for religious freedom” and has urged the government to pass a Religious Freedom Act that would enshrine in law clear protections for faith-based groups. Such an act could guarantee that faith-based schools could uphold their teachings on issues such as homosexuality, allowing them to select staff on that basis.

In a written response to religious leaders on May 14, Mr Morrison committed to “providing Australians of religious belief with protections equivalent to those guaranteed in relation to other protected attributes under Commonwealth anti-discrimination law.”

However, in an apparent contradiction, the Liberal Party vowed during the campaign to “redouble” its efforts tackling discrimination against the LGBTI community, starting with the removal of exemptions allowing faith-based schools to expel gay students.

It also wrote to LGBTI lobby group Equality Australia promising to work with the states to tackle gay “conversion” therapy - an ideology and practice that is predominantly pushed by Evangelical ministries.

“We’ll be making sure they keep their promises,” said Equality Australia spokeswoman Anna Brown

SOURCE  

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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