Liberals understand complexity conservatives understand fear

[_Buffalo]

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20 ... re-110407/

Brains of liberals, conservatives structured differently: study

Perhaps the reason that liberals and conservatives have such a hard time seeing eye-to-eye is because when they're compared brain-to-brain, they're built quite differently.

A new study that analyzed the brain structures of peoples' brains based on their political affiliations has found some significant differences.

Essentially, they found that liberals have more gray matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear.

The study, which appears in Current Biology, was conducted by Ryota Kanai of the University College London. Kenai's team looked at 90 healthy young adults who were given a survey and then asked to report their political views on a scale of one to five, from very liberal to very conservative. Their brains were then scanned.

People who reported that their views veered to the liberal side of the political spectrum tended to have a larger anterior cingulate cortex, which is a brain area involved in processing conflicting information.

Those with conservative views were more likely to have a larger amygdala, a region important for recognizing threats and processing fear.

"Individuals with a large amygdala are more sensitive to fear," and might therefore be "more inclined to integrate conservative views into their belief system," Kanai and colleagues wrote.

"On the other hand, our finding of an association between anterior cingulate cortex volume and political attitudes may be linked with tolerance to uncertainty" -- which may allow people to "accept more liberal views."

What the study couldn't answer was whether the structural differences they noted in the brains cause the differing political views, or are the effect of them.

Kanai says it's possible that brain structure isn't set in early life, but rather can be shaped over time by our experiences, which would explain why some people have been known to change their views over the course of a lifetime.

Kanai cautioned against taking the findings too far, citing many uncertainties about how the correlations they see come about.

"It's very unlikely that actual political orientation is directly encoded in these brain regions," he said. "More work is needed to determine how these brain structures mediate the formation of political attitude."

[_Molok]

I wonder what the brain of someone who thinks liberals and conservatives are both full of it would look like.

[_Buffalo]

I wonder what the brain of someone who thinks liberals and conservatives are both full of it would look like.

[_EAllusion]

The anterior cingulate cortex is known as the empathy center of the brain. The idea that any area of the brain is the seat of a complicated function is an oversimplication, but nonetheless it's understood that that particular area is heavily involved in empathetic emotional processing. That this doesn't even get a whiff of mention in the article to me suggests some hack science reporting.

[_Buffalo]

The anterior cingulate cortex is known as the empathy center of the brain. The idea that any area of the brain is the seat of a complicated function is an oversimplication, but nonetheless it's understood that that particular area is heavily involved in empathetic emotional processing. That this doesn't even get a whiff of mention in the article to me suggests some hack science reporting.

The fact that they didn't describe all of the various functions of that region means they're hacks?

[_EAllusion]

The fact that they didn't describe all of the various functions of that region means they're hacks?

No, that they picked out some functions that by implication play up a positive stereotype of liberals and a negative one of conservatives while failing to mention more complicating, but relevant functions suggests they're hacks. The article leads someone without a grasp of neuroscience to think that there is a critical role between appreciating complication and being liberal when you could just as easily talk about feeling empathy for others.

The amygdala also is important in judging threats and activating appropriate critical responses. That exists in tandem with its roles in fear. It doesn't get mentioned, because that might suggest a different sort of stereotype.

[_MadMonk]

These things always turn out to be much less clear-cut than the press initially reports. That's so the science editor can do a column a couple of months later, in which he or she will either (a) debunk the claim completely and start promoting the next fad, or (b) actually do the clarifying that could have been done at the time of the original article. Either way, a simple and easy column to write, so you can do it ahead of time and and then use it some week or month when you want to goof off.

MadMonk

[_bcspace]

I've never met or heard of a liberal who could understand the complex interplay of history and economics. Conservatives seem to understand these things intuitively.

[_aussieguy55]

"Those with conservative views were more likely to have a larger amygdala, a region important for recognizing threats and processing fear."

Maybe this is why they are always getting involved in wars

[_bcspace]

"Those with conservative views were more likely to have a larger amygdala, a region important for recognizing threats and processing fear."

Maybe this is why they are always getting involved in wars

LBJ was a conservative? But if this hypothesis were true, then conservatives have truly recognized liberals for what they are; a threat to the world and it's peace.