Tuesday's Terrific Absurdities: Totally Predictable Findings About Being Woke, and the NYTimes Disgraces Itself One More Time
Let’s begin another day with a pick from our “Man, Nobody Could’ve Seen That One Coming!” File:
I know, right? I mean, who could’ve guessed that people obsessed with pronouns and insisting everyone else share their own inability to call men men would also be more likely to feel anxious and depressed? So hard to anticipate stuff like this, you know.
Here’s an excerpt from the story at Hotair:
A new study out of Finland set about creating a psychological assessment to identify those with woke beliefs. The study also found that those who hold such beliefs are more likely to report being anxious or depressed. Here's how the study's author, Oskari Lahtinen, described her own research.
…
This eventually led to the creation of an assessment test called the Critical Social Justice Attitude Scale which included seven questions:
“If white people have on average a higher level of income than black people, it is because of racism.”
“University reading lists should include fewer white or European authors.”
“Microaggressions should be challenged often and actively.”
“Trans* women who compete with women in sports are not helping women’s rights.” (reverse scored)
“We don’t need to talk more about the color of people’s skin.”
“A white person cannot understand how a black person feels equally well as another black person.”
“A member of a privileged group can adopt features or cultural elements of a less privileged group.” (reverse scored)
Having created this assessment, Lahtinen was then able to gather some data. She found that wokeness was not terribly popular in Finland, though it was much more popular with women than with men: "Three out of five women view ‘woke’ ideas positively, but only one out of seven men.” But the most significant finding was the connection to anxiety and depression.
Lahtinen found a correlation between higher agreement with critical social justice attitudes and increased reports of anxiety and depression. Agreement with the statement “If white people have on average a higher income than black people, it is because of racism” exhibited the largest positive correlation with anxiety and depression, and the largest negative correlation with happiness.
However, these associations were more strongly correlated with participants’ political orientation than with critical social justice attitudes per se. Specifically, being on the political left was more predictive of lower mental well-being than high critical social justice scores alone. This suggests that the link between critical social justice attitudes and mental health is complex and may be mediated by broader political and ideological beliefs.
[End]
Ok, so, more women than men view “woke” dogma as positive. Far more, in fact. I attribute that to too many Millennial suburban housewives spending an hour every weekday morning watching the Devil’s workshop known as “The View.”
Ok, just kidding. But it is quite an interesting finding, and at least partially accounts for the so-called “gender gap” between Democrats and Republicans, doesn’t it?
Then there’s the even more unsurprising finding that “being on the political left was more predictive of lower mental well-being than high critical social justice scores alone.”
I mean, c’mon, who didn’t already know that was the case? Anyone? Raise your hand? Nobody?