Conservative? Liberal? The Brain Reveals All.

I remember running across a similar study a while ago. This certainly holds true for me. I haven't got a squeamish bone in my body, and I'm pretty liberal (To make things clear, I don't like filth, gore, blood and so on, but I simply don't get an out of control visceral reaction to them). I really don't get the visceral reactions that people get to some of the hot button moral issues for social conservatives. But I know plenty of people who are just as politically liberal as I am, at least with regards to their voting patterns, yet they get grossed out by filth and gore and so on far more than I do. In fact, a couple of my very squeamish people are very, very compassionate people, and I think their dislike of these things is linked to their empathy (blood and gore mean someone is suffering or has suffered, for instance). this compassion is also behind their liberalism.

And what about people who change from conservative to liberal or vice versa over time? Do these images become less or more disgusting to them as they change political orientations? And if so, which drives which?

And what about people whose professions require them to be pretty inured to gore and filth--people like nurses, doctors, vets, soldiers, police officers and so on? These aren't overwhelmingly liberal professions from what I've seen.

Not doubting the veracity of their study. But I am wondering how they account for these kinds of questions in their work, because they say the correlation is 95%, yet I'd guess the possible exceptions I came up with might represent more than just 5% of liberals or conservatives overall.

Flash before me a photo of Dick Cheney, and I'm pretty sure my reaction will predict accurately where I fall on the political bell curve.

caw

blacbird said:

Flash before me a photo of Dick Cheney, and I'm pretty sure my reaction will predict accurately where I fall on the political bell curve.

caw

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Lol!

As someone who is extremely squeamish, I can say that squeamishness is very much not the same as disgust. Squeamishness feels like an involuntary physical reaction and while it's happening the rest of your brain is often just sitting back and going "oh hey look at that."

It does note that people on both sides of the spectrum reported the same feelings, but the scans showed a difference. I'm not particularly squeamish about many things, but about some, I have a very visceral reaction. I'd wager, if the study is right, it's something not necessarily consciously perceptible.

It specifically talks about the idea of purity as well, which I'd think isn't likely a necessarily conscious reaction, though I'd bet people think it is.

Yeah, maybe. And it's possible that someone could learn to suppress their natural aversion to something because it's their job to do so, but their brain could still react.

Still, I wonder what happens when people change political leanings? Does the brain reaction change too? And if so, does the change in the brain drive the change in politics, or does the change in politics change the brain?

They should study people who have had a marked shift in politics over their lives to see it their brains respond as typical conservatives or liberals.

There is a sort of reaction some people have to certain things I've always wondered about. I remember there were some guys I've known over the years who were really negative about women with traits they found unattractive. Back when I was a student, for instance, most women shaved their legs, for instance, but a few didn't. Some guys I knew honestly didn't care one way or the other, some guys preferred shaved legs but didn't care what women who weren't their girlfriends did, but some got really angry and indignant whenever they saw a woman who didn't do this.

I remember asking one of these guys about this once. "Why do you care so much what these women do or don't do? No one's telling you you have to date someone who doesn't shave her legs." It came down to the fact that he just felt physically ill when he saw hairy legs on a woman (something about how he'd always imagine himself running his tongue down hairy legs and gag). Needless to say, he was homophobic and rather conservative too.

So I can guess where this man's brain might score on this test.

But I've also known plenty of conservatives who aren't like this guy was at all.

So another question I have, that's going to be unanswerable for any generation that's not still alive, is whether this visceral squickiness aspect of conservatism is a relatively recent thing? Or is it an innate quality that's relative to the times you live in? So would the things that elicit this strong reaction be different for someone living now than a century ago?

Roxxsmom said:

Yeah, maybe. And it's possible that someone could learn to suppress their natural aversion to something because it's their job to do so, but their brain could still react.

Still, I wonder what happens when people change political leanings? Does the brain reaction change too? And if so, does the change in the brain drive the change in politics, or does the change in politics change the brain?

They should study people who have had a marked shift in politics over their lives to see it their brains respond as typical conservatives or liberals.

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I think that'd be interesting - though you'd have to have done the same testing before they switched to be able to actually tell anything much.

Like perhaps someone who made a shift was always wired that way, but raised the opposite, or for other reasons espoused the opposite view.

I'm also interested in the line - how clear this was and how tied to extremity in belief. If someone espoused moderate beliefs were the scans in the middle? Did they only find whatever lit up did so in those with highly partisan views?

What about people whose leanings change? I used to be right wing, but have moved to the left over the last decade or so. Would my brain scan be different? If so, which is cause and which is effect?

So brains are like magic eight balls? who knew?

Roxxsmom said:

I remember running across a similar study a while ago.

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Are you talking about the one that found that conservatives are in general more fearful than liberals? When I look at my own family (which is mostly hardcore conservative), it made sense. They are afraid of many things I don't worry about at all.

There's a really interesting book I read about the neuroscience and psychology and anthropology involved the the repulsion reflex.

It's called, THAT'S DISTGUSTING: UNRAVELING THE MYSTERY OF REPULSION, by Rachel Herz

Roxxsmom said:

There is a sort of reaction some people have to certain things I've always wondered about. I remember there were some guys I've known over the years who were really negative about women with traits they found unattractive. Back when I was a student, for instance, most women shaved their legs, for instance, but a few didn't. Some guys I knew honestly didn't care one way or the other, some guys preferred shaved legs but didn't care what women who weren't their girlfriends did, but some got really angry and indignant whenever they saw a woman who didn't do this.

I remember asking one of these guys about this once. "Why do you care so much what these women do or don't do? No one's telling you you have to date someone who doesn't shave her legs." It came down to the fact that he just felt physically ill when he saw hairy legs on a woman (something about how he'd always imagine himself running his tongue down hairy legs and gag). Needless to say, he was homophobic and rather conservative too.

So I can guess where this man's brain might score on this test.

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That's so weird, because like, say, thoughts on dental surgery can make me so physically ill that I can faint and I have to ask people not to talk about it around me, and yet I'm openly bisexual socialist scum.

This is not a joke -- but I am wondering how much brain activity changes by being hypnotized, or by things like only watching Fox 'news' and believing that what you are being told is true?

ETA: @Karen - I've been wondering for a while now, since media ethics went to the wayside when it came to what they'd publish on the front pages of newspapers or on television. While it bleeds it leads has long been the norm for headlines, I really doubt that notorious image of that poor man who lost his legs in the Boston Marathon bombing would have been splashed all over in earlier times. Then again, even seeing facial expressions of strong reactions can have a similar effect.

clintl said:

Are you talking about the one that found that conservatives are in general more fearful than liberals? When I look at my own family (which is mostly hardcore conservative), it made sense. They are afraid of many things I don't worry about at all.

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That's the study I've come across before, and that one did make sense. Fear makes people feel out of control, so they act/react in ways to try to give them more of a sense of control and that seems to extend to trying to control the behaviour of others.

The article in the OP - about disgust or a visceral reaction to gore, etc. - appeared to try to make a similar correlation. I dunno, though. Left-right doesn't hold that much meaning for me compared to authoritarian vs autonomous/anarchic, but I react very strongly to visual images, do thing seeing such things is 'bad for the soul' and prefer not to see them but I'm hardly against gay marriage and so on.

I also find that strange, considering how many liberals have diagnosed anxiety problems.

Just FYI, one cannot say they're not squeamish or don't find something disgusting here as a means of aligning themselves with regard to the study. It's not measuring conscious reactions at all. Note (another article on the same study):

Liberals, conservatives, and moderates “did not significantly differ in subjective ratings of disgusting, threatening, or pleasant pictures,” the researchers report, “except that the conservative group had marginally higher disgust sensitivity than the liberal group.”

The brain scans, however, told a different story. Researchers “reliably differentiated the conservative and liberal groups” by observing how the distinctive ways their brains responded to images that evoked disgust—particularly ones that served as reminders of our animal nature, such as images of mutilated bodies.

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If you want to know if you're liberal or conservative, you have to get a brain scan.

I know, I just think it's important to note that squeamishness is different from disgust.

For the record, my brain reveals nothing.

Vince524 said:

For the record, my brain reveals nothing.

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Ah, but what does it withhold?

dfwtinman said:

Ah, but what does it withhold?

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With hold? Nothing.
Hold? A very tired hamster on a very squeaky wheel.

robeiae said:

Just FYI, one cannot say they're not squeamish or don't find something disgusting here as a means of aligning themselves with regard to the study. It's not measuring conscious reactions at all. Note (another article on the same study):

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And that's what leaves me scratching my head about this. Because if you're not aware of being squicked out by something, how can you be squicked out by it?

I think they must mean something else by the term "disgust" or "visceral disgust" than most people do. But since this not so subtle brain difference results in a big difference in behavior or outlook, then it seems like it would have some kind of conscious manifestation also.

Hapax Legomenon said:

I know, I just think it's important to note that squeamishness is different from disgust.

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See, to me, by my understanding of the words, they're connected. Squeamish people are more easily disgusted by certain things. I have a squeamish friend, and I have learned that I can't discuss certain things with her that seem perfectly normal to me over dinner, because she becomes too disgusted to eat, and may actually become nauseated. Squeamish students are the ones who are so overwhelmed by disgust at the sights and smells of a dead animal or person that they can't take classes with animal dissections or cadavers and so on.

But people may vary in terms of what sets them off. One of my friends is very squeamish about blood (faints at the sight of it), spiders, mice (runs away screaming from these critters) and so on. Yet she can happily discuss her kids' bathroom habits during dinner. Which doesn't really bother me, actually, but it definitely does some people.

blacbird said:

Flash before me a photo of Dick Cheney, and I'm pretty sure my reaction will predict accurately where I fall on the political bell curve.

caw

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heavily in the direction of gay marriage, no doubt.