Conservative brains are different from liberal brains

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Conservative brains are different from liberal brains
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Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

Scientists at New York University and the University of California, Los Angeles, showed through a simple experiment to be reported today in the journal Nature Neuroscience that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.

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Participants were college students whose politics ranged from "very liberal" to "very conservative." Scientists instructed them 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 their anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency

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 obtained the same results when they repeated the experiment in reverse, asking another set of participants to tap when they saw W.

Frank Sulloway, a researcher at the Institute of Personality and Social Research, at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study, said results "provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity."

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

"If you are not a liberal when you're 25, you are have no heart. If you are not a conservative when you are 45, you have no brain.'

Or maybe it just means your brain has calcified.

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Hmmm. I can't tell from a quick read if that is just habit or actual brain structure change/differences.

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ossobuco wrote:

Hmmm. I can't tell from a quick read if that is just habit or actual brain structure change/differences.

Leaving aside this particular article, which has been published here before, habit has an effect on brain structure.

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Quote:

"If you are not a liberal when you're 25, you are have no heart. If you are not a conservative when you are 45, you have no brain.'

I am more liberal in my 40's than I was in my 20's.

Can one go through life without either a heart or a brain?

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ebrown_p wrote:

Quote:

"If you are not a liberal when you're 25, you are have no heart. If you are not a conservative when you are 45, you have no brain.'

I am more liberal in my 40's than I was in my 20's.

Can one go through life without either a heart or a brain?

There is limited evidence available to suggest that one can.

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This might provide an answer for the question of another thread: Why are artists more liberal? Inherent in art (at least in painting as I experience it) is a comfort with, even an enjoyment of, ambiguity.

It could be that people are not tolerant of ambiguity because they are politically liberal, but that they are politically liberal because they tolerate ambiguity. I know that I and most of my liberal friends consider (most, but not all) conservatives to be rigid in their thinking. They seem to suffer from hardening of the categories.

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JL said

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This might provide an answer for the question of another thread: Why are artists more liberal? Inherent in art (at least in painting as I experience it) is a comfort with, even an enjoyment of, ambiguity.

. It copuld be said that we manipulate reality. Ive always had problems whenever I volunteered to teach painting classes with beginners. The two areas Ive had were that
1Perspective is to be understood but is optional

2One can paint the background around the "Trees" in the midground.
Ive found that some people, no matter how many times we tell em, will always place paint on the board (or canvas) in precise layers .

"Pay close attention to ambiguity" , maybe thats what I should be telling em. :wink:

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Yes, invite them to enjoy and take advantage of ambiguity.
But there is a difference between ambiguity and confusion. The latter makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, even queasy. Ambiguity is not confusion; it is multiple possibilities.

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When I was younger I stayed outside the lines because I was an anarchist, now I stay outside the lines because of palsy.

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ebrown_p wrote:

Quote:

"If you are not a liberal when you're 25, you are have no heart. If you are not a conservative when you are 45, you have no brain.'

I am more liberal in my 40's than I was in my 20's.

Can one go through life without either a heart or a brain?[/[/b]quote]

bush/cheney should be the obvious answer to that question....

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Yes, I meant to ask you about that.

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Every six months or so someone trots out a "study" like this (maybe it's the same one) which if appplied to different races, genders, or socio-economic classes would have Liberals frothing with an entirely unambiguous outrage.

All that these studies (and more importantly) their widespread trumpeting by Liberals confirms for me is that desire to feel superior is a fundamental element of the Liberal mind-set.

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dlowan wrote:

ossobuco wrote:
Hmmm. I can't tell from a quick read if that is just habit or actual brain structure change/differences.

Leaving aside this particular article, which has been published here before, habit has an effect on brain structure.

Ok, I can see that, as a secondary (however early) situation. <Surmizing, at least as a starter model, a bunch of interacting cycles>

This interests me personally (aside from mild interest in the brain and its workings); I started out educated in certain circumscribed ways, and moved outward, if not upward, from those strictures, sort of a lifetime tap tap tapping. My brain is probably all purple with gold dots.

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JLNobody wrote:

Ambiguity is not confusion; it is multiple possibilities.

I like this - probably worth discussing (sloppy versus relevant ambiguity in applied situations).

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Quote:

All that these studies (and more importantly) their widespread trumpeting by Liberals confirms for me is that desire to feel superior is a fundamental element of the Liberal mind-set.

, and pointing out these fundamental elements is a fundamental element of the conservative mind-set.

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dyslexia wrote:

When I was younger I stayed outside the lines because I was an anarchist, now I stay outside the lines because of palsy.

I like being able to do both at different times, so long as I can. I never got the rage against painting in them or not painting in them, even though I hear the rage against painting in them as being against enforced conformity. Painting within lines, metaphorically, is a useful tool on occasion.

Can you tell, I'm reacting to this thread post by post?

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Think quick...

M

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farmerman wrote:

Quote:
All that these studies (and more importantly) their widespread trumpeting by Liberals confirms for me is that desire to feel superior is a fundamental element of the Liberal mind-set.
, and pointing out these fundamental elements is a fundamental element of the conservative mind-set.

Glib, but what does it mean?

My interpretation of your comment is that accurate insight is a fundamental element of the conservative mind-set, but somehow I don't think that's what you intended to imply.

Conservative brains are different from liberal brains

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