A link between mental illness & support of authoritative leadership

Source

The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse’s study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.

“Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader,” Lohse says. “If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’”

Lohse says the trend isn’t unique to Bush: A 1977 study by Frumkin & Ibrahim found psychiatric patients preferred Nixon over McGovern in the 1972 election.

While the article & study is not saying that anyone who voted conservative the last two US elections has some sort of mental illness, they did find that the more psychotic the person was, the more the patient wanted authoritative leadership..which seems to be what many neo-conseratives actually do want, imho.





[edit on 11/29/2006 by pstiffy]

That's funny, I thought a psychotic person would be the least likely to vote for someone like Bush, or Nixon.
I thought those psychotics were paranoid about authority, and their head scanning sattelites, so they wear their foil hats. And yell at people about doom on the street corners.


Or am I thinking paranoid psychotics or paranoid schizophrenics?

Lohse says. “If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’”

I can't say what I would like to here, but no duh!! What is this "survey" supposed to point out? Are we supposed to make the mental leap that everyone who can at least see the human side of Bush is insane? Come on!!

[edit on 29-11-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
I can't say what I would like to here, but no duh!! What is this "survey" supposed to point out? Are we supposed to make the mental leap that everyone who can at least see the human side of Bush is insane? Come on!![edit on 29-11-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]

Does Bush even have a human side?

The man is a lunatic, but the People have spoken in this last election and they think his policies are crazy. so it's nice to know that the normal folks outnumber the crazies!

Originally posted by Toadmund
That's funny, I thought a psychotic person would be the least likely to vote for someone like Bush, or Nixon.
I thought those psychotics were paranoid about authority, and their head scanning sattelites, so they wear their foil hats. And yell at people about doom on the street corners.


Or am I thinking paranoid psychotics or paranoid schizophrenics?

*generalized, not directed towards you* Oh shucks... you got the two mixed up again huh? ... the ACTUAL intelligent people and the crazies...

Smart people... two types.. the ones who hurt, and the ones who heal..
its just too bad the ones who heal get labelled crazy because the ones who hurts have devised crazy ways of hurting people..

Originally posted by forestlady


but the People have spoken in this last election and they think his policies are crazy.

so it's nice to know that the normal folks outnumber the crazies!

Yeah, they just exchanged one green pea for another one. WOW!!

[edit on 29-11-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]