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Which disciplines are the most and least politically correct?
Here are the data, based on one study; I am surprised that psychology is "tops," with a 58.7% rate of political correctness. The other "winners" are not hard to predict, though "art" comes in at a surprisingly low 14.6%. Economics is rated at 4.7%, noting that beneath us lie Marketing, Accounting, Computer Science, Biology, and now into the zero percent category, Finance, Management Information, and Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. OK, wise guys, give the best single sentence (you are allowed one comma) account of these numbers that you can.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 25, 2008 at 07:25 AM in Education | Permalink
Comments
Was this all cooked up by statisticians, hmm?
Posted by: Ian Tindale at Jul 25, 2008 7:46:41 AM
Fields aiming at the mastery of human minds and meanings are populated with professors who have faith that the minds of others need to be shaped for the greater good.
Posted by: sammler at Jul 25, 2008 7:55:23 AM
The value of your marginal product is inversely proportional to your political correctness.
Posted by: nate at Jul 25, 2008 8:11:57 AM
Fields dominated by men tend to be environments where alpha males achieve leadership and set the tone.
Posted by: Millian at Jul 25, 2008 8:29:12 AM
Rich people just don't care, except for psychologists who are paid to care.
Posted by: Zacharij at Jul 25, 2008 8:31:16 AM
From the data one can see that Economics is number 2 in the "politically
incorrect" column; Mgt. info is number 1 in this.
Posted by: indiana jim at Jul 25, 2008 8:41:12 AM
Careers for professors in some fields is driven by surprising your peers, in others by agreeing with your peers.
Posted by: DK at Jul 25, 2008 8:43:02 AM
The less your work can be checked, the more you need to follow and enforce norms.
Posted by: Dave at Jul 25, 2008 8:47:16 AM
Rephrasing nate's suggestion:
The lower the perceived marginal value of the discipline, the greater the academic department's rent seeking-based "political correctness."
Posted by: Ironman at Jul 25, 2008 8:52:40 AM
Electrons don't care how you feel about them.
Posted by: John Mansfield at Jul 25, 2008 9:02:39 AM
The authors of the study clearly haven't hung around with enough economists at bars.
Posted by: wallywabash at Jul 25, 2008 9:05:48 AM
Reality is what trips you up when you walk around with your eyes closed.
Posted by: Michael at Jul 25, 2008 9:07:56 AM
Nate wins.
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Jul 25, 2008 9:16:37 AM
Women and minorities are seen to comprise larger percentages of the fields at the top of the list versus those at the bottom.
Posted by: meter at Jul 25, 2008 9:18:07 AM
OK, wise guys, give the best single sentence (you are allowed one comma) account of these numbers that you can.
Political activism can serve as a substitute for scholarly activity, particularly in fields where productivity is hard to measure.
Posted by: Zach at Jul 25, 2008 9:36:13 AM
Yeah I definitely have never heard of someone with a Ph.D in psychology have a job in the private sector.
Posted by: Richard at Jul 25, 2008 9:46:37 AM
Not one of you has stumbled upon my thought...
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Jul 25, 2008 9:55:21 AM
Yeah I definitely have never heard of someone with a Ph.D in psychology have a job in the private sector.
Is that a response to me? Scholarly productivity is very different from private sector productivity, so I'm not sure I follow your point.
Here in Colorado we had a (pathological) case with Ward Churchill. He received tenure on the strength of writing tons of articles. The articles related to his field and were very politicized, and he had a very politicized view of his field. If you look at "articles published" as your metric of productivity, he was a star. Of course, the quality of the scholarship was terrible, but that's much harder to measure.
Consider a model with products A and B. The consumer desires A, which is difficult to distinguish from B. The producer wishes to produce B, which can be produced more easily. It wouldn't be hard to predict an equilibrium where the producer adulterates product A with as much product B as he can get away with.
Posted by: Zach at Jul 25, 2008 10:05:59 AM
"If you look at "articles published" as your metric of productivity, he was a star. Of course, the quality of the scholarship was terrible, but that's much harder to measure."
Quite frankly, I've never heard of anyone from, say, an Ph.D admissions committee or a hiring committee for a professorship use "number of articles published" as a metric. Quality of articles isn't difficult to measure at all. For one, the can be read. The more efficient method is to see what journals are publishing the author being considered. Top journals don't publish crap.
Posted by: rickm at Jul 25, 2008 10:34:11 AM
Zach ties Nate.
Posted by: indiana jim at Jul 25, 2008 10:44:28 AM
the PC rate is directly proportional to the uselessness of your discipline/knowledge
Posted by: k at Jul 25, 2008 10:46:16 AM
There is correlation between disciplines that in an academic setting cater to the full student body and political correctness (think survey courses) versus those that are highly specialized and cater to small groups.
Posted by: meter at Jul 25, 2008 10:51:47 AM
Objective outputs require objective inputs.
Posted by: Steve R at Jul 25, 2008 10:53:26 AM
EE, at least, requires actual correctness (superior performance) no matter how inconvenient, politically incorrect, or against conventional-wisdom the materials & methods used may be.
Posted by: winstongator at Jul 25, 2008 10:56:06 AM
The engineers are reported to be 0% politically correct, but they also have a high non-commital rate.
Posted by: sort_of_knowledgeable at Jul 25, 2008 10:58:50 AM
