This may be nothing new to political consultants, but neuroscientists seem to be catching up with the notion that the partisan loyalties of hearts and minds are at least in part dictated by how big, and how active, certain structures of the brain are.
The latest study to support this was published online by the journal Current Biology on April 7, and based on brain imaging of 90 student volunteers (55 of them women) at University College London.
After establishing their political orientation -- very liberal to very conservative on a four-point scale -- through a standard survey of each student, the researchers zeroed in on images of several brain regions thought to guide political leaning.
Lead author Ryota Kanai said the study built on an earlier study by colleagues at UCL who did imaging studies on two members of Parliament and a small number of students, and found differences in the size of two key areas.
In both cases, the researchers found that those holding conservative views tend to have larger amygdale, the almond-shaped organ in the center of the brain that's linked to fear, anxiety and emotion; and a smaller-than-average anterior cingulate, a region of the brain linked to sorting through conflicting information and maintaining a more optimistic outlook. The opposite was true for subjects identified as liberal.
Many psychological reports published over the years have also shown conservatives to be more sensitive to threats in the face of uncertainty, while liberals tend to be more open to new experiences.
Kanai said that while the studies "link such personality traits with specific brain structure,'' they don't take into account other factors or prove that individuals are born with certain brain regions larger or smaller, or that the size adjusts going into adulthood based on life experiences.
"It's very unlikely that actual political orientation is directly encoded into these brain regions, '' Kanai said.
Researchers at Emory University saw things a bit differently as they imaged the brains of avowed hard-core Republicans and Democrats -- 30 each -- during the 2004 presidential campaign. Participants were imaged as they assessed statements in which both candidates had clearly contradicted themselves.
The results, presented at a 2006 conference, showed that the one brain area most associated with reasoning remained stagnant during this process. What they did see light up -- in both groups -- was that anterior cingulate region involved in conflict resolution, but also the orbital frontal cortex, involved in processing emotions, and the posterior cingulate, which is involved in making moral judgments.
Lead author Drew Western figures all those parts of the brain work together to resolve the contradictory comments from the candidate they already favor, while remaining critical of the other guy. And once they had reached conclusions that suited their beliefs, another region of the brain tied to reward and pleasure lit up.
Western, who has written extensively about how our minds sort through facts to reach a desired conclusion, noted that the process is hardly unique to politics, but goes on in many areas of our lives.
Another Emory study, put online April 6 by the Public Library of Science, deals with how we show empathy to those in and out of our social group. Except this time, the model was not conservatives or liberals, but chimpanzees, which were sharing yawns rather than political statements, however related they may be.
Scientists already knew that, along with humans, chimps are the species most likely to pass the inclination to yawn from one to another.
But psychologists at Emory found that, among chimps, yawns are not universal signs of fatigue or boredom, but rather an expression of social connectedness and empathy within a group.
Their study involved 23 adult chimps housed in two separate groups at Emory's Yerkes Primate Research Center. The researchers showed nine-second video clips of other chimps, from both groups, either yawning or doing something else.
Chimps were 50 percent more likely to break into a yawn after watching another member of their clan yawn than when they watched a member of the other group.
The researchers say it's not clear that chimp and human behavior with yawns would be equally exclusive, since chimps naturally live in small social groups, while most humans interact and have varying relationships with far more people.
Other experiments, such as those dealing with seeing someone feeling pain, show humans have more empathy toward members of the same social group than strangers.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 4:49 pm on Wed, Apr 13, 2011.
"Chimps were 50% more likely to break into a yawn after watching another member of their clan yawn than watching a member of the other group"
THOSE POOR RESEARCHERS DIDN'T HAVE TO STUDY A BUNCH OF SMELLY CHIMPS TO COME TO THAT CONCLUSION.
THE RESEARCHERS COULD HAVE HAD NICE COMFY SEATS IN THE ARIZONA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND JUST OBSERVED THE.......DEMOCRATS.
IF THEIR "CLAN (HOUSE MINORITY)" ... LEADER VOTES NO ON A BILL OR RESOLUTION = THEY ALL VOTE NO....LIKE THEIR ..."NO".....VOTE... TO GIVE THE ARIZONA VOTER THE ABILITY TO VOTE FOR A CHANGE IN THE ARIZONA CONSTITUTION TO ........STOP CROOKS FROM SUEING THEIR VICTIMS....(DEMOCRATS FEEL THAT ...."CROOKS HAVE RIGHTS TOO").
SO ALL YOU ....IVORY TOWER TYPES FROM HARVARD AND YALE (WE'RE NOT PREJUDICED = UC BEZERK-LY AND UC LA-LA LAND PROFESSORS INCLUDED...LOL)...COME ON DOWN TO PHOENIX, ARIZONA....GREAT WEATHER (IT'S DRY HEAT)...GREAT RESORTS...GREAT FOOD (TRY THE MENUDO....YOU'LL LOVE IT).
EVEN TUCSON DEMOCRAT CONGRESSMAN RAUL "BOYCOTT ARIZONA" GRIJALVA...........LOVES A NICE BIG BOWL OF MENUDO CON PATITAS ON A SUNDAY MORNING AFTER MASS.......Y COMO NO ???
P.S......TAKE A BIG BAG OF THOSE LEGAL-SIZED SHEETS OF CHICHARONES BACK HOME TO YOUR "IVY LEAGUE" COLLEAGUES TO MUNCH ON WITH THEIR SHERRIES IN THE AFTERNOON...YOU CAN TELL THEM A "LITTLE WHITE LIE"...THAT THE CHICHARONES ARE ...."FRIED TOFU FROM ARIZONA".
TruthSeeker posted at 4:59 pm on Wed, Apr 13, 2011.
Too bad we can't elect chimps to Congress.
JimboMR posted at 7:42 pm on Wed, Apr 13, 2011.
This is a pathetically flawed study. 90 volunteers. (90, yes, only 90). No mention is made of the makeup of the volunteers. Possibly all of the liberals were college professors with high IQ's, and possibly all of the conservatives were pub dullards with moronic IQ.s. I say pub because it was an English study. We simply do not know. And 90 people does not constitute a legitimate study. It seems very likely considerating the source of the study that it was highly biased. And yet all of the liberals seize upon it as scientific evidence of their superiority. Let the same kind of study be made by a conservative group and you would get the opposite result. Let it be carried out by an independent group and you would still get a totally different result than this one. This is a self-serving liberal attack deliberately designed to get the pre-planned result. Have fun with it, all of you IQ-challenged liberals. All you can understand is total belief in whatever you read in the liberal media, which translates to about 95% of all media. "Journalists" now graduate from liberal schools with liberal professors and aside from being among the less intelligent students to begin with, they all graduate with 100% hatred of anyone with any opinion different from their brainwashed version of what is real.
So nice of you liberals to allow me to post this rebuttal. Usually you people prefer to censor any opinion that does not agree with yours.
azloki posted at 7:44 pm on Wed, Apr 13, 2011.
I take offense to that, my moms in congress...
rouse2 posted at 8:33 am on Thu, Apr 14, 2011.
they had to actually go to europe for their junk science. too junkie for ucla berkley?
manini posted at 2:29 pm on Thu, Apr 14, 2011.
Great study!!! I always thought Chimp's, apes & Gorillas were smarter than Dummycrats & Repulsivcans when it came to elections in the U.S....Look at what the fools elected to replace a mentally-challenged, blithering idiot-in-chief GOP Prez Jorge "Boracho" Bushwhacker, another idiot_in_chief" Dummycrat named Barack OBAMANATION, who:
1) Can't even produce his U.S. hospital birth certificate;
2) Bungled the Economic Recovery of his predecessor's 21st Century Great Global Economic DEPRESSION;
3) Bungled persecution of the WALL ST. BANKSTER$ who started this 21st Century Great Global Ecoomic DEPRESSION;
4) Bungled closing Gitmo & ending CIA/U.S. Military "waterboard" torturing of Muslim POWs;
5) Is an card-carrying, avowed MUSLIM who has yet to persecute 9/11 NYC WTC + Pentagon mastermind Sheik Khalid, Fort Hood Muslim terrorist U.S. Army Major Hassan, etc.
6) FAILED to end the Iraq War with U.S. Troops still being KIAed there;
7) Bungled the Afghanistan War with more U.S. Troops being needlessly KIAed there;
8) Usurping U.S. Constitution War Powers Act terms & conditions by involving us in illegal warfare in Pakistan & now Libya;
9) Lied about "Read my lips campaign promises of NO NEW TAXES" in his grotesque multi-TRILLION$ deficit U.S. Budget;
10) Bungled the BP Deep Horizon Oil Leaking for 6 months+ in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010;
11) Bungled the Japan Fukushima Nuclear Plant multi-reactor meltdown resulting in radioactive Uranium-234, IODINE-131, Cesium-134 & Cesium-137 contaminating WA, CALI, AZ, HI, & over 23 other cities in the U.S. with lethal radioactivity via radioactive airborne FALLOUT per U.S. Federal EPA radiation test results released on 4/6/2011;
12) Failed to protect our families & children from radioactive contamination of our milk, beef, drinking water & FOOD SUPPLY per U.S. Federal EPA radiation test results released on 4/6/2011.
13) Failed to protect our families & children from long-term/short-term thyroid cancers from radioactive IODINE-131 isotopes from Japan radioactive FALLOUT, now discovered even in France cows' milk & drinking water.
OBAMANATION is a total disaster_area FAILURE & should be impeached for gross incompetence, dereliction of duty & stupidity!!!!
Bitter Cling posted at 6:00 pm on Thu, Apr 14, 2011.
This doesn't seem to square with the fact that artists and musicians tend to liberal political philosophies. It's also a very small sample. Seems more likely that this is yet another politically motivated junk science "study." I'd be surprised if they even bothered to set up proper blinds.