In the O RLY? department: "Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain"

[dianeduane]

In a simple experiment reported today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

...Participants were college students whose politics ranged from "very liberal" to "very conservative." They were instructed to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W.

M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter.

Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M.

Researchers got the same results when they repeated the experiment in reverse, asking another set of participants to tap when a W appeared.

Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.

Sulloway said the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a "flip-flopper" for changing his mind about the conflict.

Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

Fascinating...  Must go dig up the full article.

 

Comments

[d-84.livejournal.com]

Pharyngula had a great teardown of this:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/09/flaed_protocol_eakens_brain_st.php

Liveral vs Conservative

[chimerac.livejournal.com]

These findings fit well with what pretty much any sociology textbook says about conservativism and liberalism. NOT talking politically here, but the foundational mindset that spans political, religious, social and other dimensions.

Conservatives look to the past for guidance and resist ideas that the "system" should change. They see problems as being the result of individual actions and resist changes to the system to solve these individual misdeeds. They see knowledge as fairly simple, and feel that with enough work, you can answer all questions. So, they tend to see things in terms of black and white, true/false, good/evil.

Liberals look to the future and see knowledge as complex. Even with great dedication, they do not think you can fully understand a subject, because they see that there will always be more information out there to be revealed. They see problems as the result of "the system" and understand that the way to solve problems is to change the system that allowed them to happen. Because liberals see matters as complex, they tend to look at things in "shades of grey," or as NOT black and white. They think that the more you understand someone, the more you can see things from their perspective, even if you disagree. Kind of the Star Trek philosophy.

This foundational mindset crosses politics, religion, and other disciplines. Because psychologists have discovered that it is SO deeply rooted in our worldviews, it is not surprising that Liberals and Conservatives have trouble understanding each other's positions. In a fundamental way, they "don't talk the same language."

The above wording is mine, but pretty common in the literature of psychology and sociology. :-)

Re: Liveral vs Conservative

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Hmm, do I smell a hint of tautology? Isn't that pretty much the definition of 'liberal' and 'conservative', so finding that liberals are, er, more liberal is rather like finding that hot things are hotter than cold ones?

To me the new part of the research was about the brain activity. Being able to see (and potentially measure) the 'liberalness' of a person is interesting. And a little frightening...

[cee-m.livejournal.com]

See? I always knew I was more adept at accepting change. :)

[xnamkrad.livejournal.com]

Hey - I still get confused as to why in the USA, land of the free, one of the worse things to be called is a liberal.

[dduane.livejournal.com]

I kind of like C.S. Lewis's take on this. From The Screwtape Letters, in which a senior devil is coaching a younger one on the fine art of getting human souls into hell: here we have a brief dissertation on the usefulness of getting the temptees all hung up on Fashions or Vogues.

The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of the mere "understanding". Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism; and whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey.

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see the study repeated with: 1) more subjects, 2) older subjects, and 3) subjects who have held more than one political position in their lifetime.

I have a hard time believing that one can really extrapolate adequate conclusions from a study involving <50 college students who 'opted in' to the general population.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

And the college student thing itself would skew matter. Also, where's our baseline? Do we have a reading on Libertarians?

[d-84.livejournal.com]

Sure, they're the ones who kept pressing the $ key.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

*snickers*

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

I think this surely is a candidate for a "No s**t Sherlock" award.
This is stating the sceintific obvious!!!!!!

[madfilkentist]

Considering how ill-defined "liberal" and "conservative" are, this raises strong suspicious of being junk science.

Sulloway said the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a "flip-flopper" for changing his mind about the conflict.

Mitt Romney is a far worse flip-flopper than Kerry, but let's ignore any data points that don't confirm the hypothesis.

[batyatoon]

Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

Which last I checked is part of the definition of "liberal."

Join us next week for a study that asks the daring question: Are Cookies Delicious? The answer ... may surprise you.

[madfilkentist]

I'm not sure which definition you're using. Historically, liberalism comes from the Spanish "liberales," and is etymologically related to "liberty." The term referred to a specific outlook, not to generalized willingness to accept new ideas.

The modern political notion of "liberal" refers to those who are irrevocably wedded to the idea that broad government powers are the solution to virtually all problems; modern-day "liberals" stick to this idea at all costs, and willingness to consider new ideas is far removed from their thinking.

It's that very unwillingness to deviate from their dogmas which leads to defining one terms so as to turn one's premises into tautologies.