Democrats, Politics, Republicans
A new study in the journal Nature Neuroscience not only suggests that the brains of liberals and conservatives are wired differently — as many have long suspected — but also that liberals’ brains are more adept at processing new ideas:
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.
The results show “there are two cognitive styles — a liberal style and a conservative style,” said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected to the latest research.
The study asked subjects to rate their political leanings on continuum of 5 (conservative) to -5 (liberal). The experiment required the subjects to
make quick decisions:
Out of the 500 trials that each subject completed, he or she was presented with the same letter 80 percent of the time. This meant that the participants felt compelled to press the same button repeatedly.
“You keep seeing the same stimulus over and over, so when the opposite stimulus comes on it’s always a surprise,” says [David Amodio, the study's lead author].
When the less common letter did appear on the screen, the people who identified themselves as more conservative (rating themselves somewhere between 1 and 5 on the initial questionnaire) pressed the “usual” button 47 percent of the time instead of switching to the correct button.
By comparison, the “liberals” who placed themselves between -5 and -1 on the questionnaire responded more readily to the new signal and achieved the slightly lower error rate of 37 percent.
Brain recordings taken using electroencephalogram (EEG) technology showed that liberals had twice as much activity in a deep region called the anterior cingulate cortex. This area of the brain is thought to act as a mental brake by helping the mind recognize “no-go” situations where it must refrain from the usual course of action.
Liberals were much better at dealing with and resolving conflicts in the experiment:
Analyzing the data, [Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC Berkeley's Institute of Personality and Social Research who was not connected to the study] 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.
The study suggests that liberals are more open to new social, scientific and religious ideas, Sulloway said. He pointed to the historical record, saying, “There is ample data from the history of science showing that social and political liberals indeed do tend to support major revolutions in science.”
Speaking up for conservative brains, study author Amodio said it would be a mistake to conclude that liberal brains are better than conservatives’. He suggested that the tendency of conservatives to block distracting information could be a good thing, depending on the situation.
Really? That is an interesting assertion because it is impossible to imagine a situation in which ignoring pertinent information could produce a useful analysis.
The study seems to verify another assumption many on the left have made about conservatives: They are easily fooled.
Topics: Democrats, Politics, Republicans
Neuroscience Study: Smart Brains Have Liberal Bias…
According to a new study in neuroscience, liberal brains are 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. Resear…
Liberals and Conservatives Process Information Differently…
According to this article, liberal brains and conservative brains are neurologically different from each other….
[...] Looks like us. See: Pensito Review »Smart Brains Have Liberal Bias. [...]
“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”
Use the words in their normal sense, stripped of political left/right associations and this is plainly a tautology, and therefore pointless.
Use the words in their purely left/right political meaning, and it’s plainly not true, and therefore worthless. Here in the UK this week is the Trade Union Congress annual conference. Brighton is packed to the gunwhales with left-wing conservatives who think it’s still 1977, possibly the most inflexible political beings on the planet.
Seems a bit too obvious to me. We may find this research means less than the authors of the study found. As for the author of this article, distracting information being ignored is great in a crisis situation, but distracting and pertinent information are two different things.
First, “SUGGESTS” is the crux of this article, but assuming someone were to say this was hard fact, I would argue two things:
1. For this article to be true, there would have to be two large control groups with many perfect (or near-perfect) examples of “conservative biased” and “liberal biased” people. Then and ONLY then could scientific conclusions be drawn, and HOW and WHERE are you going to find these perfect (or near-perfect) examples, and WHO would be dubbed capable (and non-biased) of finding them?
2. The answer to the above in my opinion is that this cannot be achieved for obvious reasons, the most obvious being that you can’t argue politics or religion. They are EMOTIONAL issues, and therefore by their very nature, logic and reasoning are thrown out the window. I’m a “liberal”, but this article just seems to be saying “See, we are more intelligent than THEM.” Sorry, just not enough data to PROVE anything. Again, “SUGGESTS” is at the heart of this study.
How, then, do you suggest that the differences within the study arose? Is it a coincidence that the two groups tested so differently?
“Conservatives tend to say that liberals spend too much time thinking and not enough time acting,” comments Matt Newman at Arizona State University in Phoenix, Arizona, US. But “it would be a leap if researchers claim that there is an underlying biological difference that leads you to a particular political orientation.”
He adds, however, that the new finding that conservatives stick with habit is still interesting given that previous studies have found they are more likely to resist change than their liberal counterparts (Psychological Bulletin, DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.339).
Journal reference: Nature Neuroscience (DOI: 10.1038/nn1979)
This doesn’t seem odd in the least and I think it shows different levels of advancement. It is doubtful that a species could really survive if it lacked the ability to adapt and change its behavior when faced with obstacles. This may open all new discussions of things like religion and politics which at the current time seem overly populated with followers instead of thinkers.
Doesn’t this study just mean self-described liberals are better video game players?
Wouldn’t by definition this be obvious? conservatives are more traditional, sticking to the same old plan, and liberals are more open to new ideas and change. As far as social adaptability this seems like a social evolutionary kind of contrast between two groups of people, you got the people willing to experiment and find new ideas, and you got the traditionalist people who stick to the beaten path, between the two of them you get the new ideas, with out descending into chaos as they fly off on a whim, with every new idea, because the group of traditional beaten path people have to be moved away from that path, sort of a check and balance on society, just my opinion on it.
I’d like to know if they picked up any libertarians for this study. I think it’s obvious that nearly all of the high-level geniuses of the world were/are very much against the idea of coercion when applied to human relationships. Civilized people operate voluntarily, not coercively.
Well for starters, the “left-right” view of political opinions is TOTAL BULLSHIT!
I could never rate myself on such a scale, I’m Anarcho-Capitalist and hence socially AND economically liberal!
And by LIBERAL I mean the original sense of “against government intervention”, not in the sense of “socialist”, as currently used in the US.
How can a test claim to be “scientific” if it’s first measurement is simply meaningless? If it can’t even capture what it claims to capture?
It’s a big load of manure.
The incredible bias of the author stinks to heaven when he claims that socialists are “more open” or “ready to deal with change”.
Having debated socialists (or in US parlance “liberals”) for 20 years, I’ve found that they are the most BRAINWASHED people imaginable.
Left-wing people are 100% predictable. I’ve NEVER been surprised by any of them with an new or surprising argument. They’re just serving you the same old shit every time. Hell I can write a left-wing argument better than they ever could. I know their entire litany by heart.
Left-wingers are the most conservative people of all. You want to scare them, just make up some imaginary threat to the “environment” and they’ll get in marching order get in a frenzy over it.
I just loved the “Bullshit” CBS series where they ask environmental activists to sign a petition against water – they had no clue what they were signing, but they signed anyway because it sounded scary.
THAT is the “liberal” mind-set. They have a totally rigid concept of the world and try to fit everything into it, starting with their idea about those who do NOT agree with them – they must by necessity be “conservative” and somewhat retarded.
Well, here’s my take: anyone who thinks that a monopoly of power (i.e. government) can “solve” any problem is a complete retard who hasn’t even bothered to check out recent history!
Thank you, Pro Libertate, for confirming the results of the study.
hmm, this doesn’t seem quite right to me. first of all, i’d have to agree with nate that there is a pretty unanimous libertarian sentiment among the most intelligent of people (libertarians, by the way, are conservative to the point of extremism – i.e., a high degree of personal responsibility and true laissez-faire government).
second, assuming that the “conservatives” in this study are actually neo-cons, there’s not that much difference between “conservatives” and “liberals.” i mean, sure, they tend to disagree on hot-topic issues, however in reality their policies are quite similar; by world standards, liberals are actually slightly to the right of center, and conservatives slightly to the right of liberals (just fyi, true socialists and communists are on the far left, and libertarians are far to the right). basically what i’m saying, though, is that for all the bickering, “liberals” and “conservatives” actually agree on most policies (at least that’s what recent history has shown).
finally, i don’t think it’s reasonable to take this article as legitimate: it provides no link or reference to the actual study, which is rather questionable in my opinion; from the names of the links in the “recent articles” section i think it’s pretty safe to assume that this is a liberal-biased news site; and from the presentation of the opposing view (presented weakly, then blasted immediately anyways), it is painfully obvious that the author is liberal-biased as well.
The problem with so called “anarcho” capitalism is that, when corps get enough power and government loses enough power, the corps BECOME the government.
Then you still have a repressive government, just by another name.
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One problem that has come up in this discussion (and others about the study) is the fact that people outside the US use the terms “conservative” and “liberal” in ways that do not correspond to US usage. It is important to remember that the study subjects were self-identifying in terms of the US usage.
Maybe this simply “suggests” that intelligent conservatives don’t waste their time on questionable button-pressing exercises put on by scientific groups – and I use the term loosely here.
The Pensito Review should concern itself with reporting an entire story, and not simply throwing the results of a study up in the air sans context. Not even a link; for shame, Review. You should know better.
After all, liberals have better brains, right? lol
Ryan – Thanks for thinking we should know better. This story is a recap. It draws on full stories published by New Scientist and the Los Angeles Times, which can find by clicking the links embedded in the text.
The brains of a liberal is that WALNUT SIZED or PEA SIZED?
Must look ENORMOUS to you.
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