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"Michael A. Milburn"
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Raised to Rage
Politicians routinely amplify and misdirect voters' anger and resentment to win their support. Opportunistic candidates encourage supporters to direct their anger toward Mexicans, Muslims, women, protestors, and others, rather than the true socioeconomic causes of their discontent. This book offers a compelling and novel explanation for political anger and the roots of authoritarian political attitudes. InRaised to Rage, Michael Milburn and Sheree Conrad connect vociferous opposition to immigrants, welfare, and abortion to the displacement of anger, fear, and helplessness. These emotions may be triggered by real economic and social instability, but Milburn and Conrad's research shows that the original source is in childhood brutalization or some other emotional trauma. Their research also shows that frequent experiences of physical punishment in childhood increase support in adulthood for punitive public policies, distorting the political process. Originally published in 1996, reprinted now with a new introduction by the authors that updates the empirical evidence and connects it to the current political situation, this book offers a timely consideration of a paradox in American politics: why voters are convinced by campaign rhetoric, exaggeration, and scapegoating to vote against their own interests.
eBook
Sexual Coercion in Men and Women: Similar Behaviors, Different Predictors
A growing body of literature supports the contention that both women and men employ various seductive, manipulative, intoxication, and even forceful tactics of sexual coercion to obtain sexual contact from unwilling partners. Although the self-reported coercive behavior of men and women may appear similar in many respects, predictors of such behavior seem to vary in important ways across gender. In addition to examining the prevalence of coercive behaviors reported across gender, the present study examined the extent to which four variables found in models of male sexual coercion predicted self-reported use of sexual coercion in a sample (
n
= 186) of college men and women: prior sexual abuse, sexual dominance, sociosexuality, and sexual compulsivity. Although prior sexual abuse seemed to be part of a cycle of sexual coercion among both men and women, key predictors of sexual coercion among men were sexual dominance and sociosexuality, whereas the key predictor of sexual coercion among women was sexual compulsivity. These findings support the notion that whereas men may behave coercively to obtain or maintain an impersonal sense of power and control, women may behave coercively to achieve some level of interpersonal connection when feeling out of control.
Journal Article
Authoritarianism, Anger, and Hostile Attribution Bias: A Test of Affect Displacement
Past research has supported the hypothesis that the relationship between harsh childhood punishment and adult political attitudes is due to the displacement of negative emotions that arise onto punitive public policies, e.g., support for the death penalty (Milburn, Conrad, Sala, & Carberry, 1995). Cognitions associated with childhood punishment may also impact adult political attitudes, yet their effects have not yet been examined, despite research that shows that punitive childhood experiences increase the tendency to attribute hostility to others. Thus, we investigated whether the tendency to make hostile attributions about others' behavior influences a person's authoritarianism, controlling for their parents' political orientation. Respondents completed an online survey concerning their childhood punishment experiences, their parents' political orientation, their trait anger, their level of hostile attribution bias (HAB), and their authoritarianism. Multiple regression analyses and structural equation modeling (SEM) found that higher childhood punishment has a significant direct effect on higher levels of authoritarianism, even after controlling for parents' political orientation, and that trait anger and HAB appear to mediate the effects of childhood punishment experiences on authoritarianism,. These results support the process of affect displacement as an important influence on adult punitiveness and political orientation.
Journal Article
The Effects of Viewing R-rated Movie Scenes That Objectify Women on Perceptions of Date Rape
Tested the effects of viewing R-rated films on perceptions of female responsibility for and enjoyment of date or stranger rape. Participants viewed nonviolent scenes objectifying and degrading women sexually or animated film scenes. They read a fictitious magazine account of a date or stranger rape. The study showed that males who viewed the sexually objectifying video felt that the victim in the date-rape condition experienced pleasure. (SM)
Journal Article
Honor Thy Father and Mother
Since the 1970s, one of the most politically conservative segments of American society, a loosely allied coalition of fundamentalist Christians known as the New Religious Right, has gained political sophistication as well as political strength. In this chapter, we investigate the political and social beliefs of religious fundamentalists and the origin of their beliefs in childhood punishment. We also discuss the export of their belief system into the political arena and look at the possible negative consequences of their influence on American politics.
The most influential conservative religious group in America today is the Christian Coalition, which was formed in
Book Chapter
The Politics of Denial
In this society, we tend to assume that a person’s political attitudes are the result of rational reflection on the issues. In their textbook on public opinion, political scientists Jerry Yeric and John Todd (1989) argue that attitudes represent people’s emotional response to particular objects or events and are “derived from the individual’s belief system” (p. 29). In other words, the way we feel about, for example, a presidential candidate, is determined by what we believe to be true about him or her and about the qualities we think a candidate should have. This approach overlooks, however, the possibilities that
Book Chapter
Governmental Violence and Denial
We have seen that white Americans deny the injuries and injustices suffered by African Americans and other people of color, and that certain intellectuals still perpetuate and rationalize racism by arguing that black people are biologically less intelligent than whites. The argument is frighteningly reminiscent of the race theories the Nazis used to justify the extermination of six million Jews and some five million other “undesirables”—gypsies, Poles, handicapped people, and homosexuals.
In this chapter, we first explore some of the ways governments successfully appeal to residual childhood emotions of rage, fear, and shame to gain public support for war
Book Chapter
Hear No Evil, See No Evil
According to legend, when King Boabdil, the last Moorish king, received word that his capital city of Alhama was about to be lost, he burned the letter containing the news and beheaded the messenger. Sigmund Freud cited this extreme example of political denial in a 1936 letter to a colleague. By destroying both the disturbing news and its bearer, he said, the king at least temporarily negated the unpleasant reality—the downfall of his city. Freud pointed out that, “[One] determinant of this behavior of the King was his need to combat a feeling of powerlessness. By burning the letters
Book Chapter
Denial, Slavery, and Racism in America
Many white Americans were shocked and dismayed when they heard the jury’s verdict in the O. J. Simpson trial. In contrast, most black Americans found it an occasion for celebration. Why was there so great a disparity between black and white opinion on the question of O. J.’s guilt? The reason, simply put, is racism and the denial of racism. For most black people in the United States encountering racism is a daily occurrence. Together, the history of slavery and racism in the United States and white America’s pervasive denial of its contemporary reality go a long way toward explaining
Book Chapter