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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.'"

19 of 1,248 comments (clear)

  1. liberals by smittyoneeach · · Score: 1, Troll

    liberals 'could be expected to more readily accept new ... religious ideas.'
    I'll admit publicly that, while quite ecumenical and tolerant towards others, I don't really think there have been any new religious ideas of significant value in, say, 2,000-ish years.
    On the contrary, when you look at that New Testament in depth, most of the ideas put forth were not terribly new, but were actually pointers to older ideas.

    One highly subjective, criminally over-simplified take on the whole liberal/conservative question is: it boils down to one of modeling society. If you want "one big family" then you lean to the left, and want more socialized policies. If you question whether people scale well and want more individual responsibility and less safety net, then you might prefer conservative policies.
    I'm looking forward to further research that correlates liberal/conservative preference with population density. It seems that the more urbanized people are, the greater the comfort level with shifting responsibility/authority to the government.
    Good news, bad news: who can say?
    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  2. Is "liberal" an evolutionary survival trait? by karl.auerbach · · Score: 0, Troll

    (Please take the text below as a non-serious, jest.)

    If "liberal" brains are more capable of dealing with changing circumstances, would that not be a trait that increases the change of survival and thus be an trait that is selected-in over time?

    In other words, is the conservative brain a recessive trait that, if natural selection were occuring in humans, eventually fade away?

    (Remember, I'm saying this in jest.)

  3. Re:Could age be a factor? by Colin+Smith · · Score: 0, Troll

    actually, according to tfa liberals are better thinkers. Sounds like the article is saying that liberals are more gullible. AKA credulous.

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    Deleted
  4. well when the head of a nation... by wwmedia · · Score: 0, Troll
  5. Re:Another worthless story by a_n_d_e_r_s · · Score: 0, Troll

    Read the article:

    "Brain Differences In Liberals and Conservatives
    Posted by kdawson on 07-09-11 11:25
    from the thinking-differently dept."

    Yep that moderator kdawson who has infested slashdot with a lot of crackpot stories lately.

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    Just saying it like it are.
  6. No good by unity100 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Republicans still say "you are wrong" and cut it. They really plainly say only this - without any arguments : "you are wrong".

    logic and perception doesnt help you there.

  7. Re:Could age be a factor? by Gorshkov · · Score: 0, Troll

    according to the article liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts. so liberals can learn from previous experiences but instead of brainlessly repeating the same routine over and over they compare their experiences with the present reality.
    Dealing with conflict != learning from experience. But this ignores the fact that what I was trying to do was show that given such a simple experiment, there are many different ways to interpret the data - or more correctly, the interpret the slant given it in TFA. But I guess you missed that point. Being a conservative, I guess it's just not possible for me to have an open mind and not jump to conclusions.

    conservatives though cannot learn from previous experience - they choose to ignore the facts.
    Based on the close-mindedness of your statement, I would guess that according to the criteria in the article, you would be a conservative.
  8. Re:Just In! by John+Straffin · · Score: 1, Troll

    From http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html

    American Revolution
    - In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known as "de Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the Second Rule of French Warfare; "France only wins when America does most of the fighting."

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    My contempt for the behavior and beliefs of the two major political parties cannot be adequately expressed in 120 chara
  9. Reversed for me by ylikone · · Score: 0, Troll

    When I was young, I had no heart and I supported right-wing ideas. Today, older and wiser, I have also developed more of a heart and I mostly support left-wing ideas. Whoever made that statement about old person being a liberal having no brains is obviously wrong.

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    Meh.
  10. Re:Could age be a factor? by dunkelfalke · · Score: 0, Troll

    yeah and the tram also goes in a more structured manner.
    i am 27. old enough to value experience, still young enough to learn new things. cannot write the latter about you, though.
    one cannot teach an old dog new tricks, eh?

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  11. Re:Could age be a factor? by kurt555gs · · Score: 0, Troll

    Interesting, I have always said that it is easy to be a republican, all it requires is a small mind and a small heart.

    Cheers

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    * Carthago Delenda Est *
  12. Do you really think he'll understand that? by benhocking · · Score: 0, Troll

    He'll probably just think you can't spell "sweeten" and wonder what you're talking about.

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    Ben Hocking
    Need a professional organizer?
  13. Re:MARK ARTICLE AS FLAMEBAIT by PureCreditor · · Score: 0, Troll

    maybe you should go talk to General Betray Us and see how astute he is

  14. Re:Just In! by jcr · · Score: 0, Troll

    Mass murder is funny to you? Why does that not surprise me?

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  15. Can we question their patriotism now? by jmorris42 · · Score: 0, Troll

    > maybe you should go talk to General Betray Us and see how astute he is

    You know, I'm actually happy as hell Move On bought that ad. Because if that wasn't 'questioning his patriotism' then I really don't know what it would take to qualify. So now that Move On has officially (buying a full page in the NYT is about as overt an act as one can imagine) declared their belief that questioning the patriotism of a highly decorated general who, to date, was 100% free of taint to his professional reputation is now fair play. I certainly can't see how they can object when we now take the obvious next step.

    I now put on the table for discussion THEIR patriotism. This ragtag band of misfits, losers and socially dysfunctional turds, living in their mothers basements, blogging in their underwear that calls itself the netroots (nutroots) has more in common with UBL (did you actually READ that idiot kostard's rant?) than anything American. If you f*cking Noam Chompsky reading, Hugo Chavez lovin' socialist morons hate America so much, why don't you migrate? We are trying to build a wall on our Southern border to keep people OUT, but we certainly wouldn't try to keep yer sorry butts IN.

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    Democrat delenda est
  16. The Cranial Capacity of Negroes by Shannon+Love · · Score: 0, Troll

    In the late 1800's and early 1900's, the free-market economies of the West showed an alarming tendency to reward people based on their individual merit and notbased on who gave birth to them. People from the lower classes and non-European races kept bubbling up the economic and social ladder in historically unprecedented numbers. Something had to be done. Fortunately, people claiming to be scientist rode to the rescue. They claimed to demonstrate that certain groups of people inherently lacked the mental faculties to function as free citizens. As such, restrictions on their political and economic freedoms were perfectly justified. Today, we see that the free-market of ideas has not rewarded a certain segment of the political spectrum in the manner it once did. The masses no longer kowtow to a intellectual elite as they did in the mid-20th century. Something had to be done. Now we see a large number of supposed scientist. linguist, political scientist and journalist producing works that explain that that modern Leftist fail in the political marketplace not because their archaic ideas no longer work but rather because the rest of the population is so stupid and easily led. The point of these works isn't to understand how people think but rather to reinforce the belief in intellectual superiority on which modern Leftism rest. I predict they will end up on the ash heap of embarrassments to science just as the works of the previous century's bigots did.

  17. Re:Could age be a factor? by pebs · · Score: 0, Troll

    IMNSHO, you don't truly understand the value of experience until you have teenage children.

    Only morons have children.

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  18. Re:Not very liberal minded of you by heelrod · · Score: 0, Troll

    where the fuck does he comeup with this crap!?

    Fuck KDawson and fuck slashdot!

  19. Re:Not very liberal minded of you by KudyardRipling · · Score: 0, Troll

    If it has not been said, let me be the first to say it. The level of brain activity is directly proportional to one's agreement on certain public policy issues:

    The elite ask one heartlander "What is two plus two?" He answers with "Two plus two equals four." They respond with "So? Honesty requires no brain activity." Another such individual is asked and he replies with "Two plus two equals four and nothing else." Within two clock cycles of their liberally hard-wired brains they shout "You are a sexist, racist, homophobic bigot! We smell Zyklon-B! We smell Zyklon-B!" and other such intellectualy gifted responses. A third replies with "Two plus two equals anything you like." They return with "He is showing some heightened brain activity." The fourth such person responds with "Two plus two equals anything but four." Their delighted response is "Now THAT'S getting the grey matter in the pink, yeah! You're one of US! WooHoo! Let him into our thinker's circle. Attaboy! Now THAT'S brain activity!" as they high-five the contestant.

    Let's replay this with some twists:

    One may respond with "Two plus two equals four, and nothing else, and I am black." They respond with "Uncle Tom, Oreo, Bought-n-Sold, etc. You're not one of us!" Another may respond with "Two plus two equals four and nothing else, and I am Asian." They respond with "Model Stereotype, engineering material, let's move on..." Now this is the one that causes the elites to 'smoke their windings' so to speak. This one answers "Two plus two equals four and nothing else and I am a Jew." The elites whisper amongst themselves, saying "We know that such a statement is inherently bigoted. However if we call him on that, he'll brand us as antisemites! He's trying to put us in an irresolvable situation! What can we do?!"

    Their final response is: "We decline to comment."

    Remember class, Morality surpresses brain activity.

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    Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.