Brain structure may determine political attitudes

[Impenitent]

A new study suggests that determining political views appears to revolve around fear and how it affects a person.

I find that interesting, because fear in general does impact on willingness to take risk and be open to the unknown.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/odd/a/-/odd/91 ... ervatives/

In case the link vanishes, the story is copied below:

Brains differ in liberals, conservatives
AAP April 8, 2011, 7:06 am

Everyone knows that liberals and conservatives butt heads when it comes to world views, but scientists have now shown that their brains are actually built differently.

Liberals have more grey matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear, said the study on Thursday in Current Biology.

"We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased grey matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala," the study said.

Other research has shown greater brain activity in those areas, according to which political views a person holds, but this is the first study to show a physical difference in size in the same regions.

"Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's political orientation," said Ryota Kanai of the University College London, where the research took place.

"Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure."

The study was based on 90 "healthy young adults" who reported their political views on a scale of one to five from very liberal to very conservative, then agreed to have their brains scanned.

People with a large amygdala are "more sensitive to disgust" and tend to "respond to threatening situations with more aggression than do liberals and are more sensitive to threatening facial expressions", the study said.

Liberals are linked to larger anterior cingulate cortexes, a region that "monitor(s) uncertainty and conflicts", it said.

"Thus, it is conceivable that individuals with a larger ACC have a higher capacity to tolerate uncertainty and conflicts, allowing them to accept more liberal views."

It remains unclear whether the structural differences cause the divergence in political views, or are the effect of them.

But the central issue in determining political views appears to revolve around fear and how it affects a person.

"Our findings are consistent with the proposal that political orientation is associated with psychological processes for managing fear and uncertainty," the study said.

[vison]

Uh huh.

[Impenitent]

I don't think the study is referring to political ideology; more to whether an individual veers to open-mindedness within their ideological bent.

[Hachimitsu]

I had read this a while ago. Even then, I wasn't too sure about this whole thing.

[Dave_LF]

Using the American definitions of the terms, liberalism definitely correlates with a willingness/ability to behave in evolutionarily novel ways, while conservatism correlates with the opposite. I wonder if this study boils down to another way of saying the same thing.

[eborr]

Hmn I was sorely tempted to make a joke about this but have refrained,

[Aravar]

As a British conservative, I much prefer evolutionary to revolutionary change. I don't oppose change: but nor do I think novel = good.

[axordil]

From an evolutionary standpoint, politics as we know it makes sense. You want to be able to adapt to change, but you also want to keep using what you've built so far. There's a useful bit of dynamic tension there, to borrow from Charles Atlas

[Impenitent]

I just found the difference in brain development fascinating, is all.

[anthriel]

A sample size of 90 is inconsequential. No good scientist would make such sweeping conclusions from such a small, homogenous (all young people? Why?) sample size. I would like to read the original article, and to see where it was published, but none of that info is available in this article, which is suspicious in itself.

As vison said:

[River]

I'm caught between snarky comments and Anthy's critique. I did spend about a minute on PubMed looking for something that resembled that article's source material and came up dry. It might be I'm not using the right search terms. It might also be that the journal in question isn't on PubMed. In any event, I'll try again later.

[yovargas]

"A new study suggests that brain structure may determine, um, well, pretty much everything about humans, really."

[nerdanel]

It would also be useful to know how "liberal" and "conservative" were defined. If they were asking about people who were "liberal" vs. "conservative" on national security and terrorism, that is an entirely different proposition than "liberal" vs. "conservative" on (say) social safety nets and government spending.

For instance, I am socially liberal, have fairly conservative views on criminal law, and am moderate on national security issues. Am I likely to be better at understanding complexity or processing fear?

[River]

Given that the sample size was 90, I think your best bet for finding out is to stick your head in a fMRI.

[anthriel]

Given that the sample size was 90, the best bet for finding out is flipping a coin.


(Sorry, that was a bit snarky....)

[Primula Baggins]

Sometimes snarky = true.

[vison]

It very much strikes me as "research" in reverse.

[nerdanel]

Although the "study" is probably not the greatest contribution to human wisdom ever made, it does raise a worthy question: what is the relationship between liberalism and fear, or conservatism and fear? Is one philosophy linked more to "fear" than another? How might we conceptualize this?

For instance, as to national security, let's assume that many liberals favor a broader concept of civil liberties, less profiling, and fewer universally-applicable measures that might increase security at the expense of privacy (e.g., national ID cards with biometric information, more invasive airport security, etc.) Is there a nexus between these views and fear - for instance, fear of expansive state power leading to a long-term change in what we view as the hallmarks of a free and democratic society? On the other hand, let's imagine that people who view themselves as conservative on national security are more willing to give up some privacy in exchange for the perception or reality of greater security, and believe it is legitimate to apply greater restrictions/screening/etc to groups whom they view as more likely to be associated with terrorism or organized crime? Is there a nexus between their views and fear - fear of violence that might lead to mass loss of life and threaten at least one hallmark of a free society - the ability to live without fear of deadly violence? To the extent that either group's views are connected to fear, does that make them more or less legitimate, or is it a neutral factor?

[vison]

There might be. But in a society where, over the last decade, there has been a concerted effort to make EVERYONE afraid, I don't think you'd be able to prove much in the US. Definitions of conservative and liberal are flexible, too, depending on where you live.

Maybe it's as simple as being a glass half-full person or not. But I guess we've all known people who seemed to be afraid of anything new and/or different - how much of that is cultural and how much inborn?

[anthriel]

It seems like this particular study would tend to equate being liberal with being open minded, whilst the conservatives would be painted as fearful. Again, it is not a particularly scientific study, and seems like one of those very tiresome "scientific" studies that is then used to argue that the people you don't agree with are flawed.

Social science has never been my thing, mostly because there are so many uncontrollable variables and it is so difficult to describe a concrete factor. There are no concrete factors with people, I think. As nel points out, conservative and liberal "views" are pretty fluid in any single person.

Interesting discussion about fear and ideology. I guess it just depends on what frightens you more...