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AFP: Brain structure differs in liberals, conservatives: study

MKULTRABOY

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AFP: Brain structure differs in liberals, conservatives: study

WASHINGTON — Everyone knows that liberals and conservatives butt heads when it comes to world views, but scientists have now shown that their brains are actually built differently.

Liberals have more gray matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear, said the study on Thursday in Current Biology.

"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," the study said.

Other research has shown greater brain activity in those areas, according to which political views a person holds, but this is the first study to show a physical difference in size in the same regions.

Curious.
 
Id go for the chicken with political views shaping brains over time, probably a cultural thing. Dunno really.

But hey... fear.
 
But it's British definitions of liberal and conservative...
 
But it's British definitions of liberal and conservative...

Good point. Most everyone in the US is either right-wing or far-right-wing by their standards.

...

Hey wait this actually makes sense.
 
Damn I wonder what the American brains are like, then. :lol:
 
Plus we have real football, not that pansy ass futbol they have there.

You do realize that the NFL is on strike and so britian is the only country with football at the moment.
 
We have college football. Plus if needed there is the Canadian league...

Arena football?


BAAAAHAHAHHAHAHA. Sorry I couldn't hold a straight face.
 
I don't quite buy this. This doesn't explain what happens when you change views, does your brain structure change as well? Wouldn't there be other noticable changes in behavior then as well? I know several people who have changed their political views dramatically, and I couldn't spot any difference in their behavior.
 
I don't quite buy this. This doesn't explain what happens when you change views, does your brain structure change as well? Wouldn't there be other noticable changes in behavior then as well? I know several people who have changed their political views dramatically, and I couldn't spot any difference in their behavior.
I don't know. In my memory, which is certainly subject to all of the various human flaws, these sorts of studies that link one thing or another to very ill-defined terms that have no objective measurement are prone to generate all sorts of...unique data. I am reminded of phrenology.
 
Maybe it's because Liberals have to work harder to make there beliefs actually work out logically, making the issue "complex". While conservatives are more based in reality, and reality isn't care-bears and rainbows, so they have to focus on what the fearful results of political decisions.

lol... this study means nothing... let me have my partisan interpretation :nahnah:
 
Ive been saying that the irreconcilable divide between liberal types and conservative types was genetic for at least ten years. Its one of my pet theories.

Kinda cool to get scientific support for something you came up with yourself, debating with friends.

My theory goes like this:

About 12,000 years or so ago, some people stopped wandering from place to place following the food, and started staying in one place and cultivating food.

I think the human race began to diverge at this point, because this change in lifestyle would select for different traits.

Oversimplified, the core difference is neophilia/neophobia, although "phobia" seems too strong for what I posit.

More accurately, I feel it was more that a "hunger for the horizon", or a tendency to question one's position in the tribe, or any number of traits that make great hunter/gatherers would make LOUSY farmers. Miserable, unmarryable(sic?) farmers.

So a lack of hunger for, or interest in, new things would be more accurate.

That being said, submission to authority and a tendency to identify with the community would become strong selectors for what I call "pastoralis" types.

I think this is a more correct basis for what often appears to be a fear response in conservatives.

Understand, I think this is an interesting idea that I have thought about and talked about as an intellectual exercise for a decade or so. I don't think it is about superiority, or right, or wrong.

I think the original stock types traditionally moved outward to the frontiers as civilizations spread. Fleeing rules imposed from above, taxes, holy men, politicians and all the other trappings of civilisation that sapiens-sapiens is evolutionarily equipped for.

Now there are no frontiers left and the two sub-species are stuck with each other.

And I think THAT'S what we are seeing being played out in the world today.
:2wave:
 
Ive been saying that the irreconcilable divide between liberal types and conservative types was genetic for at least ten years. Its one of my pet theories.

Kinda cool to get scientific support for something you came up with yourself, debating with friends.

My theory goes like this:

About 12,000 years or so ago, some people stopped wandering from place to place following the food, and started staying in one place and cultivating food.

I think the human race began to diverge at this point, because this change in lifestyle would select for different traits.

Oversimplified, the core difference is neophilia/neophobia, although "phobia" seems too strong for what I posit.

More accurately, I feel it was more that a "hunger for the horizon", or a tendency to question one's position in the tribe, or any number of traits that make great hunter/gatherers would make LOUSY farmers. Miserable, unmarryable(sic?) farmers.

So a lack of hunger for, or interest in, new things would be more accurate.

That being said, submission to authority and a tendency to identify with the community would become strong selectors for what I call "pastoralis" types.

I think this is a more correct basis for what often appears to be a fear response in conservatives.

Understand, I think this is an interesting idea that I have thought about and talked about as an intellectual exercise for a decade or so. I don't think it is about superiority, or right, or wrong.

I think the original stock types traditionally moved outward to the frontiers as civilizations spread. Fleeing rules imposed from above, taxes, holy men, politicians and all the other trappings of civilisation that sapiens-sapiens is evolutionarily equipped for.

Now there are no frontiers left and the two sub-species are stuck with each other.

And I think THAT'S what we are seeing being played out in the world today.
:2wave:

Dude, in the traditional meaning of conservative, American conservatives and liberals are conservative on the UK scale.
 
What about people who change views through the course of their lifetime?
 
What about people who change views through the course of their lifetime?

2 possible answers to that,

One, your brain changes as it learns new information or two, your brain was already wired to accept your changed views, it's just the other methods (maybe conditioning) overrides your acceptance of the view.
 
No it's not, their left wing parties go for the 'new liberalism' stuffo, and so it has similar meaning to in the US.

Nuh uh, Lib-dems are definitely liberal. :mrgreen:

It kinda correlates with my own theory and a thread we have in the loft.
Although my theory did not involve larger gray matter but more acceptance of danger.
 
I think a comparative brain scan study of birthers and truthers would yield far more entertaining results.
 
To be honest though, we'd have to figure out what the term "liberal" and "conservative" is actually defined as per the individual participants before we could make an accurate assessment.

Edit: I'm not paying $31 to find out.
 
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