Sometimes it’s not what you know but who you know

I was doing a bit of bookmark housecleaning and stumbled on a piece Adam Liptak of the New York Times filed where he notes that, “judges with daughters are more likely to vote in favor of women’s rights than ones with only sons. The effect, a new study found, is most pronounced among male judges appointed by Republican presidents, like Chief Justice Rehnquist.” The study conducted by The University of Rochester’s Maya Sen and Harvard professor Adam Glynn, uncovered results that I think are echoed in other areas of life, specifically, that the ability to sympathize tremendously affects the way that we perceive and interact with the world. The way that this effect largely functions isn’t particularly mystifying. It appears that in this case, judges who had the opportunity to develop close personal bonds with a female that they presumably viewed as someone they were responsible for nurturing and protecting resulted in recognition that women in this society actually still encounter discrimination. I would argue that a key piece of this is the subject’s (the judge, in this case) role as a father. Unlike support for same sex marriage, which studies have suggested can increase by virtue of personally knowing a same sex couple, a somewhat different dynamic appears to be at play. The results of San and Glynn’s study show no increase in support for women’s rights by judges who have only sons. This suggests that simply having an intimate relationship with a woman is not sufficient to trigger support for women’s rights, because presumably these judges had intimate relationships with the mother of their sons (at least at some point in their lives).

It is possible that the concept of role, or self-identity, is doing much of the heavy lifting as it relates to both issues. In the case of same sex marriage, merely being acquainted with a same sex couple could result in simply wishing the best for them, which would be a common thing for people to do. Since the same sex relationship is only loosely related to the individuals outside of the relationship making the assessment, the bar to clear for triggering a reversal of opinion is relatively low. On the other hand, the role of judge would likely be much more central to an individual’s identity than the role of acquaintance or even friend of a same sex couple. This may explain the higher threshold for the reversal of a previously held belief or for holding an opinion that is inconsistent with other acknowledged beliefs.

 

These findings pose many questions, but the one I’m particularly interested in is this—What is the relationship between individual identity, personal experience, and attitudes about the world? I realize that question doesn’t have a simple answer (or even one answer for that matter), but it’s one of those questions that I spend a lot of time thinking about. As always feel free to leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments