In any scientific experiment it’s important to have a good experimental design. While I have no delusions that this experiment is anything more than a pseudoscientific intellectual exercise, I want the results to be as objective as possible to give them some semblance of validity. So I present here my experimental design.
Experimental Methods
Subject
A 28 year old, middle class, highly educated, white male living in a large midwestern US urban area.
Stimuli and procedures
For a two week period I will surround myself as much as possible with conservative viewpoints. Because it is not practical for me to physically surround myself with conservative people, I have to do it in the virtual spaces of the Internet and broadcast television/radio.
In preparation for the experiment I have created a new Netvibes account and filled the homepage with RSS feeds from news organizations that are conventionally considered conservative. These feeds will comprise my online news sources. They include:
In addition to these publications, I will also read columns by conservatives such as Ann Coulter, Jonah Goldberg, Bill Kristol, Robert Novak, and George Will. [NOTE: I'm not familiar with all conservative news sources and columnists, so please don't hesitate to suggest others in the comments.]
For other forms of media intake I will watch Fox News and listen to conservative radio (Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, etc).
For non-partisan mediation I will consult Factcheck.org.
I won’t read my normal sources of news and information and I won’t discuss politics with liberal friends or family. My primary form of political dialog will be through comments I post on conservative forums, in which I will argue my own viewpoints and respectfully challenge those of others.
Data collection and analysis
At the beginning of the two week experimental period I will take a series of tests to quantify my ideological attitudes. For the sake of presentation and simplicity, these tests will mostly be questionnaires used for academic and marketing research; however, since self-reporting is notoriously inaccurate I will also use a test of implicit attitudes, the Implicit Association Test (IAT).
Throughout the two week period I will make regular posts to this blog about my experiences and thoughts–an experimental diary, if you will.
At the end of the two week experimental period I will retake all of the questionnaires and the IAT. I will compare my scores before and after and check for statistically significant changes (Take the statistics with a grain of salt, since small sample sizes don’t usually pass muster with the assumptions underlying most statistical tests).
I encourage feedback from all readers in the comments.
Next up: Baseline data
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