April 6, 2014

• the neuroscience of political orientation

  Here are some interesting articles I came across this weekend, about the neurological differences between conservatives and liberals.
  http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/inquiring-minds-john-hibbing-physiology-ideology

  http://www.psypost.org/2014/04/positive-negative-thinkers-brains-revealed-24209

   http://2012election.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004818

  The first two are recent, the last one is a summary of several related results from the past decade.  While the effects appear to be genuine, the proposed rationales underlying the effects seem a little implausible to me...

  From the first article -

  "It all adds up, according to Hibbing, to what he calls a "negativity bias" on the right. Conservatives, Hibbing's research suggests, go through the world more attentive to negative, threatening, and disgusting stimuli—and then they adopt tough, defensive, and aversive ideologies to match that perceived reality."

  I could grant that some people are naturally more genetically inclined to focus on negative things, or positive things, but I think that people can also adjust their patterns of thinking.   For example, Philippians 4:8 says - "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things."

  This Biblical command is given to all Christians, not just those from a particular genetic background!  After years of practicing Philippians 4:8, it would seem that this habit could eventually deeply affect the brain activity and neuronal connectivity.

  Also, some of the effects seen in the studies could be explained in other ways.  For example, the fact that the "liberals" showed less physiological activation when presented with threatening or disgusting images could be due to a larger previous exposure to Hollywood movies containing similar images among the "liberal" group (i.e., a movie-induced desensitization), which might also partly account for their political views.

  Also, the fact that people's political views can (and often do) change over the years advocates against a "genetically-determined" view of political alignment.

  From the 3rd article, point 7,

  "Collectively, when compared to Republican sympathizers, Democrat sympathizers showed greater psychological distress, more frequent histories of adverse life events such as interpersonal victimization experiences, fewer and less satisfying relationships, and lower perceptions of the trustworthiness of peers and intimate affiliates."

  I find this believable... basically, that Democrats may tend to come from more troubled home backgrounds on average (though certainly there are many exceptions).  This fits with the fact that urban areas tend to be Democratic (liberal) while rural areas tend to be Republican (conservative).

  From the 3rd article, point 14,

  "In general, liberals are more open-minded, creative, curious, and novelty seeking, whereas conservatives are more orderly, conventional, and better organized."

  This makes sense... that one's political views are correlated with other facets of one's daily life such as how "organized" one is, or how much one "seeks novelty".

  Implications for followers of Jesus would seem to be:

  1. Understand how you are personally 'wired' (i.e. what genetic and environmentally-induced tendencies you have)... This will help you understand what instructions in the Bible you will naturally lean towards, and which parts you will naturally shy away from.
  2. Continue following the Jesus described in the historical Scriptures (the Bible), including BOTH the aspects that you naturally resonate with and the aspects that you find hard to accept.

   

  • 3:01 pm
  • Comments Off