Am I liberal or conservative?

Andrew Sullivan asks himself that question, and proposes to answer it by taking an Internet quiz devised by some academics who theorize that there's a moral basis for the left-right split in US politics, and that there's a psychological basis for that morality. I took the quiz too. My results are below (the green graph line on the far left is my score; the red line is how most conservatives who took the test ranked, and the blue line is the average score for liberals who took the test).

I found the results fairly interesting. I am almost exactly with other conservatives on the fields of Harm and Fairness (e.g., how much each factor counts in deciding whether an action is morally right or morally wrong). But I score much lower than conservatives, and even lower than liberals, on Loyalty. And while conservatives score higher than liberals on Authority and Purity, I score significantly higher even than conservatives.

Here's some analysis from one of the psychologists who invented the test, via a NYT science story:

Of the moral systems that protect individuals, one is concerned with preventing harm to the person and the other with reciprocity and fairness. Less familiar are the three systems that promote behaviors developed for strengthening the group. These are loyalty to the in-group, respect for authority and hierarchy, and a sense of purity or sanctity.

They found that people who identified themselves as liberals attached great weight to the two moral systems protective of individuals — those of not harming others and of doing as you would be done by. But liberals assigned much less importance to the three moral systems that protect the group, those of loyalty, respect for authority and purity.

Conservatives placed value on all five moral systems but they assigned less weight than liberals to the moralities protective of individuals.

Dr. Haidt believes that many political disagreements between liberals and conservatives may reflect the different emphasis each places on the five moral categories.

Extreme liberals, Dr. Haidt argues, attach almost no importance to the moral systems that protect the group. Because conservatives do give some weight to individual protections, they often have a better understanding of liberal views than liberals do of conservative attitudes, in his view.

What do I make of my scores? Well, the first thing that occurred to me when looking at them was: this helps me understand the psychological reasons why I left the Catholic Church. I have very high expectations of authority, and an unusually strong set of principles regarding purity/sanctity. And I have an unusually weak feeling of loyalty. On that, when I was taking the quiz, one of the questions asked if one should be loyal to a family member even if the family member had done something wrong; I thought, "Well, I certainly wouldn't shun my family member, but I also wouldn't cut him or her any slack if he or she violated the moral law, just because I'm related." Perhaps I misinterpreted the question, but I don't think so. Anyway, looking at that graph -- and remember, all this test does is map out your psychological terrain -- it's clear that for me, when authority fails, especially when it involves sexual misconduct and abuse, I do not have much of a psychological anchor to keep myself bound to that authority, whose conduct I find deeply repellent on a moral and psychological level.

The high Authority-low Loyalty scores probably explain my disinterest in supporting the Republican Party in 2008. They had Authority. They misused it badly. But my other scores indicate why I'm disinterested in supporting the Democratic Party either.

All this makes sense to me, actually. When I was growing up, my dad taught me always to stand up for what I believed was right, and let the chips fall where they may. Always be true to your convictions, no matter what, he instructed -- even if you have to suffer the loss of your friends. I took that deeply to heart, I guess, which accounts for my low Loyalty score. The problem with having a low Loyalty score, though, is that while it might reflect unusual dedication to principle, it also reveals a lack of the psychological disposition necessary to maintain the institutions necessary to uphold the other values I honor, when those institutions are in crisis. I was thinking just the other day, reading the Ehrenhalt material, about how completely frustrated I was by the relative lack of outrage (leading to action) there was among the Catholic laity over the sex abuse scandal. What I failed to grasp at the time was that ordinary people have a need to believe in the Church -- please don't misread me; I don't mean that in a condescending way -- and to go at the institution hammer and tongs to root out the malefactors, which is what I advocated, might well have been something they weren't psychologically able to do. I failed to understand something practical about basic human psychology, something that a conservative ought to have grasped instinctively. I don't regret having very high scores on Authority and Sanctity -- and if dedicated churchmen don't have high scores on either, they should worry, it seems to me -- but I was not psychologically disposed to understand the Loyalty most people, even liberals, felt toward the Church as an institution. It was a loyalty I felt too, but only, it seems in retrospect, and in light of this test, because I saw it as the unshakable repository of Authority and Sanctity/Purity.

Ah well. Useful to get this learnt. If you want to take the quiz, go here. You have to register, but it's quick and easy. Discuss your results in the comboxes.