BrainPolitics

[bcholmes]

Oh, give me a break. This kind of "brain difference" science has been applied to the genders for, like, forever. Now they're saying it about liberals and conservatives. Yeeesh.

The brain is extremely plastic. Its behaviour is shaped by the things we expose it to. This study seems to reduce to "liberals process information differently than conservatives because liberals have a history of processing information differently than conservatives." Big whoop.

Comments

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Ever thought that that seemingly-tautological reasoning might be exactly why that happens?

We learn to reason in certain ways. We learn to process information in certain ways. And the way we learn is largely by imitating our parents, for one thing. The brain is plastic, sure, but it's not THAT plastic. During most of its "plastic" time - infancy and childhood - we follow the examples set by our parents. Eventually we get set in certain neuronal patterns, and certain ways of doing things that become familiar.

It's also pretty much accepted that organisms tend to exert the least effort for the greatest gain that they can. To me, it looks like the way that conservatives process is a least-effort method of achieving the greatest gain: a stable mental environment. Liberals, by contrast, are evolutionary oddities. We exert far more effort than we really need to, a lot of the time, because we worry about extra stuff that conservatives have, by and large, defined as irrelevant.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

Citations?

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Can't right this second, as I'm about to leave for work, but I will look tonight to find what I can for you.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Here's what I can give you before I go out the door.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=is-the-human-race-evolvin is a good starting point on how evolution can lead to simplification rather than increasing complexity.

Also look up behavioral ecology (specifically as it concerns optimization), the idea of evolutionarily stable strategies, and the Law of Least Effort (also called the Principle of Least Effort). That should get you started.

As far as information on learning by imitation and the plasticity of the human brain, see:

Marco Iacoboni, Roger P. Woods, Marcel Brass, Harold Bekkering, John C. Mazziotta, Giacomo Rizzolatti, Cortical Mechanisms of Human Imitation, Science 286:5449 (1999)

Rizzolatti G., Craighero L., The mirror-neuron system, Annual Review of Neuroscience. 2004;27:169-92

Some of what I said about optimization and taking the path of least effort came from classes I had years ago, mostly in physical anthropology and biology. Unfortunately, those citations are not ready to hand, but if they appeared in basic anthro textbooks, they're pretty well-established ideas, I'd think.

Same for what I've learned about brain plasticity - although we can continually learn new things, we build on what we've already learned, and the law of least effort would suggest that we pursue acquisition of knowledge in the same way we pursue any other resource: by doing the least possible to get the most out of it that we can. Going through habitual channels of reasoning would seem to facilitate that.

From my own experience taking a critical-thinking class, I remember clearly that the professor cautioned us that we'd be thinking in ways that many of us had never thought before. Most students did complain of headaches over the next few weeks. This supports my contention that we won't think in new ways unless forced to. Why? Because building new neuronal connections and synaptic connections is somewhat stressful.

Anyway, gotta go.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

Indeed, give me a break. Evolutionary psychology is known bullshit.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I can provide citations, if anyone wants, since I have just asked someone who disagrees with me for some.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of the psychological "profile" of Bush by someone who'd never actually met him, and was basing things on second hand accounts.

[sarah-dragon.livejournal.com]

My first question is where is their control group? How much variation was there in the statistics (I did not see that anywhere.)

My second thought was that either the reporter or the test givers seemed to have an agenda, other than scientific interest. To even hint that one part of the spectrum might be smarter or better than the other seems a dangerous concept to me.

Why are we looking to classify people into more groups than before? We should be embracing differences. not trying to create hedgy sciencifically based criteria for which political agenda to follow.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Do you react this way to all scientific inquiry? Science is about asking why things are different, and explaining why they are.

I believe you are reading an agenda into this that is not there. Can you explain what, exactly, makes you think there is an agenda behind the work?

[sarah-dragon.livejournal.com]

Its a failry simple question and hypothesis really. Why would someone want to find out why people favor one political or social way of thinking over another. Why would that be relevant to anyone? My hypothesis is that they want to be able to categorize and compartmentalize those people who do not fit into their perceived paremeters of politically or socially acceptable thought.

Good science is about asking relevant and meaningful questions. I do not consider this good science. The article, note not the experiement, seemed to favor liberals as 'better' but that might be my own prejudice so I discount that. That was my perception however, especially when one scientist had to defend "conservative" thinkers.

You have to be very careful with any science that might imply a value judgement where it does not exist. Especially when it comes to the mind and thinking. And no mention was made of any of the normal scientific controls that should be in place in any experiment, let alone one that has the potential to be grabbed by the popular media and distorted.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

You have to be very careful with any science that might imply a value judgement where it does not exist. Especially when it comes to the mind and thinking.

You seem to be saying that psychology and sociology should cease to exist, then, along with cultural anthropology and other disciplines which look at social mores and value judgments on a regular basis. Is that your stance? Because as a sociologist, I'd have to fundamentally disagree with you.

And no mention was made of any of the normal scientific controls that should be in place in any experiment, let alone one that has the potential to be grabbed by the popular media and distorted.

All scientific results can be grabbed by popular media and distorted. Should we stop having fair and open discourse about our results and methods just because the popular media doesn't have a clue on how to report on them?

Additionally, your concern about controls, while somewhat valid, may not matter in this case - the question was a simple comparison of one group to another, and does not need a control group in order to work (I've taught scientific methodology and I know what I'm talking about, here, but that's a different discussion). This is probably one reason why the media did not report on it - because it didn't need to be there.

Since I have academic access to the article in question, I have read it, and I can assure you that the entire experiment was well within expected methodological constraints. If you want to read it, it can be found here (http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v10/n10/index.html), about halfway down the page, although you may have to pay for access to it. I can share the abstract, which is:

Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning using event-related potentials, and found that greater liberalism was associated with stronger conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern.

Finally, when you say Good science is about asking relevant and meaningful questions. I do not consider this good science, you are yourself making a value judgment both about what science is supposed to do and about the relevance and worth of this particular question. I happen to think it's relevant and meaningful to discover why it's so hard for liberals and conservatives to communicate with one another and understand one another, and this research is investigating that very question. Finding out reasons for this makes it more possible to find ways to fix that problem.

So you'll have to excuse me if I do not agree with your position on this topic on any point you've made.

[sarah-dragon.livejournal.com]

Its a free internet and people are more than welcome to disagree with whoever and whatever they wish.

[jiawen]

The matriculon, a very small, Diebold-shaped region of the brain, is responsible for making conservatives vote conservative and for making liberals vote liberally. In conservatives, it goes "whoop", while in liberals, it goes "ping". Case closed.

[lisaquestions.livejournal.com]

I guess it does an okay job of presenting how liberals might think and how conservatives might think, although the only explanation as to why appears to be self-reinforcing, and not simply the way their brains naturally are.

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

It ought to have an April 1st date on that story, oughtn't it?