WRC 1013/1023: Freshman Composition: Exploring Critical Issues

"The early 1990s saw the proposal for ‘people first’ language: premodified nouns (disabled people) were to be replaced by postmodified nouns (people with disabilities). This usage was widely adopted in the fields of education and psychology. This article examines the distribution of both patterns in the electronic archives of the Houston Chronicle from 2002 to 2007, well after the suggestion for postmodification euphemism was launched, to investigate how widely the pattern has been adopted in everyday language use. The data from the Houston Chronicle are compared to the usage patterns in Google News.

"Allegations of selection bias toward the major conferences and teams with committee representation have previously been levied on the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Basketball tournament selection committee. We illustrate the source of this bias is political correctness. When using the computer ranking of Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), which uses only wins and losses in its analysis, bias in the selection process seems evident. No bias is revealed when the Sagarin “Predictor” rating is substituted for RPI. The Sagarin “Predictor” rating uses margin of victory and results compared to expectations in its analysis; the selection committee appears to use the same factors when determining at-large bids."

"Political conservatives are happier than liberals. We proposed that this happiness gap is accounted for by specific attitude and personality differences associated with positive adjustment and mental health. In contrast, a predominant social psychological explanation of the gap is that conservatives, who are described as fearful, defensive, and low in self-esteem, will rationalize away social inequalities in order to justify the status quo (system justification). In four studies, conservatives expressed greater personal agency (e.g., personal control, responsibility), more positive outlook (e.g., optimism, self-worth), more transcendent moral beliefs (e.g., greater religiosity, greater moral clarity, less tolerance of transgressions), and a generalized belief in fairness, and these differences accounted for the happiness gap. These patterns are consistent with the positive adjustment explanation."

"The transformation of common language toward inclusion of all people is the mechanism by which many aim to alter attitudes and beliefs that stand in the way of more meaningful social change. The term for this motivated concern for language is “political correctness” or “PC.” The current project seeks to introduce a new tool for investigations into this phenomenon, the concern for political correctness (CPC) scale. CPC assesses individual differences in concern for politically correct speech. Exploratory and confirmatory structural equation modeling showed consistent factor structure of the two subscales; an emotion subscale measuring negative emotional response to hearing politically incorrect language, and an activism subscale measuring a willingness to correct others who use politically incorrect language. Correlational analyses suggested that concern for political correctness is associated with more liberal beliefs and ideologies and less right-wing authoritarianism. The emotion subscale was also found to be associated with lower emotional well-being and the activism subscale with more frequent arguments. Laboratory-based criterion validation studies indicated that the two subscales predicted negative reactions to politically incorrect humor."