In Defense Of David Brooks, His Failing Memory, And His Failed Fact-Checker

David Zweig at Salon gets some clicks with a breathless expose of the lying David Brooks:

The facts vs. David Brooks: Startling inaccuracies raise questions about his latest book

Factual discrepancies in the NYT columnist's new book raise some alarming questions about his research & methods

Spoiler alert - we can all exhale, this is not that alarming. Still...

For at least the past four years David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, TV pundit, bestselling author and lecture-circuit thought leader, has been publicly talking and writing about humility. Central to his thesis is the idea that humility has waned among Americans in recent years, and he wants us to harken to an earlier, better time.

One of the key talking points (if not the key talking point) cited by Brooks in lectures, interviews, and in the opening chapter of his current bestseller, “The Road to Character,” is a particular set of statistics — one so resonant that in the wake of the book’s release this spring, it has been seized upon by a seemingly endless number of reviewers and talking heads. There’s just one problem: Nearly every detail in this passage – which Brooks has repeated relentlessly, and which the media has echoed, also relentlessly — is wrong.

David Zweig was exploring similar humilty-related themes when he came across this factoid from a David Brooks talk a few years back:

In 1950 the Gallup Organization asked high school seniors “Are you a very important person?” And in 1950, 12 percent of high school seniors said yes. They asked the same question again in 2006; this time it wasn’t 12 percent, it was 80 percent.

But diligent fact-checking could not confirm that detail, so Zweig did not use it himself. But Brooks did, in 2015!

The passage from “The Road to Character” reads:

“In 1950, the Gallup Organization asked high school seniors if they considered themselves to be a very important person. At that point, 12 percent said yes. The same question was asked in 2005, and this time it wasn’t 12 percent who considered themselves very important, it was 80 percent.”

And oddly, a thematically similar point had been made in Brook's own 2011 "The Social Animal":

The passage from “The Social Animal” reads:

“In 1950 a personality test asked teenagers if they considered themselves an important person. Twelve percent said yes. By the late 1980s, 80 percent said yes.”

So Brooks forgot his own book and his own factcheckers don't re-reread his own stuff. Color me disappointed, but hardly horrified. But if Zweig is right I am under-reacting:

Somehow, between the publication of “The Social Animal” in 2011 and the publication of “The Road to Character” in 2015, a study that originally occurred, by Brooks’ telling, in “the late 1980s” became one that occurred nearly 20 years later. (Amazingly, to the New York Times reviewer, the late 1980s and 2005 are only “slightly different dates.” And how was any difference in dates for the same citation, no matter how “slight,” not problematic to the Times reviewer?)

What began as a simple fact-check of a Gallup poll was devolving into a morass.

Zweig contacts Brooksies people, eventually is offered a research paper by Newsom, Archer et al as a citation, and contacts the authors. The gist - Brooks wasn't so wrong in The Social Animal" but was deeply wrong in "The Road To Perdition Character":

The thing I keep wondering is how did Brooks get nearly every detail of this passage wrong? He said Gallup did the polls, when they were actually done by academics. He merged a data set from 1948 and 1954 into 1950. He said the second data set was from 2005, when it was from 1989 (to me, the most damning and damaging inaccuracy). He said it was high school seniors, when it was ninth graders. And he said 80 percent answered true, when that was only so for boys. Can one accidentally get this many details wrong?

So the question is, if it wasn’t an accident, why would Brooks deliberately falsify nearly every detail in a passage of his book, let alone one that is a cornerstone of the book’s P.R. campaign?

Why would Brooks deliberately falsify this whole factoid? Is that really the obvious next question? I would ruminate on the fraility of human memory before I assumed Brooks to be lying. 

Speaking of which, and filed under "everything new is old again", here is an aggrieved blogger from 2011:

Back in March David Brooks titled one of his New York Times columns “The Modesty Manifesto.” In it, he argued that over the course of a few generations American culture has shifted from an emphasis on self-effacement to one on self-enlargement — in short, that Americans now hold themselves, as individuals, in much higher regard than they once did.

You see this freight train coming, don't you?

However, one item from his column that Mr. Brooks keeps repeating on the lecture and interview circuits is more sinister. He cites polling data showing that in the 1950s 12% of American high school seniors said they were “a very important person” and that by the 1990s a whopping 80% believed that they were. Leaving aside the fact that Brooks keeps changing the date for that 80% figure (sometimes he says it’s from polling done in the 1990s, sometimes from 2005), Brooks is refusing to look under the surface of this seemingly alarming number.

Hmm. So even back in 2011 Brooks was muddling his dates on the stump, if not in print. The Modesty Manifesto column from 2011 says this:

In a variety of books and articles, Jean M. Twenge of San Diego State University and W. Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia have collected data suggesting that American self-confidence has risen of late. College students today are much more likely to agree with statements such as “I am easy to like” than college students 30 years ago. In the 1950s, 12 percent of high school seniors said they were a “very important person.” By the ’90s, 80 percent said they believed that they were.

Hmm, right that time! And in July 2010, in the course of berating the narcissistic Mel Gibson, Brooks offers the same cite for the same factoid:

In their book, “The Narcissism Epidemic,” Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell cite data to suggest that at least since the 1970s, we have suffered from national self-esteem inflation. They cite my favorite piece of sociological data: In 1950, thousands of teenagers were asked if they considered themselves an “important person.” Twelve percent said yes. In the late 1980s, another few thousand were asked. This time, 80 percent of girls and 77 percent of boys said yes.

I Boldly Infer that Twenge et al were the source of this tidbit for Brooks. A diligent reader can Look Inside and find it on p. 35 here, or check this cool screenshot:

 

So why is Salon author Zweig contacting professors Newsom and Archer? Because they are the citation offered by Twenge (e.g., in this Journal of Personality 76:4, August 2008 paper, "Egos Inflating Over Time: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory", p. 878). Rather than blaming Brooks for moving a 1948 survey into the 1950s and muddling boys with girls, one might take it up with Twenge. (And FWIW, Twenge reverses the 80% / 77% boy-girl breakdown provided by Zweig, and if I had a copy of the Newsom paper I would gleefully adjudicate that dispute. And do, see UPDATE.)

Still, one wonders how Gallup got involved and why the second study keeps getting moved into 2005. Let me compound the mystery - here is a blogger from 2007 describing "Fame Junkies", published in 2007 by former factchecker, New Republic and NPR writer Jake Halpern:

"American teenagers are the most narcissistic people in the world."

That conclusion comes from a study published in Jake Halpern's new bookFame Junkies, The Hidden Truths behind Americas Favorite Addiction. 

Last night I went to see him do a reading at a local bookstore.  He talked about how in the 1950's 12% of American teens answered yes to the question "Are you an important person?"  In 2006, that number  jumped to over 80%.

Well, that is one fanboy heard from, but did Halpern really say that? I wasn't there, but in the book (Look Inside p. 35 - that page is not presented, but searches on "important person" confirm the factoid's presence) he cites the 2006 "Generation Me" by Twenge, and in the press release he offers this:

Are teenagers in America really more self-important than they were in the past? 

There is certainly information to support this notion. This piece of data is my favorite. It comes from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. This personality test has been given to teenagers since the early 1950s. If you compare the results from teenagers who took the test in the early 1950s to results from teenagers who took it in the late 1980s, it's quite interesting. One of the most striking differences between these two groups was the way they responded to item 58, which reads: "I am an important person." In the early 1950s, only 12 percent of teenagers endorsed that statement; by the late 1980s, that number had jumped to roughly 80 percent. 

This is everybody's favorite factoid! If I had to guess, I would wager that Halpern mentioned a 2006 book citing a study from the 1950s and late 80s, and the blogger dropped the 80s figure. I would further wager that Our Guy Brooks remembers the 2006 book and is making the same mistake on the dates.

So how did Gallup get in the mix? Beats me. On August 31 2011 on C-SPAN, Brooks cited Gallup, contra his then-recent book. In 2010, at a talk in Asheville, Gallup was in the story, and the second survey was "last year":

“It occurred to me that this is a shift in our culture,” he said. “In 1950, a Gallup poll asked teenagers ‘Are you an important person?’ and 12% said yes. Last year, 80% said yes. That’s a shift in culture."

But why Gallup? Another unsolved mystery. There is a Gallup Youth Survey which was founded in 1977, and in a head as packed with factoids as Mr. Brooks, some cross-wiring may have occurred (yet again, more information equals less knowledge).

I would opine that Brooks is obviously confused, his factcheckers are either overworked or underpaid, and Zweig is a bit too excited about his "gotcha". As Mark Twain might have said, "It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so."

UPDATE: Don't seek and ye shall find - in the course of looking for something else I stumbled upon the full Newsom paper, which has something for everyone:

In the 1950s, this item, placed on the ego inflation (Ma4) subscale, was endorsed as true by only about 12% of the Hathaway and Monachesi (1963) sample. In contrast, this item was endorsed as true by 77% (girls) to 80% (boys) of contemporary adolescents. The dramatic shift in endorsement frequency probably reflects a fundamental shift in the connotation of this item, that is, in the Hathaway era this item was likely interpreted by adolescents as related to self-aggrandizement, whereas it is seen as reflective of positive aspects of self-esteem by modern adolescents.

So 1948 is culturally repackaged into 'the 1950s' here and down the line, But for some reason, Prof. Twenge reversed the boy/girl split.

And of course, when a 2003 paper cites 1989 data to describe "contemporary adolescents", I suppose some confusion is possible. That said, the authors are crystal clear, several pages earlier, that the "contemporary" data is from the late 1980s:

The contemporary adolescent sample is comprised of the 805 boys and 815 girls collected in the late 1980s to create the MMPI–A adolescent norms.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[James D]

I don't believe in camping. Our ancestors lived outdoors, or in caves, without any protection from the elements or bugs/beasts. We evolved to live indoors, with controlled temperature, clean water and no animal predators or parasites to attack us in the night.

Camping out is anti-science! You don't want to be anti-science, do you?

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

Maybe Rob Portman can arrange for his son to do homo things with the mayor of South Bend, because both of them think these are newsworthy events.

[DublinDave]

Great watching Daryl Issa get escorted from Trey Gowdy's Benghazi hearing by force, and then give it Gowdy in the corridor before storming off, with Gowdy kinda chasing him to say "Come on,man"

There's video showing the two love birds breaking up in the corridor just outside the hearing and it's a doozy.

The Benghazi hearings are now the longest in U.S history and plan to go on into next year, EVEN though they've ALREADY been investigated by seven other Congressional committees and nothing damaging has been found in any of their findings.

The families of the Americans who died in Benghazi are livid that their loved ones are being used as political fodder by the Republican Fox news party and they plan to appear in an upcoming documentary film detailing what drove the GOP/FOX NEWS to push a non-story for so long.Apparently there are emails between interested parties suggesting that dragging Benghazi out would be good for Fox's ratings and the GOP's mid-term hopes of getting back the Senate.

This documentary is set to be released as soon as Gowdy announces that he has nothing and he wasted millions of dollars of taxpayers money because Fox news asked him too...right before the 2016 Presidential election and right about the time we're discussing the Republican parties ability to lead on foreign affairs from the White house...Benghazi style.

[henry]

Well, the best part of camping is the big fire that keeps the wild critters away. The worst part is the critters don't seem to care about the fire.

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

I need someone smarter than dumbassdave, ie anybody, to explain why I shouldn't want Issa to be trapped in the next burning building.

[NKonChrome]

DD just cutting and pasting the taking points now,... He's just stealing the Soros money. Good...good.

[Threadkiller]

Does TK know that Rachel Dolezal's birth certificate wasn't issued for a month and a half and that is one of the reasons she thinks she's black? 

We already know more about her birth than Obama's.

[MarkO]

There is nothing quite like a wild lightening storm while camping high in the Rockies.

Nature is literally awesome.

[Threadkiller]

he's going to shake things up for sure but if he starts talking third party, we're screwed.

The Consent Decree dictates that, at best, he would be talking second party.

[matt]

If anyone has been reading up, Michael Oren is absolutely trashing Obama, and he has credibility.

He was amazed at Obama's anger at America as displayed in "Dreams of My Father". And the inside story on the "diplomacy" used by the thugs at State and in the White House is
stunning.

This administration has poured gasoline on the Middle East.

And in the meantime this week's focus in the media is Rachel Jolson.

[Threadkiller]

Wayne Allyn Root Unloads: Presidential Candidate DonaldTrump Can Question Obama's Background

http://www.birtherreport.com/2015/06/wayne-allyn-root-unloads-presidential.html

[Miss Marple]

This is from Charles Payne's email this morning:

“I’m really rich!” That’s just one of the observations made by the latest candidate to throw his hat in the presidential ring. It was the most badass announcement to date.

Assets

$9.2 billion

Liabilities

$0.5 billion

Net Worth

$8.7 billion

Donald Trump is now in the race and it’s all about Machiavelli, not Dale Carnegie. The man is not trying to make any friends; he even seems willing to make a few new enemies.

First, he crushes his GOP foes; actually saying that one was so oblivious that he “sweated like a dog” when he made the announcement (referring to Rick Perry). He harshly dismissed Jeb and he did not seem to take Marco Rubio seriously either.

However, he called the folks in Washington of all stripes “losers” controlled by special interest. The fact is that Donald Trump is a billionaire and he is not taking any money, which means true independence. In fact, his candor also hints at being an independent, even though he seemed to be reaching for the top of the GOP Republican ticket.

Then, Trump threw down the gauntlet on China, Japan, and Mexico. While complimenting China and Japan for taking advantage of inept U.S. negotiators, he sent out a salvo that things would be different. He also took a shot at Ford for breaking ground on a $2.5 billion plant in Mexico; he stated he would call the CEO and let him know that each car, truck, and part would be slapped with a 35% tax when it is sold in the United States.

He stated that Mexico was learning how to game the United States through trade policies. And his comments about the country dumping its problem citizens on America may have rankled a few people living in Mexico and living here. He went on to say that drugs, crime, and rapists from Mexico and other nations would be slowed or presumed stopped with a southern wall between the nations and that Mexico would have to pay for it.

Donald Trump vows that he would be “the greatest jobs president that God ever created!”

He’s got a lot of bravado, but will America buy it? I am not sure, but I will not write-off Donald Trump, nor will I ignore the things he said yesterday because the majority of what he said needed to be said.

[DebinNC]

Donald Trump Is America ... in case anyone isn't depressed enough this morning.

[DebinNC]

The Donald is setting records poll-wise

[Jane on Ipad]

Jib,

I only buy fish at a fish store so I buy what they have. I forget what kind. Maybe Alaskin in honor of Daddy.

[MarkO]

Trump is unserious, but he is willing to say to Little George that which the others dare not:

“What Hillary’s got with the emails is, to me, scandalous,” Trump said. “Of course, you shouldn’t be talking to me about that, in all fairness. You shouldn’t be asking me those questions, but I don’t mind.”

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

PJ O'Rourke ridicules everybody in the Presidential race and then wonders why there aren't any good candidates. High profile smartasses FTL.

[Threadkiller]

So I imagine that some fans may be distressed to learn that, according to this excellent newRolling Stone profile of the band, Peart's self-described "bleeding-heart libertarian" tendencies include automatically voting Democrat, and sending cease-and-desist letters to an allegedly racist Rand Paul...

https://reason.com/blog/2015/06/16/neil-peart-rand-paul-hates-women-and-bro

[Jane on Ipad]

James,

Can't speak for NY but in MA if you plead guilty you would not be sentenced that day. And you would be assigned a lawyer who would tell you you should not plead guilty because you will screw up the opportunity for any plea deal.

More typical would be to waive the reading of the charges ( so no one hears them) then enter a plea of not guilty.

[Dave (in MA)]

Trump: pro-single payer, gun-grabber, wants to tax wealth in addition to income, Troofer, wishy-washy on partial birth abortion. Yeah, great.

Maybe it would be entertaining to have him on the stage with Juan Arbusto and Miss Lindsey, though.

[Miss Marple]

Dave,

Just a warning. Candidates are going to have to confront Trump with those issues and show his thin skin. Just saying he isn't a serious candidate, like I heard from some pundits yesterday, is not going to be good enough.

He needs to be taken seriously and questioned, and not just the O'Reilly-type interview. Bombastic rhetoric will get him pretty far unless he is treated seriously at the beginning.

Jonah Goldberg started this morning by pointing out he supported single payer in his authorized biography. Some supporters on Twitter didn't believe him at first.

I am telling you that other candidates need to get a clue about this. The country is volatile right now and Trump presents himself as the guy who will fix everything, easy-peasy.

People WANT to believe this. (As an aside, this is how all sorts of people from Hitler to Chavez got power.)

So everyone needs to be looking at his positions RIGHT NOW. Treat him seriously. Ask him tough questions.

Otherwise, he will get enough poll support to be in the first debate. What's Perry going to do if he's mocked for sweating and not being prepared at his announcement speech? What's Walker going to say when he's attacked as "not having smarts or class?" THAT is how Trump will behave, so people should go after his record RIGHT NOW.

And no attacks on his marriages or his kids. Just his positions.

[MarkO]

Without Trump, there would have been no birth certificate about which TK could have opined. Imagine!

[Extraneus]

It's interesting that there's so obviously a yearning for aggressive offense that Christie, Carly and even Trump can easily tap into it, yet none of the top-tier candidates ever have the guts.

[James D]

Thanks, Jane!

[Miss Marple]

Extraneus,

Exactly right.

This is what comes of taking advice from "political consultants" rather than speaking the plain truth.

[Porchlight]

Jane, your salmon recipe looks great - thanks for posting it.

Just curious, do you cook it in one large filet and then cut it to serve, or do you cook individual portions?

[Ben Zaynus]

`, ' . `
.oOo.

[sbw]

Just saying he isn't a serious candidate . . is not going to be good enough.

Correct.

“Donald is a serious candidate . . . but his positions are unserious.

“You can’t run the country on platitudes and sound bites. He hasn’t thought his positions out because his short attention span won’t let him.

“He’s not running for President; he’s marketing himself to acquire Trump Towers on Pennsylvania Avenue.”

[Extraneus]

Wisconsin city bars use of kangaroos as service animals

[henry]

It figures, Drudge is linking to a report* of a Rachel sex tape. Is anything unchecked here? rehab next?

* I didn't look to find out how thoroughly orange this person is.

[Miss Marple]

sbw,

Don't know who that critique is from, but it's not good enough. No specifics he has to efend.

When you simply say his positions are unserious, you are insulting all the people who bought into his statements on China and Russia.

"Short attention span" is a personal attack.

A BETTER way would be to say, something like this:

Obamacare is driving costs up for hiring and bleeding the middle class, with drastic increases in fees, co-pays, and premiums. It's killing jobs. Mr. Trump needs to explain why he supports government controlling ALL healthcare through single payer."

[Miss Marple]

Again, from the Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3110165/Clinton-charity-took-multi-million-donation-African-church-called-homosexuals-devils-despite-Hillary-s-support-gay-marriage.html

Courtesy of Dinesh D'Souza on Twitter, who also asks how a small church in Cameroon can come by $10 million.

[Jane on Ipad]

One large filet, Porch.

[Dave (in MA)]

--"Hola , tenemos un nuevo hilo de discusión"

[Porchlight]

Thanks, Jane!

[jimmyk]

That really was a terrible column by O'Rourke. Dissing all of the other Republican candidates for no reason just so he can ridicule Trump, as though a hundred others haven't already done so.

[Threadkiller]

Jonah Goldberg started this morning by pointing out he supported single payer in his authorized biography.

And:

Mr. Trump needs to explain why he supports government controlling ALL healthcare through single payer."

I suggest we use the same line of questioning Romney faced.

[Threadkiller]

Without Trump, there would have been no birth certificate about which TK could have opined

I would also like to give honorable mention to The Whitehouse Xerox Multitask Workstation and The Meerkat YouTube Channel.

[sbw]

Mr. Trump needs to explain why he supports government controlling ALL healthcare through single payer."

He supports it because it is the right thing to say . . . to occupy Trump Pennsylvania Ave.

And like his previous deals, he’s betting on a future he can’t deliver.

[MM, you are much more precise and cogent than am I.]

[rse]

New post up. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/fodder-for-political-exploitation-when-ecaa-removes-all-barriers-and-adds-required-intrusions/

[Gentlejim]

Beasts, that's fantastic. Stay strong.

[Beasts of England]

Thanks, Gentlejim!!

@Jane: Thank you. I ended a forty-year chemical romance - mainly cocaine as an issue, but frequently ecstacy and mushrooms, as well. I wouldn't have originally shared my epiphany, but it's not like I can call up my Mom and admit it. ;)