Today's post, "
The Last Word On Conservative Brain Structure,"
isn't - and can't be, as new studies will be published showing that
Conservative brain structures are not conducive to sound thinking or
compassionate feelings. Though the
essay, "
Differences in Conservative and Liberal Brains,"
offers "16 peer-reviewed studies show liberals and conservatives
physiologically different," we will cherry-pick those that struck our
eye, even though we may have written about particular studies in the
past, and let you click
http://2012election.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004818 for
the rest:
"In the 16 peer-reviewed scientific studies summarized below,
researchers found that liberals and conservatives have different brain
structures, different physiological responses to stimuli, and activate
different neural mechanisms when confronted with similar situations.
Each entry below references the source document and a PDF of each study
has been included. The studies are arranged from most recent to oldest.
We included all the peer-reviewed studies on this subject which we could
find. If you know about others, please contact us with details.
1. Conservatives spend more time looking at unpleasant images, and liberals spend more time looking at pleasant images.
"We report evidence that individual-level variation in people's
physiological and attentional responses to aversive and appetitive
stimuli are correlated with broad political orientations. Specifically,
we find that greater orientation to aversive stimuli tends to be
associated with right-of-centre and greater orientation to appetitive
(pleasing) stimuli with left-of-centre political inclinations."
Michael D. Dodd, PhD, Amanda Balzer,
PhD, Carly Jacobs, MA, Michael Gruszczynski, MA, Kevin B. Smith, PhD,
and John R. Hibbing, PhD, "The Left Rolls with the Good; The Right Confronts the Bad. Physiology and Cognition in Politics," 
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Mar. 5, 2012
2. Reliance on quick, efficient, and "low effort" thought processes
yields conservative ideologies, while effortful and deliberate reasoning
yields liberal ideologies.
"...[P]olitical conservatism is promoted when people rely on low-effort
thinking. When effortful, deliberate responding is disrupted or
disengaged, thought processes become quick and efficient; these
conditions promote conservative ideology… low-effort thought might
promote political conservatism because its concepts are easier to
process, and processing fluency increases attitude endorsement.
Four
studies support our assertion that low-effort thinking promotes
political conservatism... Our findings suggest that conservative ways of
thinking are basic, normal, and perhaps natural."
Scott Eidelman, PhD, Christian S. Crandall, PhD, Jeffrey A. Goodman, PhD, and John C. Blanchar, "Low-Effort Thought Promotes Political Conservatism," 
Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 2012
3. Conservatives react more strongly than liberals to disgusting images, such as a picture of someone eating worms.
"People who believe they would be bothered by a range of hypothetical
disgusting situations display an increased likelihood of displaying
right-of-center rather than left-of-center political orientations… In
this article, we demonstrate that individuals with marked involuntary
physiological responses to disgusting images [measured by change in mean
skin conductance], such as of a man eating a large mouthful of writhing
worms, are more likely to self-identify as conservative and,
especially, to oppose gay marriage than are individuals with more muted
physiological responses to the same images."
Kevin B. Smith, PhD, Douglas Oxley, PhD, Matthew V. Hibbing, PhD, John R. Alford, PhD, and John R. Hibbing, PhD, "Disgust Sensitivity and the Neurophysiology of Left-Right Political Orientations," PLOS ONE, Oct. 19, 2011
4.
Liberals have more tolerance to uncertainty (bigger anterior cingulate
cortex), and conservatives have more sensitivity to fear (bigger right
amygdala).
"In a large sample of young adults, we related self-reported political
attitudes to gray matter volume using structural MRI [magnetic resonance
imaging]. We found that greater liberalism was associated with
increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas
greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right
amygdala...
"...[O]ur findings are consistent with the proposal that political
orientation is associated with psychological processes for managing fear
and uncertainty. The amygdala has many functions, including fear
processing. Individuals with a larger amygdala are more sensitive to
fear, which, taken together with our findings, might suggest the
testable hypothesis that individuals with larger amagdala are more
inclined to integrate conservative views into their belief systems...
our finding of an association between anterior cingulate cortex [ACC]
may be linked with tolerance to uncertainty. One of the functions of the
anterior cingulate cortex is to monitor uncertainty and conflicts. 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."
Ryota Kanai, PhD, Tom Feilden, Colin Firth, and Geraint Rees, PhD, "Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults," Current Biology, Apr. 7, 2011
8. Conservatives and liberals react similarly to positive incentives,
but conservatives have greater sensitivity to negative stimuli.
"Our findings suggest that conservatives are sensitive to avoidance
motivation [motivation through negative stimuli], which produces
'inhibition' responses manifested in greater rigidity... Based on the
studies' findings, we would not expect differences between liberals and
conservatives in responding to positive stimuli or incentives (i.e.,
approach cues), but we would expect greater inhibitory reactions by
conservatives in response to negative, avoidant cues. Self-regulation
appears to provide a useful perspective for understanding how one's
political views may affect categorization processes and, more broadly,
the association between political conservatism and rigidity."
Mindi S. Rock, PhD, and Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, PhD, "Where Do We Draw Our Lines? Politics, Rigidity, and the Role of Self-Regulation," Social Psychological and Personality Science, Jan. 2010
9. Conservatives have more activity in their dorsolateral prefrontal
cortices, the part of the brain that activates for complex social
evaluations.
"The conservatism dimension, which corresponds to the
liberal-to-conservative criterion, was associated with activity in the
right DLPFC [dorsolateral prefrontal cortex]...
"In this study,
we speculate that activity in the DLPFC may reflect a role of this
region in deliberative decision-making in complex social evaluations...
The observation that this region was increasingly activated by
conservative beliefs could be explained by claiming that conservative
statements require more complex social judgments marked by greater
cognitive dissonance between self-interest and sense of fairness...
"[W]e
showed that the representation of complex political beliefs relies on
three fundamental dimensions, each reflected in distinctive patterns of
neural activation: The degree of individualism of political beliefs was
linearly associated with activation in the medial PFC [prefrontal
cortex] and TPJ [temporoparietal junction], the degree of conservatism
with activation in the DLPFC, and the degree of radicalism with
activation in the ventral striatum and PC/P [posterior
cingulate/precuneus]. Our findings support the interpretation that the
political belief system depends on a set of social cognitive processes
including those that enable a person to judge themselves and other
people, make decisions in ambivalent social situations, and comprehend
motivational and emotional states."
Giovanna Zamboni, MD, Marta Gozzi,
PhD, Frank Krueger, PhD, Jean-René Duhamel, PhD, Angela Sirigu, PhD, and
Jordan Grafman, PhD, "Individualism, Conservatism, and Radicalism As Criteria for Processing Political Beliefs: A Parametric fMRI Study," Social Neuroscience, Sep. 2009
11. Genetics influence political attitudes during early adulthood and beyond.
"The present research attempts to characterize how the transmission of
political orientations develops over the life course... [G]enetic
influences on political attitudes are absent prior to young adulthood.
During childhood and adolescence, individual differences in political
attitudes are accounted for by a variety of environmental influences...
However, at the point of early adulthood (in the early 20s), for those
who left their parental home, there is evidence of a sizeable genetic
influence on political attitudes which remains stable throughout adult
life."
Peter K. Hatemi, PhD, Carolyn L. Funk,
PhD, Sarah E. Medland, PhD, Hermine M. Maes, PhD, Judy L. Silberg, PhD,
Nicholas G. Martin, PhD, and Lindon J. Eaves, PhD, DSc, "Genetic and Environmental Transmission of Political Attitudes Over a Life Time," The Journal of Politics, July 21, 2009
12. Compared to liberals, conservatives are less open to new
experiences and learn better from negative stimuli than positive
stimuli.
"In this study, the relations among political ideology, exploratory
behavior, and the formation of attitudes toward novel stimuli were
explored. Participants played a computer game that required learning
whether these stimuli produced positive or negative outcomes. Learning
was dependent on participants’ decisions to sample novel stimuli...
Political ideology correlated with exploration during the game, with
conservatives sampling fewer targets than liberals. Moreover, more
conservative individuals exhibited a stronger learning asymmetry, such
that they learned negative stimuli better than positive... Relative to
liberals, politically conservative individuals pursued a more avoidant
strategy to the game…
"The reluctance to explore that
characterizes more politically conservative individuals may protect them
from experiencing negative situations, for they are likely to restrict
approach to known positives."
Natalie J. Shook, PhD, and Russell H. Fazio, PhD, "Political Ideology, Exploration of Novel Stimuli, and Attitude Formation," Experimental Social Psychology, Apr. 3, 2009
13. Conservatives tend to have a stronger reaction to threatening noises and images than liberals.
"In a group of 46 adult participants with strong political beliefs,
individuals with measurably lower physical sensitivities to sudden
noises and threatening visual images were more likely to support foreign
aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism, and gun control, whereas
individuals displaying measurably higher physiological reactions to
those same stimuli were more likely to favor defense spending, capital
punishment, patriotism, and the Iraq War. Thus, the degree to which
individuals are physiologically responsive to threat appears to indicate
the degree to which they advocate policies that protect the existing
social structure from both external (outgroup) and internal
(norm-violator) threats."
Douglas
R. Oxley, PhD, Kevin B. Smith, PhD, John R. Alford, PhD, Matthew V.
Hibbing, PhD, Jennifer L. Miller, Mario Scalora, PhD, Peter K. Hatemi,
PhD, and John R. Hibbing, PhD, "Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits," Science, Sep. 19, 2008
15. When faced with a conflict, liberals are more likely than
conservatives to alter their habitual response when cues indicate it is
necessary.
"Our results are consistent with the view that political orientation, in
part, reflects individual differences in the functioning of a general
mechanism related to cognitive control and self-regulation. Stronger
conservatism (versus liberalism) was associated with less neurocognitive
sensitivity to response conflicts. At the behavioral level,
conservatives were also more likely to make errors of commission.
Although a liberal orientation was associated with better performance on
the response-inhibition task examined here, conservatives would
presumably perform better on tasks in which a more fixed response style
is optimal."
David M. Amodio, PhD, John T. Jost, PhD, Sarah L. Master, PhD, and Cindy M. Yee, PhD,"Neurocognitive Correlates of Liberalism and Conservatism," Nature Neuroscience, Sep. 9, 2007
Study after study shows the difference between the brains of liberals
vs. their right-wing brethren, and we will continue to maintain that
after Conservatism is criminalized that Conservative sheeplets should
not be subject to the same punishments as their leaders.
Their IQs can't be increased, but surely a program of re-education,
stressing Critical Thinking, Civics, History and The History of
Liberlism and Progressivism, etc., can be structured to bring the
sheeplets back to a life of productivity and the true understanding of
democracy. They should not be punished for their support of their
leaderships' crimes, nor held responsible for them, since we can show
that their actions are not completely their fault, and that their brand
of "thinking" could be classified as a mental disorder.
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"There are certain romances that belong in certain cities, in a certain atmosphere, in a certain time."
Sammy Davis, Jr.
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