The physiology of personal politics - September 22, 2008
Posted on behalf of Amber Dance [with apologies for the lateness of posting– Ed.]
If you are easily startled by disturbing images or sudden noises, you might be a conservative. If you don’t react strongly to such stimuli, you might be a liberal.
So says a paper published in Science. John Hibbing of the University of Nebraska and colleagues tested 46 Nebraskans with strong political beliefs on their fear response.
The researchers selected participants that had strong political leanings, in either direction, based on a survey. They considered issues such as gun control, the death penalty and immigration, but not economic matters. The authors classified their subjects in terms of how much they wanted to “protect the existing social structure” – generally something conservatives strive for, while liberals are more amenable to change.
In one experiment, participants viewed a series of images, three of which were threatening: a giant spider on a person’s face, a person with a bloody face, and a maggot-filled wound. The scientists measured the skin conductance, a fear indicator, when subjects viewed the nasty pictures, and found it went up in the conservatives.
Then, the subjects endured loud, random bursts of noise while the researchers measured how hard they blinked, another fear marker. Again, the conservatives reacted more strongly.
“We were probably as startled as the people who saw the picture of the spider to find that this works, and it is quite accurate,” says study author John Alford of Rice University (ABC News).
Hibbing cautions, however, that there are other factors involved in determining a person’s political outlook. “We are not saying if you sneak up on someone and say ‘Boo!’ and see how hard they blink, that tells you what their political beliefs are,” he told the Washington Post.
Instead, the authors hope the study gives people a little insight into how the other side thinks. When one’s political foes make what seem like absurd statements or foolish decisions, maybe they’re not actually stupid or crazy. Maybe they just see the world differently. And, says James Fowler, a UC San Diego political scientist who was not involved in the research, society needs both: liberals to push the envelope, and conservatives to minimize risk-taking (Los Angeles Times).
Comments
"society needs both: liberals to push the envelope, and conservatives to minimize risk-taking"
How does this jibe with the notion prevalent in the US now that the conservatives are the proponents of deregulation of business and the liberals are more favorable toward government regulation? The risk-taking approach seems to be to let things run themselves, while the risk-averse approach would favor more regulation.
Posted by: paul eitner | September 23, 2008 03:18 PM