Since the left end of the spectrum in Berkeley consists of Stalinists and Maoists and the right end of the spectrum consists of liberal democrats and socialists, maybe what the authors have proven is that socialists are whinier than Stalinists.

The study perfectly relates to my idealogy compared to my brothers. Raised identically other than I am the elder, by all reports I was the happy and confident child while my brother was, quite frankly, very unhappy and cried alot. Now at age 42 and 39 respectively, I am more liberally minded and accepting of others (homosexuals, other religions, etc), while my brother is neo conservative, very fundamental religiously, and judgmental in general.

HA HA HA

To me, it’s not the study itself that tells the tale, but the conservative reaction to it. Anytime something like this surfaces, posters like Bryan immediately revert to their typical knee-jerk rhetoric of "liberals” as anti-American amoral traitors with no jobs, and conservatives as patriotic and caring family types. If you don’t like the study, attack the University that conducted the study as liberal, attack the media as liberal for reporting it - anything but looking objectively at the facts. Why argue the facts when its so much easier to hold tightly to silly stereotypes? The fact that he begins a sentence with "In my experience" should set off alarm bells. Here’s a tip, Bryan – as questionable as the science behind this study may be, your criticism is invalid - because it is still many times more reliable than the anecdotal evidence on which you make your arguments, and probably on which you base your entire worldview.

Want to do a little follow up research? Do a google news search on whiny kids and see how many conservative blogs whining about this study come up.

It's distressing to see such racist views as those expressed by J. Laslo whose comment includes "...Black kids, who grow up to vote overwhelmingly Democratic and liberals..." J. Laslo has clearly not met very many Black people, who are as diverse in their core political beliefs as any other group of people. The comment does however explain why Blacks tend to vote democratic - they are discouraged from joining White conservative organizations (like the Republican party) by racist attitudes held by many conservatives, such as those expressed by J. Laslo.

How interesting would it be to do a study of the "Adult Children of the Oligarchy"?

Would those people, as kids, have been more likely to have played store by selling each other little toys of mass-destruction, and would their play money have been "pretend counterfeit" or ... barter of, say, "trading relatives?" for something of "real" value?

Would they have little temper tantrums by ripping maps to shreds in their babyhood, and shows of force, blowing up world globes in their teens?

Would they have played "slave and master" and "bully and sycophant"?

Could this two-party outlook be an artificial construct to keep the other 98% of the "Non-Oligarchy" so busy with shadowboxing-infighting that we missed seeing the real world problems? Hmmmmn ... One wonders, and so do I.

I am trying to picture the most neglected kids, or the "busiest" parents ... and the cost of that. I would think the natural development would be someone who wants an inordinate amount ... of EVERYTHING.

NPR is a predominantly left-wing, anti-American institution that only looks slightly mainstream when compared to researchers from UC-Berkeley. In my experience, conservatives generally have 9-5 jobs and families and liberals generally have part time jobs, lots of relationship problems, and aren't clear on the concept of right and wrong. I would not for one instant listen to fringe left academia to learn anything about how people function, unless it's for humor value as it is in this case.

Seeing the political left as the side that would have the government take care of us like lab rats, and the political right as the side that would make everyone compete and sink or swim on their own, you have to wonder why the whiny kids would grow up to adopt a life philosophy that demanded self-confidence, and the confident kids would grow up to want to be lab rats.

The notion that the establishment is conservatives is untrue. In point of fact, there are plenty of features of the status quo that conservatives want to change, and liberals want to keep, such as freely available abortion and lack of school vouchers.

I'd have to see that this study is reproducible, with good methodology, before I'd accept it. For example, how exactly would they judge a persons "conservativeness" or "liberality". Since the study has to study adults, to measure their politics, how can they tell how "whiny" they were as children? Such a recollected perception is by its nature highly vague and subjective.

This is, quite simply, the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. I mean honestly, a study that determines conservatives were all whiny children growing up? This passes for actual academic thought? Can't someone try to cure cancer or something useful? The entire premise of this study shows it to be politically motivated, and any real researcher will tell you that. Next well see a researcher at a conservative institution produce a "study" on whether or not children who wear flip-flops grow up to be Democratic Party leaders or some other such nonsense.

HAHAHAAHAAH

Ruth - what youve described is typically assigned the term "libertarian." At least they have laid claim to that quadrant of the political map. Beyond that, I'm not sure we can disprove the results of a longitudinal study by pointing out that were not comfortable with the way in which the terms are used.

If you know anything about stats then you would know that a sample size of 95 to study the entire population of liberals vs. conservatives has no power whatsoever. Also, there would be an immense amount of covariates that couldn't possibly be controlled for. This is a study designed to emphasize someones opinion and scientifically, it is worthless.

What a great way to label people. Now I can mark people for life from the get go. Cause of course nobody ever changes over time - that just doesn't make sense.

Ummm...95 kids. How can this possibly be a large enough sample to draw any conclusions?

Typical slanted study coming from a Liberal echo-chamber. Talk about someone becoming a rigid conformist. These Liberal professors will no doubt be warmly applauded in the Liberal cocoons of academia.

As a conservative I actually consider myself a non-conformist. Being Liberal - saying yes to almost any expansion of government - is easy. Saying no is a much harder road to take.

Conservatives grow up to take responsibility for themselves and demand that others do also. Liberals grow up to be whiny kids.

A more obvious and well demonstrated predictor of political views is of course race. So assuming this study is correct, there must be some correlation between being "whiny" and being of a certain race. That is, black kids, who grow up to vote overwhelmingly Democratic and liberals must be considerably less "whiny" and well-adjusted than their white peers. Any one who has taught in a public school of course know this is nonsense. The whole "study", limited to such a small group, and in a very liberal part of the country to begin with is such as a matter of fact.

Regarding the host's comments on "lefty" tourists to Venezuela -- no doubt some of them are naïve, but, at least they are visiting Venezuela on their own to get a better picture of a place that currently is being demonized in the U.S. And, I imagine that quite a few tourists in the U.S. swallow our propaganda hook, line, and sinker, too--although the host probably would deny that billboards, reality shows, and popular culture in the U.S. contain high levels of ideological content.

Selfishness! That's the correlation. Children whine to get what they want. If it works, they will continue to use it. This selfish behavior continues into adulthood, resulting in a selfish/conservative view.

No doubt you can find "structure and rigidity" in some facets of liberal politics, but perhaps it's the Republican party's appeal to fear and xenophobia that draws the insecure types much more than liberal causes. Is it any wonder that places with the highest level of "tradition and authority", like the military or police forces, are bastions of conservative thought?

This article doesn't say anything about parenting styles (one would think liberal parents might be more authoritative and conservative more authoritarian) or the political leanings of the parents of the kids in the studies. Were these things factored into the study's conclusions?

What exactly was the point of this study? Extreme liberals are going to deride conservatives even more. Conservatives are going to react defensively. And so an attempt to understand ourselves ends up further stratifying countrymen.

I'm with you Ruth. I hate labels. I too am very "conservative" economically and socially "liberal." Time to focus on solutions. Labels are used to try to divide us, when in reality, I know from talking with socially "conservative" people that common ground can be found.

"Your money" might be on whiny children turning to either political side, but the actual study that was done shows that they turned republican. Suck it up, national-review linker.

I have read both the Slate article and the New York Times. Neither convey Leftists as rigid or dogmatic. Maybe you misunderstand the study. The study did not mention radical leftists but liberals and conservatives. The tendency of whiny kids to be conservatives lies in the fact that conservatism is widely accepted and has more defenders than liberals. The Status quo embodies conservative framework. Have we (US) ever had a real leftist president or administration? NO. Democrats hardly qualify as leftists. The reason conservative is identified as tight and controlled is because their goal is to keep the status quo as much as possible which forces them to be tight and controlled. Liberals tend to be more open to new things as well as open to changes in systems. They are deemed loose becasue compared to conservatives, they are.

Th study suggests that whiny kids become conservatives because they are afraid to take a chance and society gives them positive reinforcement. If the whiny kids were willing to take the chance and find out what it is like to be a leftist then, he/she might see the that some leftists are rigid and traditional. The point is the whiny kids would never even try to see how the others think. If one was really informed, then one would know that true liberals are more traditional ethically than their counterparts. The traditional values that conservatives love are the same values that keep them in power.

Dear Ruth, you are Libertarian by American standards. Classical Liberal in European sense. Leftists would never claim you because you are economically conservative.

Thanks for expressing this, at last, and puncturing the facile generalizations on all sides. Well said.

Ruth Moors Deredita commented, "I am about as socially "liberal" and as economically "conservative" as anyone you are likely to meet, so which camp would you put me in?" Me too. Its always frustrating to be labeled, as though a single word could sum up an entire body of views, some of which (in my case) may actually contradict each other in certain ways. People aren't simple beings. Why do we try to simplify others?

My biggest issue with the people in politics who call themselves conservative these days is that for the most part they aren't conserving! How ironic is that?

Maybe whiney kids are just trying to be noticed? Or to get their needs met? It seems to me like an awfully loose connection! And how is "whiney" defined? Frequency? Pitch? Intensity? But it was good for a chuckle.

Prof Block has to be correct. The only way that I can picture toddler Rush Limbaugh is as a "whiney kid."

After having watched this nation's political pendulum swing aimlessly back and forth for my entire young life, I, myself, have bowed out of the "two-party" trap. Now, I dont know if this is relevent, but I was neither whiny nor was I confident. I was simply quiet about my perceived inadaquacies as a toddler. My 3-year-old daughter, on the other hand, is slated to become a "Super-Libertarian" at this model! She whines incessantly about her high level of confidence (she also speaks of herself in third person)!

I like how both sides of the political spectrum come out looking bad in this study. Conservatives are whiners while liberals hate traditional values. It's kind of funny, but too simplistic and inaccurate... What about moderates? Did they whine about their confidence?

This reminded of something I've wanted to say for a while. I have been a member of three NPR stations for more than 20 yrs. NPR should be leading the charge to point out how inaccurate and useless and meaningless the "liberal" and "conservative" labels are. I am about as socially "liberal" and as economically "conservative" as anyone you are likely to meet, so which camp would you put me in?

Can anyone find the original article in the Journal listed? I'd like to read the original article containing the study and I cannot find.

I was the whiniest kid I know, but as big a liberal as there ever was. So there.

Let's note that this is a blog, written about a newspaper article, talking about an in-depth, longitudinal study done by professional research psychologists. Reading only the abstract of this publication will quickly show that all other popular sources reporting this are slanting it one way, or, in the case of this particular author, are denying it because it seems wrong.

I dont think that anyone has said anything about hating traditional values, either. I think that the point is that the "liberals" do not adhere dogmatically to social norms or traditions at all costs.