![]() Three topics in particular that shaped the evolution of my political views from libertarian to liberal: gun control, charity and self-control. It’s not that studying psychology made me a bleeding heart, but that studying psychology gave me a better understanding of why people do what they do. This realization pushed me to be decidedly more liberal than I was before. Learning about social psychology, about how people actually make important choices, made me aware of the critical role that society plays, through laws and other means, in enabling us to fulfill our values and ideals. And even when we do, we are biased by the present context. We do not think logically at all times we take shortcuts. We are not radical individuals we are social creatures. Thinking about ourselves in this way is alluring, but also mistaken. One of social psychology’s most powerful insights is that humans are not homo liberti. Society’s care for the environment would be reflected automatically in the choices of its citizens. The libertarian worldview assumes that each of us is a homo libertus, a creature that acts with its full mental capacity all the time, reasoning through every decision in terms of its complete implications for the individual’s values and well-being.Ī perfect libertarian society wouldn’t need laws to protect the environment, for example, because each homo libertus would consider the impact on the environment of every decision that he or she makes. ![]() I believed that people should have every opportunity to make their own choices, and should bear the full responsibility of the consequences of those choices. These views tended to align with Republican positions more than Democratic ones on issues such as gun control, environmental policy and treatment for addiction. I believed that protecting individual liberties was the highest purpose of law, and that the government should have no role in shaping people’s behavior. ‘ Homo libertus’ becomes a social psychologist I know about this possibility because it is exactly what happened to me. I believe that a less prominent explanation is more compelling: learning about social psychology can make you more liberal.
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