yet another brain scan study re politics

[_beastie]

Brain scans can predict your political ideology

http://www.livescience.com/27213-brain- ... party.html

Whether you pulled the lever for Barack Obama or Mitt Romney may reflect how your brain copes with risk, new research finds.

The study, which examined the brain activity of 35 men and 47 women registered as either Democrat or Republican, found no difference in the amount of risk people of each political persuasion were willing to take on during a gambling game. But the way the brain processed risk worked differently between the groups, with Republicans showing more activity in an area linked with reward, fear and risky decisions and Democrats showing more activity in a spot related to processing emotion and internal body cues.

The findings hint at basic differences between people with different values, said study researcher Darren Schreiber of the University of Exeter.

"The ability to accurately predict party politics using only brain activity while gambling suggests that investigating basic neural differences between voters may provide us with more powerful insights than the traditional tools of political science," Schreiber said in a statement.

The politics of risk

Recent investigations into the psychology of liberals and conservatives have found a number of subtle differences, from conservatives exhibiting more squeamishness to liberals paying less attention to negative stimuli or threats.

A 2011 study published in the journal Current Biology found differences in some brain structures between politically liberal and political conservative young adults. Many of these areas were linked to risk-assessment and decision-making, prompting Schreiber and his colleagues to wonder if they could find differences in how these areas function during risky tasks.

The researchers had previously conducted a study in which people underwent brain scans while playing a gambling game. In each round, the participants saw three numbers, 20, 40 and 80, flash on a screen. If they hit a button while 20 was up, they were guaranteed 20 cents. If they waited for the 40 or 80, they might get a payout of either 40 or 80 cents — but they might also lose that amount of money. Thus, they were choosing between a safe bet and two higher-paying but riskier options.

Using voting records, the researchers found out political party affiliation for 35 of the men and 47 of the women in that study. Political parties aren't a perfect match with ideology, but they come very close, the researchers wrote Feb. 13 in the journal PLOS ONE. Most Democrats hold liberal values, while most Republicans hold conservative values.

Political brains

Comparing the Democrat and Republican participants turned up differences in two brain regions: the right amygdala and the left posterior insula. Republicans showed more activity than Democrats in the right amygdala when making a risky decision. This brain region is important for processing fear, risk and reward.

Meanwhile, Democrats showed more activity in the left posterior insula, a portion of the brain responsible for processing emotions, particularly visceral emotional cues from the body. The particular region of the insula that showed the heightened activity has also been linked with "theory of mind," or the ability to understand what others might be thinking.

While their brain activity differed, the two groups' behaviors were identical, the study found.

Schreiber and his colleagues can't say whether the functional brain differences nudge people toward a particular ideology or not. The brain changes based on how it is used, so it is possible that acting in a partisan way prompts the differences.

The functional differences did mesh well with political beliefs, however. The researchers were able to predict a person's political party by looking at their brain function 82.9 percent of the time. In comparison, knowing the structure of these regions predicts party correctly 71 percent of the time, and knowing someone's parents' political affiliation can tell you theirs 69.5 percent of the time, the researchers wrote.

When trying to discuss politics with conservative republicans, in particular those of the tea party bent, I often feel as if we see the world in fundamentally different ways, speak a different language, and process information completely differently. This is yet one more study that seems to lead to the conclusion that our brains are truly wired differently.

[_Quasimodo]

When trying to discuss politics with conservative republicans, in particular those of the tea party bent, I often feel as if we see the world in fundamentally different ways, speak a different language, and process information completely differently. This is yet one more study that seems to lead to the conclusion that our brains are truly wired differently.

I've always thought that there were two main groups of people with opposed political views. Accountants and artists. I think we all may fall under one or the other of these categories.

It should be easy to guess which is conservative and which is liberal.

But, then there is this:

[_beastie]

When trying to discuss politics with conservative republicans, in particular those of the tea party bent, I often feel as if we see the world in fundamentally different ways, speak a different language, and process information completely differently. This is yet one more study that seems to lead to the conclusion that our brains are truly wired differently.

I've always thought that there were two main groups of people with opposed political views. Accountants and artists. I think we all may fall under one or the other of these categories.

It should be easy to guess which is conservative and which is liberal.

But, then there is this:

I'm going to have to report you for revealing real life information about droopy.

[_Quasimodo]

I'm going to have to report you for revealing real life information about droopy.

Dho!

[_moksha]

Just as long as no actual CAT scans of Droopy's vivisected brain are used, then such a study is fine by me.

[_beastie]

Just as long as no actual CAT scans of Droopy's vivisected brain are used, then such a study is fine by me.

Yeah, we have to keep it G rated.

[_MeDotOrg]

When trying to discuss politics with conservative republicans, in particular those of the tea party bent, I often feel as if we see the world in fundamentally different ways, speak a different language, and process information completely differently. This is yet one more study that seems to lead to the conclusion that our brains are truly wired differently.

I don't doubt that different cognitive styles are more or less receptive to different stimuli, but politics in this country is a dysfunctional mess. If the political differences that divide this country could be bisected by a modern Mason-Dixon line, militias and and grandstanding governors would not be the only ones talking about secession. Fortunately or unfortunately, our differences are not neatly delineated by geography.

Compromise is hard, especially when one side thinks the other side's solutions are a disaster. But compromise is necessary and inevitable in a democracy of 300 million people.

My fear is that Democrats and Republicans are beginning to think that it is more important for the other side to lose than it is for the Country to win. Every unsolved crisis is a potential election issue. To a lot of politicians, that's more important than solving the problem.

Which ideology is wrong? If they are predicated on placing party interests before the country, than they both are. We have to do a better job of listening to one another.

[_beastie]

I don't doubt that different cognitive styles are more or less receptive to different stimuli, but politics in this country is a dysfunctional mess. If the political differences that divide this country could be bisected by a modern Mason-Dixon line, militias and and grandstanding governors would not be the only ones talking about secession. Fortunately or unfortunately, our differences are not neatly delineated by geography.

Compromise is hard, especially when one side thinks the other side's solutions are a disaster. But compromise is necessary and inevitable in a democracy of 300 million people.

My fear is that Democrats and Republicans are beginning to think that it is more important for the other side to lose than it is for the Country to win. Every unsolved crisis is a potential election issue. To a lot of politicians, that's more important than solving the problem.

Which ideology is wrong? If they are predicated on placing party interests before the country, than they both are. We have to do a better job of listening to one another.

I think many in the country on both sides of the aisle want compromise. The problem is that there exists a tea-party faction in the Republican party that despises compromise and is holding their leaders hostage.

I have no idea what Obama can do to resolve that problem. Those tea-partiers are made up of people like ajax, who thinks the president is "undocumented" and going to send our social security "south of the border". You can't compromise with the devil, which is what they believe Obama to be.

[_Droopy]

The study, which examined the brain activity of 35 men and 47 women registered as either Democrat or Republican, found no difference in the amount of risk people of each political persuasion were willing to take on during a gambling game. But the way the brain processed risk worked differently between the groups, with Republicans showing more activity in an area linked with reward, fear and risky decisions and Democrats showing more activity in a spot related to processing emotion and internal body cues.

Meanwhile, Democrats showed more activity in the left posterior insula, a portion of the brain responsible for processing emotions, particularly visceral emotional cues from the body.

More politically interested junk science attempting to reduce political and moral philosophy to biology and predicate the manner in which humans wrestle with many of the core, ethical, economic, social, and fundamental moral questions of civilization upon brain physiology and neurochemistry.

Positivist reductionism of this kind attributed to mind, psychological dynamics, personality structure, and complex systems of personal philosophy and belief are yet just another way to explain away everything from politics, to philosophy, to religion and clear the ground for the full reign of nihilism, in which the structure and function of our brains determines our belief systems and those with the better brains and brain biochemistry (leftists, i.e., Alphas), will rule and control those with brains functioning at a lower level (conservatives/libertarians, i.e., Gammas at most, but mostly Deltas and Epsilons).

Never mind that this study contradicts a large body of statistical evidence that clearly shows liberals are nowhere near conservatives, on average, in generosity, liberality, quality of personal relationships, or any other fundamental measures of human happiness - including their inner morality structure relative to personal human relations.

How very Wellsian this all is. Its no wonder at all that leftists like Beastie were so enamored of intellectual fads like eugenics and other scientistic theories of the nature of the human condition in the thirties, and the repeated overpopulation and environmental hysterias that have arisen again and again over several generations.

Its also easier, seeing this, why the unshakable romantic infatuation with socialism/communism etc. Man is just an organic machine who ultimately can be studied, understood, and brought under rational control by the same methods used in the natural sciences to understand, control, predict, and harness nature.

On and on they continue looking for the basis for technologies of control that are hoped will finally put an end to politics, in the normative sense. Finally, the Left will rule as a matter of biological, genetic birthright, and conservatives/non-leftists will serve, in various capacities, as suits their lower cognitive and neurophysiological capacities and attributes. Political ideology is determined by biology, and hence, unless we wish to simply take control of biology and genetics directly, we must learn to "track" each human into the social, intellectual, and practical milieu to which he/she is best fitted.

Leftists, being innately smarter, more moral, more nurturing, more emotionally open, and more empathic and caring (and hence, leftists) will, of course, have to rule.

Of course...

[_beastie]

More politically interested junk science attempting to reduce political and moral philosophy to biology and predicate the manner in which humans wrestle with many of the core, ethical, economic, social, and fundamental moral questions of civilization upon brain physiology and neurochemistry.

Positivist reductionism of this kind attributed to mind, psychological dynamics, personality structure, and complex systems of personal philosophy and belief are yet just another way to explain away everything from politics, to philosophy, to religion and clear the ground for the full reign of nihilism, in which the structure and function of our brains determines our belief systems and those with the better brains and brain biochemistry (leftists, i.e., Alphas), will rule and control those with brains functioning at a lower level (conservatives/libertarians, i.e., Gammas at most, but mostly Deltas and Epsilons).

Never mind that this study contradicts a large body of statistical evidence that clearly shows liberals are nowhere near conservatives, on average, in generosity, liberality, quality of personal relationships, or any other fundamental measures of human happiness - including their inner morality structure relative to personal human relations.

How very Wellsian this all is. Its no wonder at all that leftists like Beastie were so enamored of intellectual fads like eugenics and other scientistic theories of the nature of the human condition in the thirties, and the repeated overpopulation and environmental hysterias that have arisen again and again over several generations.

Its also easier, seeing this, why the unshakable romantic infatuation with socialism/communism etc. Man is just an organic machine who ultimately can be studied, understood, and brought under rational control by the same methods used in the natural sciences to understand, control, predict, and harness nature.

On and on they continue looking for the basis for technologies of control that are hoped will finally put an end to politics, in the normative sense. Finally, the Left will rule as a matter of biological, genetic birthright, and conservatives/non-leftists will serve, in various capacities, as suits their lower cognitive and neurophysiological capacities and attributes. Political ideology is determined by biology, and hence, unless we wish to simply take control of biology and genetics directly, we must learn to "track" each human into the social, intellectual, and practical milieu to which he/she is best fitted.

Leftists, being innately smarter, more moral, more nurturing, more emotionally open, and more empathic and caring (and hence, leftists) will, of course, have to rule.

Of course...

Droopy disparages this as "junk science" while touting his own statistics.

Droopy disdains the left of attempting to demonstrate that they're smarter, more moral, etc, while trumpeting the exact same claims for the right.

I would think conservatives would embrace the results of this study, since they've always disparaged liberals as bleeding hearts, anyway. Turns out we are.