Homo Politicus: Brain function of liberals, conservatives differs

Brute_Force

Really Experienced
Joined
Aug 14, 2007
Posts
214
Homo Politicus: Brain function of liberals, conservatives differs
by Marlowe Hood



PARIS (AFP) - The brain neurons of liberals and conservatives fire differently when confronted with tough choices, suggesting that some political divides may be hard-wired, according to a study released Sunday.

Aristotle may have been more on the mark than he realised when he said that man is by nature a political animal.

Dozens of previous studies have established a strong link between political persuasion and certain personality traits.

Conservatives tend to crave order and structure in their lives, and are more consistent in the way they make decisions. Liberals, by contrast, show a higher tolerance for ambiguity and complexity, and adapt more easily to unexpected circumstances.

The affinity between political views and "cognitive style" has also been shown to be heritable, handed down from parents to children, said the study, published in the British journal Nature Neuroscience.

Intrigued by these correlations, New York University political scientist David Amodio and colleagues decided to find out if the brains of liberals and conservatives reacted differently to the same stimuli.

A group of 43 right-handed subjects were asked to perform a series of computer tests designed to evaluate their unrehearsed response to cues urging them to break a well-established routine.

"People often drive home from work on the same route, day after day, such that it becomes habitual and doesn't involve much thinking," Amodio explained by way of comparison in an e-mail.

"But occasionally there is road work, or perhaps an animal crosses the road, and you need to break out of your habitual response in order to deal with this new information."

Using electroencephalographs, which measure neuronal impulses, the researchers examined activity in a part of the brain -- the anterior cingulate cortex -- that is strongly linked with the self-regulatory process of conflict monitoring.

The match-up was unmistakable: respondents who had described themselves as liberals showed "significantly greater conflict-related neural activity" when the hypothetical situation called for an unscheduled break in routine.

Conservatives, however, were less flexible, refusing to deviate from old habits "despite signals that this ... should be changed."

Whether that is good or bad, of course, depends on one's perspective: one could interpret the results to mean that liberals are nimble-minded and conservatives rigid and stubborn.

Or one could, with equal justice, conclude that wishy-washy liberals don't stick to their guns, while conservatives and steadfast and loyal.

As to the more intriguing question of which comes first, the patterns in neuron activity or the political orientation, Amodio is reluctant to hazard a guess.

"The neural mechanisms for conflict monitoring are formed early in childhood," and are probably rooted in part in our genetic heritage, he said.

"But even if genes may provide a blueprint for more liberal or conservative orientations, they are shaped substantially by one's environment over the course of development," he added.

Obscuring causal links even more is the fact that the brain is malleable and neural functions can change as a result of new experiences.
 
Interesting. I was struck by how well the "liberal" cognitive style describes company founders, hedge funds guys - really any businessman in a disruptive area. The "conservative" style, by contrast, fits awfully well with actuaries, fund ratings analysts, and pension fund managers.

I can't speak to the politics but I suspect that's not the only area where such style differences would be easily found.

Thanks for the post,
H
 
Despite the lack of brain activity shown by conservatives in this exercise, please don't conclude that conservatives are brain dead.
 
jomar said:
Despite the lack of brain activity shown by conservatives in this exercise, please don't conclude that conservatives are brain dead.

Considering their success in the political field I certainly wouldn't say that.
 
I'm fascinated by the human brain, whether convservative or liberal or some permutation thereof. I think I would have enjoyed neuroscience if I hadn't been so fascinated by philosophy and studied that.
 
What about the Independents?

I think independents mock the outcome of the test and refuse to take it on the grounds that it's corrupt and has an agenda.
 
rgraham666 said:
Considering their success in the political field I certainly wouldn't say that.

More research is needed. But Bush is a compelling argument against spending more funds.
 
(From Loose Cannon.com)

The psychological profile of religious rightwing conservative authoritarians

You often wondered why conservative bloggers are incredibly inflexible, delete posts, and can not accept evidence that disagrees with their mindset? By observing the psychological makeup of such people, this should explain why.

I've often struggled to understand why some 'type' of people believe the way they do. There must be a psychological profile that defines religious right wing conservatives. Many don't realize that they are in fact authoritarians. Why they rely on faith instead of reason, dogmatism instead of critical thinking. Why it is impossible to form a debate with such people who already have the 'divine understanding' based on a sense of "the good and moral us" vs. "the bad and immoral them". This could explain why debating with such people is so difficult, why their level of denial is so great, why such bloggers strictly moderate their posts and don't hesitate to delete "inconvenient truths."


from MyDD.com:

"Rightwing authoritarianism is defined as the convergence of three attitudinal clusters:"
Authoritarian submission: A high degree of submission to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.
Authoritarian aggression: A general aggressiveness, directed against various persons, that is perceived to be sanctioned by established authorities.

Conventionalism: A high degree of adherence to the social conventions that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities.
And of course, with the religious right wing conservative, God is the ultimate authority figure and all information is filtered through a religious dogma. Though there are shades of gray, through extensive research, Robert Altemeyer identified these tendencies among right wing authoritarians. From his book, The Authoritarian Specter, published by Harvard University Press -

Right Wing Authoritarian Tendencies:


Faulty reasoning
Right wing authoritarian conservatives are more likely to:

Make many incorrect inferences from evidence.

Hold contradictory ideas leading them to `speak out of both sides of their mouths.'

Uncritically accept that many problems are `our most serious problem.'

Uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs.

Uncritically trust people who tell them what they want to hear.

Use many double standards in their thinking and judgements.
Profound Character Flaws
Right wing authoritarian conservatives are more likely to:

Be dogmatic.

Be zealots.

Be hypocrites.

Be bullies when they have power over others.

Help cause and inflame intergroup conflict.

Seek dominance over others by being competitive and destructive in situations requiring cooperation
Blindness To Own Failings
Right wing authoritarian conservatives are more likely to:
Believe they have no personal failings.

Avoid learning about their personal failings.

Be highly self-righteous.

Use religion to erase guilt over their acts and to maintain their self-righteousness.


Political Tendencies
Right wing authoritarian conservatives are more likely to:

Weaken constitutional guarantees of liberty, such as the Bill of Rights.

Accept unfair and illegal abuses of power by government authorities.

Trust leaders (such as Richard Nixon) who are untrustworthy.

Sometimes join left-wing movements, where their hostility distinguishes them.

But much more typically endorse right-wing political parties.

Be conservative/Reform party (Canada) or Republican Party (United States) lawmakers who
have a conservative economic philosophy;
believe in social dominance;
are ethnocentric;
are highly nationalistic;
oppose abortion;
support capital punishment;
oppose gun-control legislation;
say they value freedom but actually want to undermine the Bill of Rights;
do not value equality very highly and oppose measures to increase it;
are not likely to rise in the Democratic party, but do so among Republicans



Hostility & Fear Toward Outgroups
Right wing authoritarian conservatives are more likely to:

* Weaken constitutional guarantees of liberty, such as the Bill of Rights.
* Punish severely `common' criminals in a role-playing situation.
* Admit they get personal pleasure from punishing such people.
* But go easy on authorities who commit crimes and people who attack minorities.
* Be prejudiced against many racial, ethnic, nationalistic, and linguistic minorities.
* Be hostile toward homosexuals.
* Support `gay-bashing.'
* Be hostile toward feminists.
* Volunteer to help the government persecute almost anyone.
* Be mean-spirited toward those who have made mistakes and suffered.
* Be fearful of a dangerous world.

Not-So-Healthy Ingroup Cohesion
Right wing authoritarian conservatives are more likely to:

* Strongly believe in group cohesiveness and `loyalty.'
* Insist on traditional sex roles.
* Use religion to erase guilt over their acts and to maintain their self-righteousness.
* Be `fundamentalists' and the most prejudiced members of whatever religion they belong to.
* Accept unfair and illegal abuses of power by government authorities.
* Trust leaders (such as Richard Nixon) who are untrustworthy



Many studies, some government funded, have reached similar conclusions of this psychological profile - like the one quoted on my main blog page that cites conservatives as having: " a set of neuroses rooted in fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity."

One of the best recent books on this subject is John Dean's Conservatives Without Conscience. He notes that this type of conservatism is a recent phenomenon - the religious rightwing conservative authoritarians of today are not the same as the Barry Goldwater or the William F Buckley conservatives, they are a new breed. For a quick summary of the main points of this book, constitutional lawyer Gleen Greenwald reviews it with excerpts:


"Dean contends, and amply documents, that the "conservative" movement has become, at its core, an authoritarian movement composed of those with a psychological and emotional need to follow a strong authority figure which provides them a sense of moral clarity and a feeling of individual power, the absence of which creates fear and insecurity in the individuals who crave it. By definition, its followers' devotion to authority and the movement's own power is supreme, thereby overriding the consciences of its individual members and removing any intellectual and moral limits on what will be justified in defense of their movement.

Dean relies on substantial social science data to illustrate the personality type that seeks out authoritarian movements. But his case is made much more persuasively by what one can visibly see unfolding before one's own eyes.

As Dean convincingly demonstrates, the characteristic which defines the Bush movement, the glue which binds it together and enables and fuels all of the abuses, is the vicious, limitless methods used to attack and demonize the "Enemy," which encompasses anyone -- foreign or domestic -- threatening to their movement. What defines and motivates this movement are not any political ideas or strategic objectives, but instead, it is the bloodthirsty, ritualistic attacks on the Enemy de jour -- the Terrorist, the Communist, the Illegal Immigrant, the Secularist, and most of all, the Liberal."
I would be extremely interested in knowing about the 30% of Americans who still support GW Bush. According to Rasmussen, roughly half (about 14%) strongly support Bush. I'd be willing to bet that, of the 14% of Americans that strongly support Bush, 90% of them are devout Christians as well. By all indications, it figures into the psychological profile.
 
Enjoyed that think-piece LA. I didn't know profiling was now expanding into political domains, but it seems to work in this instance.

On another note, I just finished reading a few excerpts from the recent Bin Laden tape and would love to get various takes on that. CNN has transcripts. In general, he comments on Noam Chomsky as one of our nation's top observational minds. He also comments on our current national problems with mortgage debt. In the end, he urges us all to become Muslims.
 
After investing several minutes of hard research and thought into it, I've summed up the two groups as such:

1. Liberals are gay, tree-hugging, unpatriotic cowards.
2. Conservatives are homophobic, liberty-devouring, war-mongering, religious kooks.

Strangely, after consulting with myself, I realized that my assessment was, in fact, factual, and not merely opinion. I know, because I consulted with myself and myself is never wrong.

Oh yeah, anyone who disagrees with me is unpatriotic. Oh, and... embolden. I just had to throw that word in there. Vive la France.
 
Excerpt from Transcript of New Bin Laden Tape to be Released Tomorrow

Those with
real power and influence are those with the most capital. And since the
democratic system permits major corporations to back candidates, be they
presidential or congressional, there shouldn’t be any cause for astonishment –
and there isn’t any – in the Democrats’ failure to stop the war. And you’re the
ones who have the saying which goes, “Money talks.” And I tell you: after the
failure of your representatives in the Democratic Party to implement your
desire to stop the war, you can still carry anti-war placards and spread out in
the streets of major cities, then go back to your homes, that that will be of
no use and will lead to the prolonging of the war.


However, there are two solutions for stopping it. The first
is from our side, and it is to continue to escalate the killing and fighting
against you. This is our duty, and our brothers are carrying it out, and I ask
Allah to grant them resolve and victory. And the second solution is from your
side. It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the
democratic system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their
blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the
major corporations.


And with that, it has become clear to all that they are the
real tyrannical terrorists. In fact, the life of all of mankind is in danger
because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of
the factories of the major corporations, yet despite that, the representative
of these corporations in the White House insists on not observing the Kyoto accord,
with the knowledge that the statistic speaks of the death and displacement of
the millions of human beings because of that, especially in Africa. This
greatest of plagues and most dangerous of threats to the lives of humans is
taking place in an accelerating fashion as the world is being dominated by the
democratic system, which confirms its massive failure to protect humans and
their interests from the greed and avarice of the major corporations and their
representatives.


And despite this brazen attack on the people, the leaders of
the West – especially Bush, Blair, Sarkozy and Brown – still talk about freedom
and human rights with a flagrant disregard for the intellects of human beings.
So is there a form of terrorism stronger, clearer and more dangerous than this?
This is why I tell you: as you liberated yourselves before from the slavery of
monks, kings, and feudalism, you should liberate yourselves from the deception,
shackles and attrition of the capitalist system.


If you were to ponder it well, you would find that in the
end, it is a system harsher and fiercer than your systems in the Middle Ages.
The capitalist system seeks to turn the entire world into a fiefdom of the
major corporations under the label of “globalization” in order to protect democracy.


And Iraq and Afghanistan and their tragedies; and the
reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes
and real estate mortgages; global warming and its woes; and the abject poverty
and tragic hunger in Africa: all of this is but one side of the grim face of
this global system.


So it is imperative that you free yourselves from all of
that and search for an alternative, upright methodology in which it is not the
business of any class of humanity to lay down its own laws to its own advantage
at the expense of the other classes as is the case with you, since the essence
of man-made positive laws is that they serve the interests of those with the
capital and thus make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
 
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2005/07/male-female-and-einsteins-brains.html

"What is astonishing to me," Witelson said, "is that it is so obvious that there are sex differences in the brain and these are likely to be translated into some cognitive differences, because the brain helps us think and feel and move and act.

"Yet there is a large segment of the population that wants to pretend this is not true."

No one knows how these neural differences between the sexes translate into thought and behavior — whether they might influence the way men and women perceive reality, process information, form judgments and behave socially.

...As Witelson's research helped establish, however, the mental divide between the sexes is more complex and more rooted in the fundamental biology of the brain than many scientists once suspected.

In the last decade, studies of perception, cognition, memory and neural function have found apparent gender differences that often buck conventional prejudices.

Women's brains, for instance, seem to be faster and more efficient than men's.

All in all, men appear to have more gray matter, made up of active neurons, and women more of the white matter responsible for communication between different areas of the brain.

Overall, women's brains seem to be more complexly corrugated, suggesting that more complicated neural structures lie within, researchers at UCLA found in August.

Men and women appear to use different parts of the brain to encode memories, sense emotions, recognize faces, solve certain problems and make decisions. Indeed, when men and women of similar intelligence and aptitude perform equally well, their brains appear to go about it differently, as if nature had separate blueprints, researchers at UC Irvine reported this year.

"If you find that men and women have fundamentally different brain architectures while still accomplishing the same things," said neuroscientist Richard Haier, who conducted the study, "this challenges the assumption that all human brains are fundamentally the same..."


http://www.latimes.com/news/science...6,0,5806592,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines


"What is astonishing to me," Witelson said, "is that it is so obvious that there are sex differences in the brain and these are likely to be translated into some cognitive differences, because the brain helps us think and feel and move and act.

"Yet there is a large segment of the population that wants to pretend this is not true."

No one knows how these neural differences between the sexes translate into thought and behavior — whether they might influence the way men and women perceive reality, process information, form judgments and behave socially.

But even at this relatively early stage in exploration of the brain's microanatomy, battle lines between scientists, equal rights activists and educators have formed..."


~~~

My search keywords: cognitive differences male female perception of reality...

Rather than look for a perceived political difference between conservative and left wing, I thought to search out a philosophical basis for identifying the ability to perceive reality as absolute, or as illusion, as being definitive.

Then I got cute and went for the male/female thing, just for kicks, but then, it also translates to the realm of politics as the left is more Platonic in nature and the right, more Aristotelian, so, it all fits regardless.

socialists are wimps and pussies by brain matter...grins...

the always amicable amicus...
 
Hi Stella pussy! (Sorry, could not resist, and speaking as another person with a pussy, just wanted to give Amicus heads up so he need not read this!)

I did not read some of the posts, and others I did not read in their entirety. Just wanted to add my one cent (in this group, I figure my opinion is not even worth two :) ).

I have found, that when it comes to myself, I am liberal, but when it comes to my kids I am conservative. For me, I am willing to sacrifice to change the world, but for them, I want to have all sorts of protections and short term gain. Realized this when I found that no matter how I supported public schools and wanted them to succeed, for his own good had to put one kid in private school.

I think the old definitions are becoming unworkable. The current polarizing climate of politics today gives us caricatures, rather than real people. A conservative will not survive if he at some point in his life condoned the gay lifestyle, or abortion. A liberal had better not have a homebody wife or money.

Life is so richly shaded, the old definitions don’t really fit anyone. C’mon, the democrats were the spend party and the Republicans were the opposite, can someone tell me that has been true the last 20 years?

I do not think there is anyone out there that lives up to either Party’s demands. We need to figure out a way to quit expecting perfection from those in public service, and embrace their shortcomings. Otherwise the blackmailing of politicians will continue to cut out the best and brightest people.
 
Lisa, that was worth four cents, at least!

Me, I stood by my principles, and put my kids in public school, and I now know I made a mistake doing so.

This era of two-dimensional public figures is truly dangerous for our society.
 
My daughter did well in public school; it was necessary to put my son in private school. People are different.

I've said for the last four years that we are edging into fascism. If John Dean now implies the same thing, we'd better listen to him.
 
First of all, sorry, I am such a hit and run poster.

To validate that said by Stella and SlickTony, I have four sons, three are doing well in public school (I hope!) Time will tell if I made the right decision by any of them. It was hard to pull the one child out of public school, he is so smart, could not believe they did not try to keep him. It was a tough (and expensive) decision, but I think for him the best one.
 
My last employer was one of those global financial colossi that employs a lot of people with very niche specialisations. One of them was a demographer. I have a very clear memory of her making a point about American politics I'd never considered before:

The median age of an American voter at the last presidential election was somewhere in the low-to-mid 50s (sorry, I can't remember the exact number). These people are at or near their lifetime peak earnings which, in the US, means their usage of government-funded services is at or near its lowest point. Americans' usage of government-funded services usually picks up dramatically sometime between the ages of 60 and 65. Americans' voting frequency really starts to pick up once they hit 60.

What's going to happen to these people's view of government-funded services once they start using them more frequently? What effect is higher usage going to have on their voting habits?

Even if cognitive style doesn't change with age, isn't that demographic shift likely to have some effect?

Just a thought,
H

PS - If you really want to make me laugh, argue that the current generation of 55 year olds have sufficient retirement savings that they won't become heavier users of government-funded services. My last employer was the one Congress went to when it wanted reliable projections of retirement shortfalls...
 
Brute_Force said:
liberals showed "significantly greater conflict-related neural activity" when the hypothetical situation called for an unscheduled break in routine.

Conservatives, however, were less flexible, refusing to deviate from old habits "despite signals that this ... should be changed."


They stayed the course?

Big duh.

:D

"But even if genes may provide a blueprint for more liberal or conservative orientations, they are shaped substantially by one's environment over the course of development," he added.

I'm the first, and so far only, liberal in a long line of religious conservatives. Whatever conservatism was built into my dna, was dlluted by childhood experiences that hadn't been available to my parents or previous generations. For one thing, my dad was in the Air Force, so I traveled a lot as a child, had a variety of different "homes," attended desegrated schools, and had to accept - and hope for acceptance among - strangers with an assortment of backgrounds, religions and beliefs.

When my father left the military, we moved to his hometown, a small Southern mill-town not substantially changed since the Depression. Most kids my age had never lived anywhere else, but were staunchly chauvinistic about their community, their race, their religion, their school colors, their team. The local gas station had three restrooms labeled "Men" "Women" and "Colored."

I thought I had landed in Hell.

For a while, I coped by embracing conservatism, or pretending to. To do otherwise was to be an outsider - the most abominable fate imaginable to an adolescent. I even, temporarily, developed a mild fear of black people. I let myself be bullied into being baptised - no wussie-liberal sprinkle, but the full-tilt Southern Baptist dunking. Plunged for Jesus! America, love it or leave it!

It didn't take.

:rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
You have to watch the elbows while hugging trees. Or very large people. :eek:
 
In reality there is little difference between liberals and conservatives. The real distribution goes from totalitarian to anarchist. Liberals and conservatives form the center of the spread. The salient feature is always liberty. Whatever your sentiments are about personal liberty determines which side of the line you fall on.
 
British conservatives and liberals

The study was a British study.

The terms conservative and liberal have very different meanings this side of the Pond.

British Conservatives support a state-run health service and National Insurance = welfare.

British Liberals support the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. (and a state-run health service and National Insurance = welfare)

British Labourites do not support extension of the state but do support a state-run health service and National Insurance = welfare. They are NOT and never have been Communist.

All three parties agree on more things than they disagree about. Despite an Established Church none of them have any religious bias. Members and Members of Parliament can be of any religion or none and still progress in the organisation.

The terminology doesn't translate into US political affairs. Even some US Democrats would regard some British Conservatives as rabid Pinkos...

Og
 
Back
Top