Structural brain differences in liberals and conservatives

[Skybird]

http://www.naholaw.com/brains-of-lib...-study-ctv-ca/

Actually, in a way it makes sense: as I perceive it, in temporary politics it is the conservatives who are more likely to speak out against something new or against changes or against certain new policies to be tried, while it is the liberal being more open to lave the established ways of conservativsm behind and try new things. The study claims that the brain structure of the amygdala is more dominant in conservatives' brains. This structure is responsible for feelings and emotions of fear, beign alarmed, worried.

But it is absolutely imaginable for me that it is right this "fear" that makes the conservative less eager to try the new thing, and to leave behind the proven familiar ways he is used to, because:

either this fear motivates him to try to look more thoroughly into the future and thus realise longterm consequences that a less alarmed mind would not care to realise;

or the conservative for other reasons, for reasons of traditional preservation, looks more thoroughly ahead, sees scenarios that the more uncaring mind that is enthusiastic about change as a self-purpose ignores of m inimises in his assessment,, and these alarming possibilities he sees makes the conservative more "afraid".

Tricky thing it is with this idea of ours: to have a free will to choose and to decide. In neurological science it was disputed (when I studied) whether sould follows body, or body follows soul. Do our eyes cry tears because we feel sad - or do we feel sad because our eyes cry tears? At least during the nineties, this debate still was unresolved. I don't know about any possible research breakthroughs since then, though, I'm out of that business.

Not even mentioning to what far-reaching degrees sexual motives and drives push us to behave and to form our cultures. Even in social constellations where we usually think we are free from animalistic drives, behavioural biologist may - and often do - outline motives for our "free" decisions on buying this and deciding against that option - based on sexual motives.

A difficult thing this thing called "free will" is. If there is any at all. What did Freud say? He said that the paint of civilization on our surface is extremely thin, and can easily be scratched off- And what you find beneath is the dictate of animalism, and genes.

[Platapus]

n=90

Need I say more?

Does this mean we can declare both sides to be mentally unfit to be in government?

[Ducimus]

I saw it on the internet, so it must be true.

[Fish In The Water]

Originally Posted by Rilder

Does this mean we can declare both sides to be mentally unfit to be in government?

I sincerely hope so...

[MaddogK]

Originally Posted by Skybird

http://www.naholaw.com/brains-of-lib...-study-ctv-ca/

Where's the original source ?

The linked article appears to have been run thru a very bad language translator:

Maybe
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[MH]

So liberals are like conservatives on the extasy?

[Armistead]

Just when you think you've heard it all...

I think consevatives tend to rely more on fear, often due to religious upbringing, fear of damnation, fear of losing power status, etc. Past history shows religion mixed with politics can hold great control over people. That seems to be the GOP agenda lately.

[Growler]

/headdesk

Wow. A study that suggests that people who believe different things might have different brain structure and/or chemistry.

Well, shucks, color me surprised. Imagine that - people might be different.

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by MaddogK

Where's the original source ?

The linked article appears to have been run thru a very bad language translator:

Yes, it looks like they used a translation software to translate it into another language and back to English...

This seems to be the source, much better to read: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20...ucture-110407/

[August]

Originally Posted by Armistead

Just when you think you've heard it all...

I think consevatives tend to rely more on fear, often due to religious upbringing, fear of damnation, fear of losing power status, etc. Past history shows religion mixed with politics can hold great control over people. That seems to be the GOP agenda lately.

Says the party who does it's level best to promote class warfare.

[MaddogK]

Originally Posted by Penguin

Yes, it looks like they used a translation software to translate it into another language and back to English...

This seems to be the source, much better to read: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20...ucture-110407/

Aye, much better, thanks.

[Platapus]

Time also ran this story.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by MaddogK

Where's the original source ?

The linked article appears to have been run thru a very bad language translator:

I realised that I messed it up indeed and went back to the wrong one of three links I had.

Originally I read it on a German major newspaper. I then googled name and magazine title, and got several links in English, one of which was the one I wanted to post. But - I picked the wrong one.

Completely my own fault. Sorry.

[Skybird]

The essay I originally wanted to link to I did not find again. However, here is the original stuff.

CurrentBiology Mag homepage
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/

Summary
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/...822(11)00289-2

Substantial differences exist in the cognitive styles of liberals and conservatives on psychological measures [1]. Variability in political attitudes reflects genetic influences and their interaction with environmental factors [2,3]. Recent work has shown a correlation between liberalism and conflict-related activity measured by event-related potentials originating in the anterior cingulate cortex [4]. Here we show that this functional correlate of political attitudes has a counterpart in brain structure. In a large sample of young adults, we related self-reported political attitudes to gray matter volume using structural MRI. 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. These results were replicated in an independent sample of additional participants. Our findings extend previous observations that political attitudes reflect differences in self-regulatory conflict monitoring [4] and recognition of emotional faces [5] by showing that such attitudes are reflected in human brain structure. Although our data do not determine whether these regions play a causal role in the formation of political attitudes, they converge with previous work [4,6] to suggest a possible link between brain structure and psychological mechanisms that mediate political attitudes.

Full text via ScienceDirect (science paysite)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...5&searchtype=a