Brain Differences In Liberals and Conservatives

i_like_spam writes "Scientists from NYU and UCLA report in Nature Neuroscience that the brains of Democrats and Republicans process information differently. This new study finds that the differences are apparent even when the brain processes common information, not just political topics. From the study, liberals were more likely to be accurate and showed more brain activity in the region associated with analyzing conflicts. A researcher not affiliated with the study stated, liberals 'could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.' Moreover, '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... as a flip-flopper.'"

This is very good news

[Hal_Porter (817932)]

I'm a liberal and I've always had great difficulty convincing Republicans that I'm right and they are wrong. Thankfully this study tells me that it is because I am smart and they are stupid. Since I am white and male, I look forward to further studies proving women and other races are also inferior to me to explain why they are similarly disobedient. Soon, I hope we shall return to the happy days of the 19th Century where science explained why some people the rulers and others are the ruled. Perhaps we could have a rule where Republican votes count for 3/5ths of Democrat votes, like we did with Negros before the Republicans stirred things up. Or perhaps they could be barred from voting completely, like we used to do for women.

I also hope that when the country has universal health care it will be be possible to abort fetuses with these cognitive disabilities, just like we do for babies with other developmental defects.

No, just kidding. This looks like awful science, just like the 19th Century studies that confirmed the experimenter's prejudices that black people and women were inferior.

Re:This is very good news

[MikeFM (12491)]

Something that bugs me is the number of people, liberal and conservative alike, that really believe that just having wealth proves you're more intelligent than the average person and deserve to be in a position of leadership. They don't take into account that some people are born more privledged than others and therefore have an easier path to wealth, that some people have fewer morals to get in their way, or that some people are just lucky. A lot of people really do believe we should be ruled by our corporate overlords even though they think it'd be horrible to be under the thumb of a monarch. To me, that seems to be one of the issues of mass hysteria that is common in todays society. Someday will people be looking at us as if we were idiots in the way we look back at people that let themselves be ruled by monachs and tyrants?

Re:This is very good news

[darkmeridian (119044)]

Dude. The country twice elected Bill Clinton right before they elected King George. Clinton was a poor kid from the South whose real dad died, and whose step-dad was a mean, drunk SOB who beat his mom up all the time. Life gave him no handouts, and he had to earn everything he ever had. From this background, he became an Oxford scholar. He went to law school and was voted governor of Arkansas. On the national TV circuit, his obvious intelligence and warmth made him the closest thing a President got to being a rock star since Kennedy.

I have faith in my country that it will find its way again. We are not always prone to electing the rich and powerful only because they are rich and powerful. We rejected Perot, and we'll reject the next guy who wants to be President because his Daddy was President.

Re:This is very good news

[Attila Dimedici (1036002)]

"Awful science"? How so? Care to point out the flaws in the study?

Hmmmmmm?

I will point out the flaw, "conservative" and "liberal" are subjective labels. How do you objectively decide that someone is conservative or liberal? Do you go by their self identification? If so, how do you select your candidates? Are the subjects of your study representative of all people who self identify that way? I can go on. There are so many variables about people that trying to determine differences in cognitive ability based on political leanings is junk.

Hmm...

[poor_boi (548340)]

1) Liberals are more likely to smoke pot

2) Pot smokers are more likely to sit around the house

3) People who sit around the house are more likely to play video games

4) People who play video games are more likely to have better hand-eye coordination

5) ???

6) Profit!

It's maths.

[Colin Smith (2679)]

The only reason you have a black and white Liberal - Conservative divide in the US is the mathematics of how your electoral system works. Other countries with sane electoral systems actually have shades of grey.

 

Re:It's maths.

[Stonent1 (594886)]

When you have 2 ruling political parties, it is easy to make things black or white. When you have about 5 or so like many European countries, you have to include intermediate shades of color. That's also probably why there are no run-off federal elections for President.

Re:It's math or mathematics

[psmears (629712)]

Only non-native English speakers says "maths". It's "math", or if you must "mathematics" Carry on.

Wrong. Native English [wikipedia.org] speakers say "maths". Where are you from?

Experimental design

[tucuxi (1146347)]

The linked site is scarce on details - the paper itself is more interesting. First, David Amodio (lead researcher) is not obviously flaming. I'm no expert in neuroscience -- but the data looks good, and he has a track record on usage of scans for similar tasks (most of it race-bias related, but that's another subject).

Here's an interesting part of the experimental design:

To test the hypothesis that political liberalism (versus conservatism) would be associated with greater conict-related ACC activity, we recorded electroencephalographs from 43 right-handed subjects (63% female) as they performed the Go/No-Go task. Subjects reported their political attitudes condentially on a -5 (extremely liberal) to +5 (extremely conservative) scale. This single-item measure has been found to account for approximately 85% of the statistical variance in presidential voting intentions in American National Election studies between 1972 and 2004 (ref. 8). Among participants in the present study who reported voting in the 2004 presidential election, a more liberal (versus conservative) ideological orientation strongly predicted voting for John Kerry versus George Bush (r(21)= 0.79, P o 0.001).

I think that there are two ways in which the experiment may be flawed. One is that 43 persons are not enough to extrapolate to the whole US population; and more importantly, no details are given on how they were chosen. If they were chosen among colleagues in an academic setting, where most people (your mileage may vary) are left-wing, you may have problems finding people which self-describe as conservative. These few would be most resistant to changing their viewpoints, I would guess -- since otherwise they may have flipped from exposure to liberal arguments.

Another way in which I think the study may be flawed is by asking people to self-define their position in the political spectrum -- a one-dimensional political spectrum. What guarantees do you have that participants really are "conservative" or "liberal" (whatever that means to you), and have actually thought about the political issues involved in each "choice" (as if there weren't many, many greys)?. A 2-dimensional political positioning would provide more insight. A short questionnaire where participants actually had to think, instead of "choosing their favorite color" would have been even better.

This is assuming that the researcher knows what he's doing, and the

conflict-related ACC activity was indexed by two ERP components. ERPs are scalp-recorded voltage changes reflecting the concerted firing of neurons in response to a psychological event.

is actually a good measure of resistance to change or willingness to accomodate it. No details are provided on the exact activity, other than stating that parcicipants were offered the choice of two actions, "Go" and "No-Go".

You can find the full article at the author's lab website [nyu.edu].

With a headline like this...

[Gazzonyx (982402)]

I didn't read the article. I have a long day ahead of me and I don't want to read much about politics. That being said, I'm wondering how they qualified liberal vs. conservative? Especially when you consider that on the world wide spectrum, going from pure communism to pure fascism, even the conservatives in the US are fairly liberal. Our subset of the entire spectrum isn't a very long vector.

Also, are we talking about ideals, financial, or strictly both to qualify conservative or liberal? My ideals are conservative, but I'm financially liberal; were these things weighted? I'd say my socio-economical class doesn't much lean either way (white male, middle-middle class, 23), so is the question just which side I relate to more?

FWIW, I don't think binary labels are a good tool for representing an analog chunk of an analog spectrum without assigning weights to aspects that are of a social nature. Does anyone else feel that this entire study ended up with a group of people standing around grinning at their excessive cleverness at the end of the day, while no actual scientific work was accomplished?

Is accepting every new random idea a good thing?

[jofny (540291)]

Most people here assume just accepting new ideas at face value (which is all the study suggested) is a good thing. The article did not in any way indicate that it tested what the evaluative processes that liberals vs conservatives go through before they integrate new ideas into their view of the world. That's a critical thing to know. Frankly, I want people in charge and those voting to have some initial skepticism and to analyze new ideas before they accept them. Just because you hear it or have an initial thought doesn't make it true or valid.

On another note, the article indicated that they chose "very liberal" or "very conservative". It's entirely plausible that the extremes are there for biological reasons and those who dont "identify" with their political orientation choose that orientation for different reasons (former biological, latter rational thought)

Study proves Liberal more responsive to "W" Bush

[PortHaven (242123)]

Come on, they used a "W". To any conservative a "W" is just a letter. To any Liberal, a "W" means "George W. Bush" to which they have an adrenaline rushed response to any mention or sight.

In fact, the study almost proves this fact. For both conservatives and liberals their reactions to the letter "M" were nearly identical. Liberals only excelled in targeting the letter "W".

We pretty much already know that Liberals are very good at targeting George "W".

Bah!

***

This is some of the worst science. Thankfully, it's anti-conservative therefore Slashdot will readily post it in it's slide away from a "science" log to a "politics" log.

Short-term quirk

[seebs (15766)]

In the short term, in America, "right-wing" and "conservative" overlap.

In general, conservatism is an attempt to preserve existing state, liberalism an attempt to change it, or at least an openness to change. That people who are open to change are open to change is not a surprising result.

Re:Could age be a factor?

[dunkelfalke (91624)]

actually, according to tfa liberals are better thinkers.
imho old persons become conservative just because of decline of cognitive functions due to old age.

Re:Could age be a factor?

[ErroneousBee (611028)]

actually, according to tfa liberals are better thinkers.
imho old persons become conservative just because of decline of cognitive functions due to old age.

No, according to TFA, liberals are faster and more reliable at differentiating between the letter M and the letter W in a timed experiment.

I think we may safely extrapolate, and say that we expect this to be true for all differentiation between objects,
I.e. liberals could tell the difference between:

• a man, a woman, and cop when propositioning someone in the toilets.
• a deer and the vice-president when out shooting.
• a WMD and a big fat nothing.
• having sexual relations, and just mislaying a cigar.

As for going so far as to say conservatives are slow and stupid. Well, there are many chains to be yanked, but saying that would would be neither fair, nor scientific.

Re:Could age be a factor?

[Colin Smith (2679)]

I think we may safely extrapolate ...

Ah... One of the clarion calls of great science.

 

Re:Could age be a factor?

[ErroneousBee (611028)]

Well spotted.

The paper is still in the preview part of natures website, so I couldn't get to the full text.

David M. Amodio has done similar trials, where responses are timed (otherwise, the subject could just take their time and get a 100% hitrate). Heres an example where latencies are measured. I have assumed a very similar method was used in both experiments.
http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/1/1/26 [oxfordjournals.org]

Re:Could age be a factor?

[Gorshkov (932507)]

actually, according to tfa liberals are better thinkers.

actually, the tfa says nothing like that. It says liberals tolerate ambiguity better, and conservatives think in a more structured manner. Which is better (if at all) would depend on the situation.

imho old persons become conservative just because of decline of cognitive functions due to old age.

imho you're not old enough to have the experience required to know just how valuable experience can be.

Re:Could age be a factor?

[Opportunist (166417)]

Everyone is always old enough in his own mind. When I was 15, I was definitly old enough and had enough experience. Or so I thought. I turned 21 and saw what a moron I was at 15. But at 21, I was set, ready and had all the wisdom necessary.

I turned 25, and could only shake my head at the fool I was at 21. But no more, I swore!

Now I'm past 30 and, seriously, that idiot I was at 25... let's not talk about him. But finally, I managed to be the pinnacle of wisdom and intelligence, now if my boss (who's gonna go for 50 in a few weeks) would only admit that I am...

Re:Could age be a factor?

[greenguy (162630)]

I'm disappointed that no one has quoted David Hume yet:

"Not all conservatives are stupid, but it is true that most stupid people are conservative."

Re:Could age be a factor?

[hey! (33014)]

Actually, the inevitability of becoming more conservative as we age is overstated, at least from my observations.

However -- there is something of a tendency this way, which is readily explained by something market researchers have known for years: the concerns of young people and old people are different.

When you are young, you don't have much: not much stuff, not much property, not much power. But you have potential. Therefore you favor things that take wealth out of the hands of The Man in order to maximize human potential.

When you are my age, you have lots more stuff, lots more power, but less margin of error. The twenty year old who loses everything has his entire work career to earn it back. The fifty year old can look forward to a miserable retirement. Therefore you are less interested in exploiting the possibilities of a brave new world, and more interested in holding onto what you already have.

I would say that the most intellectually committed individuals on the right and left tend to shift less often than the people whose ideology is a shallow "stick it to the man" thing. The latter people's opinions really just reflect their selfish immediate interests throughout their lives.

Re:Could age be a factor?

[node 3 (115640)]

Conservatives [made more mistakes] when they saw a W, researchers said.

Ain't that the truth.

Re:Could age be a factor?

[Colin Smith (2679)]

this means that liberals actually think about what they do and are more accurate because of it.

No. It means they're better at button pushing.

and this means that conservatives have difficulties to gasp changes and understand new ideas (nothing new here).

No, it means that they find button pushing more interesting and worthwhile of effort.
 

Re:Could age be a factor?

[thegnu (557446)]

and this means that conservatives have difficulties to gasp changes and understand new ideas (nothing new here).

No, it means that they find button pushing more interesting and worthwhile of effort.

In this vein of reasoning (thanks for digging the groove for me to glide along so easily), it means conservatives read about something (study, presidency, war), and think, "man, I'd be good at that!" then get there, and they get explained what they have to do, and about 3 minutes into it, they start doing a poor job, even though they committed to it and they're getting paid. They think things like, "boy, this is hard work!" and "you can't be expected to be accurate all the time."

For example. Think before you troll. I'm not even really into the liberal/conservative social split we have going in our culture. But as another posted pointed out, Conservatives seem to be pretty good at reconciling being a gay-bashing homosexual. Yes, there are things that are detestable about liberals, but we've got the neo-cons, the page-fucker, the anonymous gay sex guy, and my republican acquaintances are completely steadfast in their support of 'their' people, even when they can provide zero reason.

A great rationalization I've heard goes something like this:
Guy 1: Do you agree with Bush's policies?
Republican voter: I agree with his morals
Guy 1: Yes, but what about his policies?
Republican voter: I believe he's a very moral man.

I shit you not, a real conversation I've overheard. This goes far from condemning all republicans, but I've heard things in exactly the same spirit that are exactly as shocking from lots and lots of people.

Again, think before you troll, please. You upset me. :)

Re:Could age be a factor?

[nomadic (141991)]

For example. Think before you troll.

He can't, he's a conservative.

Re:Could age be a factor?

[condour75 (452029)]

Yes, clearly if conservatives are failing in our cognitive experiments, it's a result of a cultural bias in the test. It's hardly surprising, after decades of prejudice against conservatives in the sciences, that the tests are designed to protect the current cultural hegemony. Rather than subjecting conservatives to standardized cognitive experimentation, therefore, we should be using holistic methods in the laboratory, and perhaps speaking to them in their own rich linguistic heritage, which I call "elephonics".

Re:Could age be a factor?

[jcr (53032)]

Or it supports my theory that people get more selfish as they get older.

You're kidding, right? Ever heard the piercing shriek of a four year-old yelling "mine!"?

-jcr

Re:Just In!

[JordanL (886154)]

This isn't as bad as the UC Berkley study which basically tried to 'scientifically prove' that Conservatives were mentally impaired... using taxpayer dollars.

I also wonder just what they mean by "Conservative". Ron Paul is the candidate that has made the most sense to me so far, and most consider him FAR right... course most of those people don't know the different between conservative and libertarian, but still.

Re:Just In!

[August_zero (654282)]

"What about people like me that are a little of each and some of neither?"

Simple, you don't exist, now get out of here and stop invalidating the data!

Do you know what a liberal is?

[Lethyos (408045)]

You may want to do some reading before using the term. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism [wikipedia.org].

Re:Just In!

[bhima (46039)]

Please don't start with the socialist thing. Americans do not know what "socialism" is and they've co-opted the word to use as an insult. Much like "Liberal" and "Conservative" are no longer definitions of political ideology but epithets. In this black and white world of false political dichotomy there is no room for moderates and there is no understanding of any political ideology outside of those espoused by the two faces of the single American political party (Republicans & Democrats).

In much the same way that religious voters will tolerate massive corruption and sexual perversion from politicians who claim deep religious convictions (of the White Anglo Saxon Protestant variety only please) . American's will tolerate outright evilness on the part of the avowed anti-communist & anti-socialist capitalist businessmen and lobbyists.

Re:Just In!

[pzs (857406)]

I guess it goes without saying that democratic politics seems to be something less than the shining beacon of leadership it's meant to be, at the moment. The "left" and the "right" seem to rarely argue from their traditional perspectives anymore (left: more tax, more public services, more rights for gay people and women; right: less tax, more freedom for corporations, "family values") and instead just stick to the party drift. Right: pro-war; left: anti-war.

In the UK, we even have the leader of the right wing Conservative party (David Cameron) saying he will match Labour's spending commitments. There is now nothing to choose between them in terms of policy. The only difference is whichever set of politicians you think is the least idiotic and selfish.

In the US, I guess it's whether you're more sickened by the corruption and incompetence of the Republicans or the cowardice and lack of direction of the Democrats.

Peter

Re:I see...

[Rakarra (112805)]

You can have a strong dislike for Israel without being a "jew-hater." Do NOT confuse anti-semitism with dislike for a country's policies or divisiveness.

Re:Just In!

[pedestrian crossing (802349)]

Finish fixing what problem, exactly?

The problem of the security vacuum that was created when Hussein was brought down. After we brought down the old order, we failed to step up and maintain order, so now we have the unenviable task of trying to establish order where none exists.

Our leaders were blinded by their own optimism, now many of our finest are paying the ultimate price for that failure.

Re:Just In!

[Xiaran (836924)]

I may be conservative, but I'm neither arrogant nor close-minded enough to believe that somebody is stupid, callous, or a coward just because they don't agree with me.

I have no doubt that you as a person are not. However as a non American I must ask what did you think of the treatment of the French. Who disagreed with US policy and have the American media and public ridicule them as a country of cowards and idiots. Even tho I dont like the French(Ive had to work with them :) ) I found this behavior fairly appalling.

Re:Just In!

[bhima (46039)]

Hating the French and Mexicans is high fashion among the Dixie Republicans and Midwesterners, I doubt they even know why. However they lack the ability to successfully identify the objects of their derision. On a recent trip to Atlanta, GA I was confronted by a few women bemoaning the fact that my family were a bunch of wetbacks here on the dole, and couldn't even be bothered to learn the language. This was wrong on a number of different levels: I am an American Citizen, as is my Daughter. My Girlfriend is Cambodian. We are all legal residents of Austria. My girlfriend had a tourist visa (as we were on holiday). We were speaking German between ourselves and I was trying my best to translate. Despite having lived in Atlanta for a number of years in the past, I was absolutely amazed to be subjected to this sort of hate.

Re:Why?!

[bhima (46039)]

I have lived my entire life as an immigrant, a family of defectors running from the Czech communists.

My whole life I've had jingoist assholes hate me because I was not born where they were born. I've had redneck racist assholes stutter with confusion when they discover that just because I am white doesn't mean I am 'from around here' and share their racism.

I've spent my whole life trying to learn languages of where I am living and I've got to tell you languages aren't my thing I'm no good at any of the ones I speak. I've then had racists hate me because I spoke English with accent different from their accent... and they can barely speak ONE language.

Both my girlfriend and my daughter have had racists hassle them based on skin colour and accent in the US and not in Europe.

You have a whole branch of your family gone? That doesn't does make you special, that makes you average... well over half of members of my family who were living in the 30's were killed either during WWII or shortly after and you don't hear me using as an excuse to hate.

You say "the gov't wants me to let go of my culture and my country to a bunch of pricks that can't even follow the simplest of laws to get into the country!" This is the height of racist BS. No immigrant wants you let go your 'culture' (such that it is) they want to rid you of your hate. The US government does not want people to abandon culture or country affiliation, they have simply forbad you commit crimes motivated by the hate you have. People like you make me glad I took my family and my money to Europe.

Re:Just In!

[Fred_A (10934)]

How so? Same chromosomes.

Has this been experimentally demonstrated ? Can the two sides actually cross-breed ? Is the offspring sterile ? Can it vote ?

MARK ARTICLE AS FLAMEBAIT

[by Anonymous Coward]

This story was obviously submitted so that you would see something like an "501 of 896" posting count. It is 100% pure flamebait or perhaps on a higher level a poorly written satire.

I am not in the middle of this Liberal/Conservative "war," and I can tell you honestly that liberals can be very stupid, and conservatives can be very astute.

Exactly

[by Anonymous Coward]

And check this out...

Participants were college students whose politics ranged from "very liberal" to "very conservative."

Sorry, but polling COLLEGE STUDENTS does NOT reflect the general populous. Is this stat a little rigged? Very rigged? Think for a minute here--aren't college students naturally more open to doing things? I have seen an awful lot of college students go from "mad liberal" to moderate in a matter of a few years as I am in a "spectatorial" position where we hire guys fresh out of school and watch how they change throughout their careers.

--parasonic

Re:Exactly

[raduf (307723)]

90% of psychological research is done with college students. The side effects of this practice are well known to any researcher worthy of the name, and probably considered when drawing conclusions. I haven't RTFA yet, but if you dismiss it on this motive alone, you'd have to dismiss half of modern psychology with it.

Re:MARK ARTICLE AS FLAMEBAIT

[ajs (35943)]

This story was obviously submitted so that you would see something like an "501 of 896" posting count. It is 100% pure flamebait or perhaps on a higher level a poorly written satire.

I am not in the middle of this Liberal/Conservative "war," and I can tell you honestly that liberals can be very stupid, and conservatives can be very astute.

I think that's the wrong way to draw conclusions from this study (the implied conclusions to which you're posing your counter-argument).

I think the correct conclusion would be that a strikingly even line is drawn through our population. One half freely (to an extent) accepts new information when it's presented. The other half is resistant to new information, and favors information that is older and more established.

I'd suggest that this is an evolutionary imperative. You need the free-thinkers who are going to provide your edge against the environment and potential rival species / groups. You also need the stability of consistent choices when change turns out to be temporary. For example, if a new source of food appears which has more nutritional benefit, you want to be able to adapt to that, but you want to also resist constantly selecting new foods, as this retards the development of specialized farming / gathering capabilities.

The use of the word "accurate" in the summary is highly questionable, however. I'll have to read the full article when I have time to understand what they mean by that.

Not very liberal minded of you

[OrangeTide (124937)]

You assume one way is better than another. How un-liberal of you.

Re:Not very liberal minded of you

[Gordonjcp (186804)]

What is bad, is sticking to them without even considering other arguments. So is being a total flip-flopper: if you can't see which option is better, you should better refrain from choosing one altogether.

Exactly. However, a lot of the ranting about Kerry "flip-flopping" seems to be trying to suggest that sticking to an idea, no matter how cretinously stupid and harmful, is the most important thing and changing your mind in the face of a changing situation is bad and wrong.

Re:Not very liberal minded of you

[daeg (828071)]

That's precisely what drove me crazy about the whole Kerry thing. Granted, Kerry wasn't the best candidate. By far. But being able to reason out various thoughts and change your decisions if the situation merits it is a sign of intelligence. Repeating the same thing over and over is something I'd expect a kid with autism to do, not a President or any other politician.

If a stove burns you every time you touch the hot burner, do you stop touching it and get called a flip-flopper, or learn from the mistake and stop touching it?

Re:Not very liberal minded of you

[Aczlan (636310)]

If a stove burns you every time you touch the hot burner, do you stop touching it and get called a flip-flopper, or learn from the mistake and stop touching it?

I might do some research before touching the stove in the first place thus be able to stick to my guns on an issue and not flip-flop... over and over and over.
See here for some examples [slate.com]
Aaron Z

Re:Not very liberal minded of you

[MindStalker (22827)]

Part of it is learning from mistakes, another part of it is blowing with the political win. In our Representative Democracy we expect our leaders to form knowledgeable opinions and stick to them even if its an unpopular opinion. Simply having an opinion because it is popular leads to mob rule and is ultimately destructive.

Re:Not very liberal minded of you

[Oktober Sunset (838224)]

and the conservatives stick to the one they chose first, even if it turns out to be the wrong one.

Liberals are a bunch of wusses?

[Nursie (632944)]

Liberals aren't the folks who got so wound up in paranoia and fear that they cheered on the POTUS to invade a country that had fark all to do with any attacks on the US. Liberals aren't the ones constantly bleating about terrorists and alert levels and all the other nonsense.

But yeah, it's liberals that are the wussy scaredy cats....

Right.

Re:liberals

[smidget2k4 (847334)]

You sir, have the strangest definition of religion I have ever seen.
Political models != religion.
Economic models != religion.

However, OS choice == religion.