The Left and the Right: Physiology, Brain Structure and Function, and Attentional Differences
Update from Chris Mooney, 1/13/2012: This post has gotten overwhelming traffic, but it is just the beginning of a series of posts listing peer reviewed studies documenting core differences between liberals and conservatives, and only focuses on one area of research. The second list, of eleven papers on genetic differences, is here. Please check back to the Intersection in the coming weeks for more study lists.
All of this is a prelude to my forthcoming book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality, which will be out in April.
I haven’t gotten the chance yet to read the new study, out of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, on cognitive and physiological differences between liberals and conservatives. But in anticipation of doing so, I just want to show how consistently these kinds of differences have been found by scientists working over the last five years.
Here is a list of peer reviewed papers that I’ve found that only discuss liberal-conservative differences in brain structure and function, in physiology, or in the kinds of stimuli that attract attention. And of course this is only one small area of research on liberal-conservative differences:
David M. Amodio et al, “Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism,” Nature Neuroscience, September 9, 2007. Finding: Liberals perform better on a conflict-monitoring task and show more anterior cingulate cortex activity in the test.
Luciana Carrago et al, “The Automatic Conservative: Ideology-Based Attentional Asymmetries in the Processing of Valenced Information,” PLoS One, Vol. 6, No. 11, November 9, 2011. Finding: Conservatives more than liberals are automatically attracted to negative stimuli.
Kanai et al, “Political Orientations are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults,” Current Biology, 21, 1-4, April 26, 2011. Findings: Conservatives have larger right amygdala, liberals have more gray matter in the anterior cingulate cortex.
Douglas R. Oxley et al, “Political Attitudes Vary With Physiological Traits,” Science, September 19, 2008, Vol. 321, No. 5896, pp. 1667-1670. Findings: conservatives have stronger physiological reactions to loud noises and threatening images.
Nicholas O. Rule and Nalini Ambady, “Democrats and Republicans Can Be Differentiated By their Faces,” PLoS One, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 18, 2010. Finding: speaks for itself.
Aaron Sell et al, “Formidability and the logic of human anger,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, September 1, 2009, Vol. 106, no. 35, 15073-15078. Finding: stronger men (as measured by bicep size, among other measures) more likely to support death penalty, Iraq war, use of force in international conflicts.
Shook, NJ and Fazio, RH, “Political ideology, exploration of novel stimuli, and attitude formation,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2009, vol. 45, p. 995-998. Finding: Liberals show more exploratory behavior in a learning video game; conservatives in contrast employ an “avoidant” strategy.
This is a tiny slice of what’s out there, based on my research. But it sure looks like there’s something going on here, doesn’t it?
Comments on this article
By clicking and submitting a comment I acknowledge The Intersection Privacy Policy and agree to The Intersection Terms of Use. I understand that my comments are also being governed by Facebook's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
