Post by petekk on May 4, 2016 3:28:51 GMT
In the article “ Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults’ researchers argue that political orientations have neural correlations in the brain. They claim that liberals have increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate, an area associated with uncertainty, which makes them more able to tolerate uncertainty and accept liberal views. In contrast, conservatives have increased volume in the right amygdala. The study also shows that conservatives are more sensitive to facial expressions which is related to emotional processing.
The study hits the bigger question of nature vs nurture and suggests that we are hard wired to think what we think and vote how we vote. When debating nature vs nurture, one type of experiments psychologist most frequently rely on are twin studies. In the link below you can find summary of a twin study which supports Kanai et al.
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/09/study-on-twins-suggests-our-political-beliefs-may-be-hard-wired/
However, the idea that our political orientation is determined by genetics doesn’t feel quite right to me. First of all, political views are highly dependent on context. Rules of the political game are constantly changing and what might be considered conservative 10 years ago might not be so today. The idea that our political orientation is hard wired doesn’t represent dynamics of the system. It also fails to explain how people change their political behaviors or opinions. A young liberal person can very well become conservative as he/she ages. A conservative/ liberal scale is not the best indicator of one’s political orientation either. People can be conservative or liberal regarding to different subjects such as privacy, economy or religion. What we call conservative in the U.S (usually referring to conservative in the economical sense) is totally different from what people call conservative in Chile (which refers to being a religious catholic).
The study hits the bigger question of nature vs nurture and suggests that we are hard wired to think what we think and vote how we vote. When debating nature vs nurture, one type of experiments psychologist most frequently rely on are twin studies. In the link below you can find summary of a twin study which supports Kanai et al.
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/09/study-on-twins-suggests-our-political-beliefs-may-be-hard-wired/
However, the idea that our political orientation is determined by genetics doesn’t feel quite right to me. First of all, political views are highly dependent on context. Rules of the political game are constantly changing and what might be considered conservative 10 years ago might not be so today. The idea that our political orientation is hard wired doesn’t represent dynamics of the system. It also fails to explain how people change their political behaviors or opinions. A young liberal person can very well become conservative as he/she ages. A conservative/ liberal scale is not the best indicator of one’s political orientation either. People can be conservative or liberal regarding to different subjects such as privacy, economy or religion. What we call conservative in the U.S (usually referring to conservative in the economical sense) is totally different from what people call conservative in Chile (which refers to being a religious catholic).
- Do you think nature plays a big part in our political orientations as indicated by this study? How do you think nature and nurture interact to create our opinions and to what extend?
