Do liberals believe things based on how they make themselves feel?
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A Different Kind of Brain or the Same Old Biased Research?
A number of bloggers are discussing this new "study" that finds that the liberal and conservative brain is different:
The differences between liberals and conservatives may run deeper than how they feel about welfare reform or the progress of the Iraq war: Researchers reported Sunday that their brains may actually work differently.
In a study likely to raise the hackles of some conservatives, psychologist David Amodio and others found that a specific region of the brain's cortex is more sensitive in people who consider themselves liberals than in self-declared conservatives.
The brain region in question helps people shift gears when their usual response would be inappropriate, supporting the notion that liberals are more flexible in their thinking.
In yet another of their "objective" studies, New York University professors draw conclusions that make liberals look good and conservatives look bad, although the authors attempt to make themselves look objective about the new study when one of them, John Jost, whom I have blogged about before, states the following:
"It's wrong to conclude that our results provide only bad news for conservatives," he wrote on Aug. 28, 2003. "True, we find some support for the traditional 'rigidity-of-the-right' hypothesis, but it is also true that liberals could be characterized on the basis of our overall profile as relatively disorganized, indecisive and perhaps overly drawn to ambiguity."
I might be more persuaded by Jost's defense of his research as objective if he wasn't forking money over to Hillary Clinton--isn't that a conflict of interest? If not, it should be.
I wonder if this study could be duplicated in a double-blind study using researchers who weren't liberals as well as subjects who weren't college students? Somehow, I doubt it.
POSTED BY HELEN
drhelen.blogspot.com
"There are two cognitive styles -- a liberal style and a conservative style."
Some scientists did a study that, they say, reveals there's a "right wing brain" and a "left wing brain":
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....
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.
Do you find yourself blocking the distracting information that is this study? You may be a conservative.
IN THE COMMENTS: I love this response from Pogo:
"conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. "
Read: Liberals are good people. Conservatives are stupid, unable to tell one letter from another.
Or: Liberals have no standards, and can be made to believe anything at all, no matter how ridiciulous.
... Conservatives quickly discover how to avoid time-wasting. Recognizing the preponderance of Ms over Ws, vote M. Spending valuable thought on being precise aboout M vs W is a waste of your time. The more crucuial question is: when the incentive to be right is correct, who is more accurate? For example, why spend effort on trivial matter whose consequences of being wrong are zero?
I read the study. In contrast to their interpretation, it tells me that liberals easily do what they're told. Conservatives resist.
Another issue I see now is: Which students volunteer to do psychological tests? It may be that liberal students want to help further science and conservative students are showing up for the cash. The conservative finds the most efficient way to get what he wants, which is the cash. Why bother getting the answers right? Also, there is the matter of which students self-identify as "conservative" -- especially among the students who chose to attend New York University and UCLA, where the study was done. These may be very usual people. Meanwhile, most students call themselves "liberal" at these places -- I assume. You may not be comparing the brains of conservatives and liberals, but of oddball outsiders and average kids.
Labels: brain, partisanship
POSTED BY ANN ALTHOUSE
althouse.blogspot.com |
