Rationally Speaking #187 - Jason Weeden on "Do people vote based on self-interest?"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Society & Culture, Skepticism, Science, Philosophy

4.6 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2017

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What determines which policies a person votes for? Is it their personality, their upbringing, blind loyalty to their political party? Or is it self-interest -- people voting for policies that will benefit themselves and the groups they belong to? This episode features psychologist Jason Weeden, arguing that self-interest is a much bigger determinant of voter behavior than most political scientists think it is. Jason and Julia talk about why researchers disagree over this question, and what "self-interest" even means.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today's episode of Rationally Speaking is sponsored by Givewell, a nonprofit dedicated to finding outstanding charities and publishing their full analysis to help donors decide where to give.
0:09.2	They do rigorous research to quantify how much good a given charity does, how many lives does it save, or how much does it reduce poverty per dollar donated.
0:17.4	You can read all about their research or just check out their short list of top recommended evidence-based charities to maximize the amount of good that your donations can do. It's free and available to everyone online. Check them out at give well.org. I also want to let you all know about this year's Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, being held in New City, June 29th through July 2nd.
0:38.3	I'll be there taping a live podcast, and there will be lots of other great guests, including
0:42.4	the skeptics guide to the universe, my former co-host, Massimo Piliucci, the amazing James
0:47.4	Randy, and keynote speaker Mike Massimino, former NASA astronaut.
0:51.8	Get your tickets at nexus.org, n-E-C-S-S-S-org.
1:09.0	Welcome to Rationally-S-S-S-W. Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and
1:14.0	nonsense.
1:15.1	I'm your host, Julia Galeith, and with me is today's guest, Jason Weeden.
1:19.3	Jason is a psychologist and a lawyer.
1:21.7	He is the co-author with Robert Kurzban of the book The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind,
1:26.4	and he's also a blogger at pleeps.org, p-l-e-e-p-s.org.
1:31.1	We're going to be talking today about the thesis of his book,
1:35.2	The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind,
1:37.3	which is that when voters make choices about which politicians to vote for,
1:42.8	which policies they support,
1:45.9	they are significantly motivated by their own self-interest. Maybe not 100%, but a lot more than we like to think,
1:51.9	and also a lot more than political scientists, or a lot of political scientists think voters are.
1:56.8	Jason, welcome to rationally speaking. Great to be here. And how do I do with my summary of your thesis?
2:02.2	Do you want to add or change anything? No, that's exactly right. I mean, we mainly think about
2:07.9	self-interest, first of all, as mattering more than a lot of political scientists think, but we also
	...

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