Shadow Minister,

I would love to agree with you but then we would
both be wrong!

I'm done talking to you.

Posted by Foxy

Dear Josephus, Talking about opinions. The following link explains:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201609/the-psychology-behind-donald-trumps-unwavering-support

Answer-

Well- at first glance this article is interesting but not for it's research. Over the articles I've read from Psychology Today I've found them to be very biased towards the left and usually not particularly scientific. Just my opinion I know.

Often academic bias and it's reason's can be hard to isolate- maybe I'm just unwilling to read hundreds of pages of text.

I tried researching this author for his background and found a few articles...

This one could be considered grudgingly right wing...
http://www.huffpost.com/entry/spreading-pseudoscience-5-reasons-liberals_b_6694374

Sometimes the family name, the university, etc gives clues as to an authors motivation for their views...

http://bobbyazarian.com/bio/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mason_University
http://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=azarian
http://www.names.org/n/azarian/about

B.S. in biology and a long-time interest in theoretical physics and artificial intelligence. I write about current events, politics, and culture from a scientific perspective, but my passion for science has always been largely motivated by philosophical and spiritual questions, such as how and why we find ourselves in a universe that inevitably and effortlessly generates life and conscious beings with seemingly infinite technological and intellectual potential.

Overall Bobby Azarian, PhD, Cognitive Neuroscientist appears to have at least a slight "Social" bias but more definitely "Locke Libertarian". However Azarian has been published in both Left and Right sources.
http://missliberty.com/john-locke-his-libertarian-philosophy-in-5-short-films/
Philosopher John Locke was born on August 29, 1632. He has been called the “Father of Classical Liberalism” and is arguably the most influential libertarian thinker in history. His ideas — including the concept of “life, liberty, and property” — inspired the American Revolution as well as the modern concept of “social tolerance.”

It seems more and more psychologists are making forays into political commentary.

Who better than a psychologist to make a foray into
political commentary?

The opinions of any of us are really of no value
if we don't know anything about the subject.
A psychologist definitely has an advantage especially
when it comes to the erratic behaviour of the
current US President.

Foxy said- The opinions of any of us are really of no value
if we don't know anything about the subject.
A psychologist definitely has an advantage especially
when it comes to the erratic behaviour of the
current US President.

Answer-

I think they have "some" value. As Chris Lewis says the argument rather than the qualifications. But Kuhn said that you have to be a "practitioner".

Michel Foucault proposed a concept of critique based on Kant's distinction between "private" and "public" uses of reason. This distinction, as suggested, has two dimensions:

Private reason is the reason that is used when an individual is "a cog in a machine" or when one "has a role to play in society and jobs to do: to be a soldier, to have taxes to pay, to be in charge of a parish, to be a civil servant".
Public reason is the reason used "when one is reasoning as a reasonable being (and not as a cog in a machine), when one is reasoning as a member of reasonable humanity". In these circumstances, "the use of reason must be free and public."

On the Fourfold Root, Schopenhauer identifies four a priori roots or aspects of PSR, namely: (1) a moral principle, (2) a physical principle, (3) a mathematical principle, and (4) a logical principle. These four, taken together, pretty much define the analytic approach to PSR.

Though not definitive- My understanding is under some views the streams aren't supposed to cross. ie Psychologists shouldn't be judging Politics- Moral vs Physical streams

References...

http://www.metaphysicalsociety.org/2014/Papers/van_der_Luft.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason#The_critique_of_reason

In the field of psychology the Dunning-Kruger effect
is a cognitive bias in which people with low ability
at a task overestimate their ability. It relates to
the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes
from the inability of people to recognize their lack
of ability.

The Dunning-Kruger effect explains that the problem
isn't just that they are misinformed. It's that they
are completely unaware that they are misinformed.

This creates a double burden.

Hence this reference by Bobby Azarian who's a cognitive
neuroscientist in his article in "Psychology Today" on
Trump and his supporters.