Neophilia

Erin enjoying a margarita flight

What's Happening?

This is my second day of summer break. With more time on my hands, I will probably be writing more often. I'm going to try a format similar to how I began each of my statistics classes during the Spring 2017 semester.

On Friday the 19th we fly to Atlanta, GA where we will be picked up by the newlyweds Dennis and Rachel Ho. They will drive us to Asheville, NC where we will meet our friends Gerrit and Kristi Scholten. Once together, we plan to paint the town and do all things fun. We may send you a postcard if you're good. 

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Erin and I will be riding the Cottonwood 200. This is a 200 mile, 3-day bike ride that starts as Washburn University in Topeka on Saturday, May 27th and ends that evening about 75 miles away in Council Grove, KS.  On Sunday, the ride is an out-and-back that goes to Cottonwood Falls and returns to Council Grove, which is approximately 50 miles. On Monday, we ride back to Topeka.

Did You Know?

One of my 2017 resolutions is to bike 2017 miles. At the time of this writing, I have 1641 miles to go. This means I am 18.6% finished with my goal. Tuesday, May 16th is the 136th day of the year, which means that I am 37.3% finished with the year. Although behind, the summer rides are coming and will most likely get me ahead.

Number of the Day - 44

On Saturday, April 22nd, Erin and I met friends Jonathan and Sarah in Columbia, MO to participate in the March for Science. According to Pew Research, the 

percentage of U.S. adults who say the protests, marches and demonstrations about science held this April will Help/Make No Difference/Hurt public support for science

is divided evenly at 44% for both "Help" and "Make No Difference." In fact, 7% believe it will hurt public support for science. This was one of FiveThirtyEight's Significant Digits on Friday, May 12.

March for Science

Neophilia versus Neophobia

I'm currently reading what will probably be a contender for the most influential book I've read in 2017. On shelves in 2012, I'm five years behind. It is called The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt. 

This has been such an influential book, that I expect to weave much of what was written in that book into several more blog posts. I will build a foundation with this post. 

Haidt first brings up neophilia while giving several moral foundations of politics in chapter 7. The six moral foundations are 

• Care/Harm
• Liberty/Opression (introduced in Ch. 8)
• Fairness/Cheating
• Loyalty/Betrayal
• Authority/Subversion
• Sanctity/Degradation 

If you think of a spectrum of very liberal on the left to very conservative on the right, imagine a graph of six lines that measure the importance of these moral foundations to individuals (use the picture below to get an idea, which is not to scale and slightly inaccurate). Starting on the left, the lines from top to bottom represent each of the moral foundations given above, respectively. 

Hence, the more liberal minded individual puts a lot more weight in the top three (and especially the top two) than the bottom three. While the more conservative minded puts about an equal weight to all six foundations with a near opposite ordering of priority. 

In the section on Sanctity and Degradation, he introduced the terms neophilia and neophobia. 

• Neophilia is a desire to experience and try new things, along with a general distaste for routine and tradition.
• Neophopia is a fear of new experiences, with a general comfort in what is "tried and true."

In my search of a more positive word that describes a general desire for routine and tradition, I was unsuccessful.

Neophilia describes me very well. Haidt claims that liberals score higher on neophilia, being more open to experience "new foods, people, music, and ideas."  Conservatives, on the flip side, scored higher on neophobia.

Why was this in the sanctity and degradation section? If one thinks in the specific terms of sex and the sanctity of marriage, consider the following bumper sticker.

This would be on the car of a neophile, and most probably, one that leans to the left.

The primary reason why I believe The Righteous Mind to be so influential is that it has helped me "trade in anger for understanding." I encourage you to do the same, whether you read this particular book or not.