Things That Make You Go HMMM!

It appears according to the article in the LATimes that Left-Wing and Right-Wing brains operate differently. Well, I have to say that I am not exactly shocked, but I would think that it is quite possible that it may be a little more complicated than that. Sure we know that the accepted definitions of liberal and conservative would lead to that conclusion, but I am not sure it is necessarily so.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary a Liberal is defined as “Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.” A Conservative is defined by American Heritage as “Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.”

The article in the LA Times reports:

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

In a simple experiment reported today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

The results show "there are two cognitive styles -- a liberal style and a conservative style," said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected to the latest research.

Participants were college students whose politics ranged from "very liberal" to "very conservative." They were instructed to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W.

M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter.

Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M.

Researchers got the same results when they repeated the experiment in reverse, asking another set of participants to tap when a W appeared.

Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC Berkeley's Institute of Personality and Social Research who was not connected to the study, said the results "provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity."

Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.

Sulloway said 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, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a "flip-flopper" for changing his mind about the conflict.

Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

"There is ample data from the history of science showing that social and political liberals indeed do tend to support major revolutions in science," said Sulloway, who has written about the history of science and has studied behavioral differences between conservatives and liberals.

Lead author David Amodio, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University, cautioned that the study looked at a narrow range of human behavior and that it would be a mistake to conclude that one political orientation was better. The tendency of conservatives to block distracting information could be a good thing depending on the situation, he said.

Political orientation, he noted, occurs along a spectrum, and positions on specific issues, such as taxes, are influenced by many factors, including education and wealth. Some liberals oppose higher taxes and some conservatives favor abortion rights.

Still, he acknowledged that a meeting of the minds between conservatives and liberals looked difficult given the study results.

"Does this mean liberals and conservatives are never going to agree?" Amodio asked. "Maybe it suggests one reason why they tend not to get along."

From my own experience I have to say that I really don’t understand the right-wing “conservative” mindset. And yet, I consider myself quite liberal and a libertarian and quite conservative all at the same time. The liberal and libertarian thing kind of go together on the liberalism scale. I frankly do not care who you have sex with and though I have very ridged feelings about abortion, I personally believe that you are the only one who should make that decision.

I am however very conservative in that I am not one for change. I like my status quo, not the world’s status quo, but my status quo. I need to be shown a really good reason to change something. But once shown a well thought out cost-benefit analysis, etc., I am willing to try change and then I often whole heartedly adopt it. But I am not one of those who embrace change for change’s sake. I am not on board for the latest technology for instance. I like to wait it out and see the technology prove it self before the latest update and patch.

I do like tradition. Khaki’s are my favorite pants, and pearls my favorite jewelry, need I say more.

But this study does give some credence to what I have always thought about the left and right political discourse.

It also explains why I didn’t understand the accusations of being a “Communist” during the Sixties. I had always thought that we lived in the United States of America and couldn’t understand why being an ardent supporter of Civil Rights and the U.S. Constitution was an act of “Treason.”

I guess it was the “Change and Status Quo” thing!