Why Liberals Are Smarter Than Conservatives Posted: 09-28-07 13:34pm
Pro-lifers tend to be conservatives, and
pro-choicer's tend to be liberals. So you
could consider the title to be:
Why Pro-choicers are Smarter than
Pro-lifers
AlterNet
Why Liberals Are Smarter than
Conservatives
By Erika Schickel, HuffingtonPost.com
Posted on September 19, 2007, Printed on
September 28, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/sto
ry/62436/
Once again science has confirmed what we
already know: liberals and conservatives
think differently. Neuroscientists at NYU
and UCLA conducted a simple test on
college students all along the political
spectrum.They were seated in front of
computers and given the simple task of
pressing a key every time the letter "M"
flashed on the screen. Here's the hitch:
every once in a while the letter "W" would
flash and the subjects were told to not
push a key when they saw "W."
Both groups recognized the letter "M"
accurately. But when that pesky "W" popped
up the conservatives just couldn't help
themselves and -- DOH! -- they pushed the
key! They simply could not recognize any
letter not being "M." They continued to
dogmatically stab away at the keyboard not
seeing the letter so plainly in front of
them. Everyone, of course, was hooked up
to electroencephalograms, and liberals
EEG's lit up like pinball machines while
apprehending and considering all the
subtle differences between "M" and "W."
They made fewer mistakes and demonstrated
a greater subtlety of mind. Conservatives,
ever the partisans, just declared "W" was
"M" and called it a day.
But lookout! The researchers threw a
curveball by reversing the test, flashing
"W's" and asking subjects to ignore the
"M's." The results were exactly the same.
If told"W" is the order of the day, then
well, by heck. That's just what they're
gonna do. It's that simple.
History has already shown that
conservatives are suckers for "W." The
letter has some kind of hypnotic effect on
them, causing them to jab their index
fingers at things -- liberals, mostly. "W"
is their kind of letter, all points,
aggressive, starting favorite conservative
words like "War" and "Wealth" and "Welfare
State." If you built a giant "W" out of
steel and dropped a liberal on it, he
would be impaled through his head, heart
and groin. Yee-haw, it's BBQ!
Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC
Berkeley's Institute of Personality and
Social Research told The Los Angeles
Times that the results "provided an
elegant demonstration that individual
differences on a conservative-liberal
dimension are strongly related to brain
activity." The Times reports that
"liberals were 4.9 times as likely as
conservatives to show activity in the
brain circuits that deal with conflicts,
and 2.2 times as likely to score in the
top half of the distribution for
accuracy." Thus with one, simple
experiment we have solved the mystery of
how half our nation fell for the
9/11/Sadaam Hussein boondoggle. W is to M
as Sadaam is to Bin Laden. While, they
share some qualities (spikey, swarthy,
hateful, gun lovin') they were decidedly
NOT the same man. But those differences
are irrelevant once your mind has been
made up for you.
So now its been scientifically proven that
liberals are smarter than conservatives.
There's no point in gloating:
conservatives don't recognize science,
either. Just let them continue digging
their own spider holes of fuzzy logic and
dogmatic umbrage and come November '08 we
can use our superior hand-eye coordination
and letter-recognition skills to hit all
the right letters.
Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 5323 Location: Along the Mississippi, USA
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Posted: 09-28-07 16:31pm
I actually heard about this in a class
recently.
More accurately- it would be, liberals are
more conservative in their judgments than
conservatives, who maybe tend to make
judgments more quickly
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Verizon-y
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Posted: 09-28-07 16:36pm
I'd be interested to hear more about what
you discussed in class, Georgia. I don't
know much about the different research
into the two ways of thinking, and I'd
love to know more.
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Georgia59
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Posted: 09-28-07 16:43pm
It is a cognition class, and the study was
just mentioned as a sidenote. I think more
would have to be done for it to really be
conclusive at all.
But if you like to imagine what it
means.... (and this isn't my scientific
brain talking, it is my biased side)
conservatives are quick to make judgments,
like abortion is always bad, whereas
liberals stop and think critically before
making judgments, like, "Gee, let me think
about why someone would want an abortion
before I make a judgment about it!"
I don't want to say that all are like that
though, obviously. There needs to be more
done than just this one study to be really
conclusive.
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nightangel73
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Posted: 09-28-07 18:01pm
that study is BS
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Jincks013
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Posted: 09-28-07 20:45pm
nightangel73
wrote:
that study is
BS
why?
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Georgia59
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Posted: 09-28-07 20:48pm
The study is fine. The media report of it,
however, is irresponsible.
The study did not measure intelligence, so
it is very irresponsible to say that it
found a link between political sides and
intelligence. I would like to read the
actual study to see what they really
found- anyone know where I can find it?
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Tylanas
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Posted: 09-29-07 11:21am
Yeah, the media report is... amusing. I'd
like the hard data. Still it's an
interesting study and a lot can be learned
from it. No, it doesn't have anything to
do with the letters chosen. They didn't
pick W because of George W Bush or any of the other
blather the article stated. Look past the
fluff, aye?!
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Verizon-y
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Posted: 09-29-07 11:45am
Georgia59
wrote:
The study is fine. The media
report of it, however, is irresponsible.
The study did not measure intelligence, so
it is very irresponsible to say that it
found a link between political sides and
intelligence. I would like to read the
actual study to see what they really
found- anyone know where I can find
it?
It actually studied brainwaves.
I thought you discussed the study in
class? I thought you read the actual
study.
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Verizon-y
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Posted: 09-29-07 11:48am
This story tells you where to find the
study. This is the newspaper article
referenced in the original post:
Exploring the neurobiology of politics,
scientists have found that liberals
tolerate ambiguity and conflict better
than conservatives because of how their
brains work.
In a simple experiment reported todayin
the journal Nature Neuroscience,
scientists at New York University and UCLA
show that political orientation is related
to differences in how the brain processes
information.
Previous psychological studies have found
that conservatives tend to be more
structured and persistent in their
judgments whereas liberals are more open
to new experiences. The latest study found
those traits are not confined to political
situations but also influence everyday
decisions.
The results show "there are two cognitive
styles -- a liberal style and a
conservative style," said UCLA neurologist
Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected
to the latest research.
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.
Researchers got the same results when they
repeated the experiment in reverse, asking
another set of participants to tap when a
W appeared.
Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC
Berkeley's Institute of Personality and
Social Research who was not connected to
the study, said the results "provided an
elegant demonstration that individual
differences on a conservative-liberal
dimension are strongly related to brain
activity."
Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals
were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives
to show activity in the brain circuits
that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as
likely to score in the top half of the
distribution for accuracy.
Sulloway said the results could explain
why President Bush demonstrated a
single-minded commitment to the Iraq war
and why some people perceived Sen. John F.
Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat
who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential
race, as a "flip-flopper" for changing his
mind about the conflict.
Based on the results, he said, liberals
could be expected to more readily accept
new social, scientific or religious
ideas.
"There is ample data from the history of
science showing that social and political
liberals indeed do tend to support major
revolutions in science," said Sulloway,
who has written about the history of
science and has studied behavioral
differences between conservatives and
liberals.
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.
Political orientation, he noted, occurs
along a spectrum, and positions on
specific issues, such as taxes, are
influenced by many factors, including
education and wealth. Some liberals oppose
higher taxes and some conservatives favor
abortion rights.
Still, he acknowledged that a meeting of
the minds between conservatives and
liberals looked difficult given the study
results.
"Does this mean liberals and conservatives
are never going to agree?" Amodio asked.
"Maybe it suggests one reason why they
tend not to get along."
Yes, it seems like many of the arguments
we have on here deal with the fact that
pro-choice wants pro-life to open their
eyes to all of the situations, and
pro-life wants to make one single ruling
of "abortion = bad".
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Verizon-y
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Posted: 09-29-07 13:21pm
That's exactly right, Eiri. And this
study shows concrete reasons why the two
groups think so differently.
Two groups of people doing an identical
task, and using different parts of their
brains to do it! I think it is amazing.
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Posted: 09-29-07 14:08pm
Eiri
wrote:
Good stuff
Yes, it seems like many of the arguments
we have on here deal with the fact that
pro-choice wants pro-life to open their
eyes to all of the situations, and
pro-life wants to make one single ruling
of "abortion =
bad".
abortion=bad=mortal sin this is what I
think and I don't have to change my mind
about it just because pro-choice doesn't
like it.
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nightangel73
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Posted: 09-29-07 14:19pm
futureshock
wrote:
That's exactly right, Eiri.
And this study shows concrete reasons why
the two groups think so differently.
Two groups of people doing an identical
task, and using different parts of their
brains to do it! I think it is
amazing.
i'm pretty sure that because I'm left
handed I use different part of the brains
to do many things compare to the right
handed. So?
whoever believes abortion is right then
they are definetly using the wrong parts
of the brain for sure.
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Georgia59
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Posted: 09-29-07 18:09pm
Wow thanks future!! I thought you'd have
to pay money to read the actual study.
So I was right in my earlier hypothesis...
"Taken together, our results are
consistent with the view that political
orientation, in part, reflects individual
differences in the functioning of
a general mechanism related to cognitive
control and self-regulation1–3.
Stronger conservatism (versus liberalism)
was associated with less
neurocognitive sensitivity to response
conflicts. At the behavioral
level, conservatives were also more likely
to make errors of commission.
Although a liberal orientation was
associated with better performance
on the response-inhibition task examined
here, conservatives would
presumably perform better on tasks in
which a more fixed response
style is optimal."
So it is, in a nutshell, saying that
liberals, when faced with a more
challenging decision, think about it more
thoroughly and complex, whereas
conservatives are more likely to make
quicker judgments with less inhibition and
thought before they do so.
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Georgia59
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Posted: 09-29-07 18:19pm
It wasn't really about different parts of
the brain, it was just different activity
levels.
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nightangel73
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Posted: 09-29-07 20:42pm
Georgia59
wrote:
So it is, in a nutshell, saying that
liberals, when faced with a more
challenging decision, think about it more
thoroughly and complex, whereas
conservatives are more likely to make
quicker judgments with less inhibition and
thought before they do
so.
So they make quicker judgments. Now get
over it. You will have to live with them
for the remaining of your life.
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Jincks013
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Posted: 09-29-07 23:24pm
nightangel73
wrote:
Georgia59
wrote:
So it is, in a nutshell, saying that
liberals, when faced with a more
challenging decision, think about it more
thoroughly and complex, whereas
conservatives are more likely to make
quicker judgments with less inhibition and
thought before they do
so.
So they make quicker judgments. Now get
over it. You will have to live with them
for the remaining of your
life.
No actually I don't. That is why we have a
political process and a legislative system
as well as a judiciary branch. No decision
once made cannot be overturned by the will
of the people. Not even conservatives are
immune to this.
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or any of the other
blather the article stated. Look past the
fluff, aye?!
