Haters Gonna Hate
August 26, 2013 1:47 PM   Subscribe

 
Your favorite dispositional attitude sucks.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:50 PM on August 26, 2013 [14 favorites]


Full text of the paper.
posted by ryanshepard at 1:55 PM on August 26, 2013


Your favourite dispositional attitude is wonderful!
posted by dobie at 1:55 PM on August 26, 2013 [28 favorites]


Someone seriously thought that attitudes "are a function of the properties of the stimuli under consideration"?
posted by thelonius at 1:56 PM on August 26, 2013 [5 favorites]


Haters got a trait.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:56 PM on August 26, 2013 [46 favorites]


This, of course, is all because back when we were all walking around on the Serengeti, we were constantly being menaced by roving bands of free-jazz saxophonists. There were two basic survival strategies: digging shallow pits in which you would lie very quietly and hope they wouldn't discover you, or fleeing as fast as you could. Of course, those who chose the shallow-pit strategy would suffer considerable stress from the constant exposure to the terrible cries of these fierce predators, so they evolved the ability to rapidly develop new tastes which allowed them to listen with pleasure to whatever formal permutation the slavering free-jazz saxophonists would come up with. This, of course, is the origin both of the basic bifurcation into "likers" and "haters" but also of the phrase "I can dig it" which characterizes the former's response to novel stimuli.
posted by yoink at 1:57 PM on August 26, 2013 [129 favorites]


This article by Pacific Standard is good too:
Imagine that instead of arguing about the quantity of gun deaths, for example, you make the case that universal background checks will allow a mom with two young kids to feel less nervous about the strange, reclusive man who lives down the street. Now your point is much less threatening. People will never believe they help bring about the deaths of innocents, but they can believe they failed to consider the peace of mind of some person they don’t know. The argument is objectively weaker, but it’s more likely to be below the threat threshold that leads to automatic rejection. It might actually be considered.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:58 PM on August 26, 2013 [8 favorites]


I don't like it. I don't like it one bit.
posted by Hutch at 2:00 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Okay, now can you explain why they always marry each other?
posted by lumpenprole at 2:06 PM on August 26, 2013 [17 favorites]


No sir, I didn't like it.
posted by jbickers at 2:07 PM on August 26, 2013


She had
A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:09 PM on August 26, 2013 [10 favorites]


Whatever it is, I'm against it.
posted by iNeas at 2:13 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


yoink, I'm impressed with the novel sweep of your paleobiology, but for one minor point of interpretation of the fossil evidence. I have it on good authority, and reproducible modern test results, that every human, young or old, healthy or infirm, instinctively flees, to the maximum of their biological ability, whenever they hear solo free jazz saxophonists.

Those pits you've undoubtedly found in the African fossil record are nothing more than than the pathetic final attempts of the old and/or the weak to dig their own graves, as the last fearsome wails of those conically horned devils overcame them.
posted by paulsc at 2:15 PM on August 26, 2013 [8 favorites]


Okay, now can you explain why they always marry each other?

You dare to suggest that there might be things evopsych cannot explain? Begone, heretic!
posted by yoink at 2:16 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


People with a positive dispositional attitude have a strong tendency to like things want to be liked, whereas people with a negative dispositional attitude have a strong tendency to dislike things want to assert superiority.

FTFY.

/superior
posted by Sys Rq at 2:17 PM on August 26, 2013 [6 favorites]


But this scale is based on the reality that the scale-makers inhabit, what they think encompasses "a wide variety of unrelated stimuli." Now let me make the scale and give it to the same people. Same results?

Also: this means that people with positive dispositional attitudes may be more prone to actually buy new products ... brought to you by the National New Product Council.
posted by user92371 at 2:22 PM on August 26, 2013


Also known as: With all this horseshit, there's got to be a pony somewhere!
posted by Navelgazer at 2:23 PM on August 26, 2013 [9 favorites]


All children of the 80's know this. "I hate dispositional attitude constructs." --Angry Smurf
posted by ocschwar at 2:26 PM on August 26, 2013 [3 favorites]


So, CBT works then?
posted by gjc at 2:27 PM on August 26, 2013


I haven't met anyone who just reflexively hates everything, does that actually exist (outside of, like, hormonal teen punks or your bitter grandpa)? Most people who seem this way usually are just very discerning and critical in their tastes, and are just as passionate about a whole slew of things if you dig deeper. In my experience their passions for what they do like are greater than those who just uncritically like whatever is in front of them. (I'm probably reading this article entirely wrong.)
posted by naju at 2:30 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


I tend to be pretty contrarian and have been known to "hate" things like Disney, corporate everything, the military-industrial complex and Reality TV, but I get vaccines, buy new stuff and wish I lived in the future sometimes. Do I fit into this demographic?
posted by Hobgoblin at 2:44 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


Oscar: I give this paper three and a half phooeys. Phooey, phooey, phooey, phoo.
Telly: And I give this paper five wows! Wow, wow, wow, wow, WOW!!
posted by Metroid Baby at 2:46 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


We already have a name for people who dislike everything: anhedonic. It's often a symptom of depression. If you can't feel pleasure— the definition of anhedonia— why would you like anything?

So I'm not entirely sure why anyone would think this is new.
posted by Maias at 2:47 PM on August 26, 2013 [4 favorites]


Most people who seem this way usually are just very discerning and critical in their tastes

Well, no doubt there are negative and positive narratives we can construct about people who are highly judgmental and inclined to condemn the vast majority of forms of human expression into the outer darkness. But it seems right to me that there are people I know who can be relied upon to give a listen to, say, almost any genre of music and--while they have their likes and dislikes--will fine something to admire and be interested in in almost any genre. While, on the other hand, there are people I know who will discard almost anything you might mention to them as "trash" based solely on a vague recognition of what genre the music is and even within the genres they admire will readily produce lists of the "only" bands/artists/conductors/composers/whatever worth paying any attention to. Certainly these people have passionate attachments to the small slice of human creative endeavor they deign to approve, but it has never seemed to me to correlate with greater 'discernment' in the sense of closer listening or interpretive skills. It's simply a much, much narrower and less flexible capacity for finding pleasure in things. (Or, put another way--and I do think this is often an important component--they have a real capacity for finding pleasure in hating things).
posted by yoink at 2:54 PM on August 26, 2013 [6 favorites]


Why do I get the feeling we'll be seeing "negative dispositional attitude disorder" drugs on the market very shortly?

And don't these people already know about bourbon?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:54 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


We already have a name for people who dislike everything: anhedonic. It's often a symptom of depression. If you can't feel pleasure— the definition of anhedonia— why would you like anything?

I don't think this is right. Finding it difficult to like things is not equivalent to actively disliking many or most things. Anhedonia is as much about motivation to engage in activities, and arguably hating on things is still engaging with them; the classic product of anhedonia isn't dislike but numbness. I don't think equating "anhedonic depressives" with "haters" is accurate or helpful.
posted by Errant at 2:58 PM on August 26, 2013 [5 favorites]


So, negative people are negative.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 2:58 PM on August 26, 2013


Labeling behaviours as an attitudes does not explain the why at all.

At best this research ends at the word "because"
posted by srboisvert at 3:00 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


While, on the other hand, there are people I know who will discard almost anything you might mention to them as "trash" based solely on a vague recognition of what genre the music is and even within the genres they admire will readily produce lists of the "only" bands/artists/conductors/composers/whatever worth paying any attention to.

But then we're just talking about people who are closed-minded, or particularly rigid in their tastes, not a new phenomenon called "negative dispositional attitude" or whatever, right? "Oh, that's hip-hop, it's trash, not like all this rock music I love" is just someone who has internalized some really rigid (and unfortunate) way of judging music. But it's not "ugh, music just sucks, it all sucks."
posted by naju at 3:01 PM on August 26, 2013


I tend to like everything except for people who dislike everything.
posted by SpacemanStix at 3:01 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Aunt Linda gives this study six "WHAAAAAT??!"s and an "OH BUH-ROTHER."
posted by scody at 3:14 PM on August 26, 2013


Maias: "We already have a name for people who dislike everything: anhedonic. It's often a symptom of depression. If you can't feel pleasure— the definition of anhedonia— why would you like anything?"

What if you derive pleasure from hating everything?
posted by Hairy Lobster at 3:14 PM on August 26, 2013 [4 favorites]


But then we're just talking about people who are closed-minded, or particularly rigid in their tastes, not a new phenomenon called "negative dispositional attitude" or whatever, right? "Oh, that's hip-hop, it's trash, not like all this rock music I love" is just someone who has internalized some really rigid (and unfortunate) way of judging music. But it's not "ugh, music just sucks, it all sucks."

I don't think the study authors are saying they discovered a "new phenomenon" are they? I mean, it's not that there's some new virus going around infecting people with negative attitudes. So it's no surprise if there are "lay" descriptions of these kinds of people out there in the wild. I don't think, though, that "closed-minded" or even "rigid" are exact approximations of what I'm describing. I mean, I know people who have this basic disposition to like a very few things and despise a great many other who are nonetheless entirely free of social bigotry or what have you. And the people who are like this usually tend to like fairly esoteric things for preference (in fact, I was riffing on free-jazz up there because one of the most "negatively-disposed" people I know--someone who really doesn't believe that anybody actually likes any music other than the handful of stuff he likes, and that they're just pretending to like it out of social conformity or perversity--is a huge fan of free jazz). There's no particular fun, after all, in hating on stuff that most people hate on. So they're "open minded" in the sense of being willing to enjoy things that the hoi polloi dislikes, but they're extremely "closed minded" in their general contempt for everything other than the few things they've deemed "worthy."
posted by yoink at 3:17 PM on August 26, 2013


Is that a parody site? I can't work out if that is a serious article?
posted by mary8nne at 3:21 PM on August 26, 2013


RobotVoodooPower: Why do I get the feeling we'll be seeing "negative dispositional attitude disorder" drugs on the market very shortly?

For some, a simple surgical procedure is recommended. It's the optirectomy, in which the connection between the optic nerve and the rectum is severed, thus improving the subject's shitty outlook on life.

(Yeah, old one, I know.)
posted by hangashore at 3:22 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


New research has uncovered the reason why some people seem to dislike everything while others seem to like everything.

Because fuck you, that's why.
posted by The Tensor at 3:31 PM on August 26, 2013 [3 favorites]


Because fuck you, that's why.

I liked that!
posted by Cookiebastard at 3:32 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Whatever it is, I'm against it.

Or in the case of Australian politician Bill Shorten: whatever it is, I agree with it.
posted by dontjumplarry at 3:46 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Those who most obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats.

Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld
posted by y2karl at 3:57 PM on August 26, 2013 [13 favorites]


> So, negative people are negative.

> I don't think the study authors are saying they discovered a "new phenomenon" are they? ... So it's no surprise if there are "lay" descriptions of these kinds of people out there in the wild.

Yeah. Basically. The authors just developed a quicky personality test for 'tending to have negative / positive attitudes toward stuff'.

> But then we're just talking about people who are closed-minded, or particularly rigid in their tastes, not a new phenomenon called "negative dispositional attitude" or whatever, right?

They actually checked that. It's correlated, but not very strongly, so it doesn't seem to be exactly the same thing.


From the Science Daily article: New research has uncovered the reason why some people seem to dislike everything while others seem to like everything ... a dimension that researchers have coined "dispositional attitude."

No they didn't. The authors naming their test the "Dispositional Attitude Measure" doesn't cause people like or dislike things.

(To put another way, relabeling 'grouchy' as something like 'negative dispositional attitude' doesn't mean negative dispositional attitude causes grouchiness.)
posted by nangar at 4:15 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Interesting that most people here seem to focus on the non-liking rather than the liking.

I think on the liking and what pops into my mind is, "everybody's friend, everybody's fool", which I suppose is negative kind of attitude. Or coldly logical.

For the record, I hate Brussel sprouts but quite like broccoli. I feel at equilibrium with the vegetable world.
posted by IndigoJones at 6:05 PM on August 26, 2013


I have noticed a predeliction, amongst a certain class of people, to reflexively turn their nose up at anything they don't understand, thus giving the impression that not only do they understand the thing, but are also vastly superior to it's insignificance.
Rest assured, for those of us that do understand the thing, this ruse is utterly transparent.
posted by sexyrobot at 7:52 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


I have noticed a predeliction, amongst a certain class of people, to reflexively turn their nose up at anything they don't understand, thus giving the impression that not only do they understand the thing, but are also vastly superior to it's insignificance.

Heh. My mom still argues with me on this basis about the Beatles. The Beatles.
posted by scody at 7:53 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


A friend of mine who is a good listener and player of music once said to me "I can't listen to the Beatles anymore."

That was five years ago. I haven't been able to make it through a single Beatles song all the way through since.

Not even one.
posted by mistersquid at 8:56 PM on August 26, 2013


I think all classes of people have their share of those who reflexively reject anything unfamiliar, tainted by association, and/or different. From the sullen teen dismissing something as being "gay" or "ghetto" to Meta-types who sneer at anything "right-wing" or "pretentious" to Joe Six-Pack who grumbles about hipsters and their accompanying tropes, memes and accessories. Some people just say "no".
posted by Ideefixe at 9:26 PM on August 26, 2013


"New research has uncovered the reason why some people seem to dislike everything while others seem to like everything."

Re-written to be more accurate: "New research has uncovered that some people seem to dislike everything while others seem to like everything."

There's no cause here, only a trait that's been identified. Which people probably knew about before, but this is more of a first attempt at formally measuring it.
posted by empath at 12:50 AM on August 27, 2013


Does the paper account for the fact that if you react any way short of bouncing off the walls and shooting fireworks out of your ass to whatever the latest nerd thing is, you're a Hater who Hates Joy?
posted by Legomancer at 5:30 AM on August 27, 2013


I don't know how I fit in to this theory. at 43 I seek out a lot of new experiences and a ton of new music and am super appreciative of my life and the good things around me. But I also have these cranky opinion loops that I go into where I reject whole classes of things without really thinking about it. Often it feels like these two aspects of me are in conflict and my rational mind has to step in and sort it out. I was ragging on Kanye West the other day but I only knew him as the "IMA LET YOU FINISH" guy and just assumed his music was dull run-of-the-mill R&B or something. So then I felt bad about talking crap without knowing what I was talking about and I went off and listened to a bunch of Kanye stuff on Spotify and it was Pretty Good.

So maybe people are a lot more complicated that this paper suggests?
posted by freecellwizard at 7:02 AM on August 27, 2013


So maybe people are a lot more complicated that this paper suggests?

So I skimmed through the actual paper last night, and I don't actually think that the authors are suggesting people are not complicated. This is the important sentence:
"The dispositional attitude construct represents a new perspective in which attitudes are not simply a function of the properties of the stimuli under consideration, but are also a function of the properties of the evaluator."
In other words, they are not saying that your dispositional attitude is the *only* thing that will affect your attitude towards new stimuli (in one of their studies, the new stimulus was a fictitious microwave, for example), but that it is a measurable part of that attitude, and that dispositional attitude is a separate influence from a whole host of other personality traits that they measured.

They are contrasting this against prior theory that assumed that your attitudes towards the microwave, in this case, would be based solely on the properties of the microwave.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 8:38 AM on August 27, 2013


I'm anti-Skub. (more on skub)
posted by namewithoutwords at 10:11 AM on August 27, 2013


I'm a happy dimwit. Life is wonderful.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:45 AM on August 27, 2013


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