The Neuroscience of Political Orientation

Just recently, Universal Pictures cancelled the release of “The Hunt” after its blatantly biased depiction of conservatives (called “deplorables” in the movie) being hunted by the liberals was met with some intense criticisms from people across the political spectrum, including Donald Trump himself. However, this is not the first time the conservative-liberal divide was showcased on the silver screen. The 2018 Marvel blockbuster Black Panther was said to have a highly conservative narrative as well, with one news outlet comparing T’Challa to Trump and the Killmonger to the activist group Black Lives Matter. Ditto to The Kingsman movies with its conservative protagonists and liberal antagonists. Clearly, even Hollywood is caught up with the semantics of the liberal vs conservative divide, and this is not yet mentioning the myriad instances of liberal vs conservative bias in news media itself. Our society has become so polarized along political lines that it leaves one to wonder: what makes some people vote for particular parties? Why do some people support a certain ideology? This article aims to answer some of these burning questions with help from the psychological sciences.

 

Although it may appear at first that these two subjects are unique and exclusive within their own fields, it is – however - anything but. The field of psychology is the perfect complement to the incredibly esoteric study of political science because it strives to answer the same enigmatic question that has been plaguing political philosophers and cognitive scientists alike for centuries – what are the conditions that keep us together and apart? These are uniquely human questions that are, as of late, still relatively unanswered.

 

It is quite surprising because this is a particularly interesting area of study due to its potential in explaining how social institutions are formed, how political systems are made, and how a certain population’s ideology can determine their choice for government. By explaining these phenomena in a neuroscientific way, we can perhaps understand how entire societies collapse, why governments are corrupt and in between all of that - why some people are viewed as one of “us” and some, one of “them”. Studies like these can have substantial implications in so many areas including party campaigning, governance, and even foreign policy.

             

How are Conservatives and Liberals Different?

 

To start off, the differences between conservatives and liberals are many-fold; in fact, they are – in the political sense – complete opposites. Conservatives are usually referred to as “rightists” and “anti-federalists” meaning they support smaller governments, less regulations, more private sector activity, and a strict adherence to the constitution. They prefer to preserve the establishes and oppose change. On the other hand, liberals are often referred to as “leftists” and “federalists” because they prefer more governmental regulation and services such as universal basic incomes and healthcare for all. They are fine with any changes if it is a welcome one. Though what is particularly interesting between these two groups of people, are the way they think and process information on the biological and psychological level. Conservatives are said to be conscientious while liberals are more open. Although it is admittedly very difficult to single out any particular trait with being exclusive to either groups – recent studies have consistently shown replicated results that are too incontrovertible to deny, and within the academic world, replicability is considered the gold standard for quality of research.

 

 

Recent literature has shown convincing correlations between psychology and political orientation. According to a 2011 study done by a group of researchers from University College London (UCL) on young adults, the cognitive styles of conservatives differ very significantly from its liberal counterparts based on various psychological measures that predict political conservatism (Kanai, Feilden, Firth and Rees, 2011). As expected, conservatives usually score lower on openness to experience and higher on need for structure, fear of threat and death anxiety. This makes complete sense because these social traits are directly proportional to traditional conservative values. But what is even more interesting is that the researchers, through structural MRI analysis, found distinct neuroanatomical differences between individuals from the two political extremes; the liberals had greater gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex whereas the conservatives had greater volume on the right amygdala. Okay, before moving on there are some things that needs to be clarified, which is: 1) What is an anterior cingulate cortex and 2) what is an amygdala, and 3) why are they important in understanding the psychology of political orientation?

 

 

The Battle of Brain Regions: Anterior Cingulate Cortex vs Amygdala

 

So, the anterior cingulate cortex is a structure within the forebrain that forms a collar around the corpus callosum. This part of the brain is divided into two specialist areas: the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dAacc) and the ventral anterior cingulate cortex (vAcc). Each of these regions have their own distinctive roles to play, but generally it is understood that the dAcc is responsible for cognition whereas the vAcc is responsible for emotion processing. This is possible because the anterior cingulate cortex has connections to both the limbic system (emotional) and the prefrontal cortex (cognitive). As such, the anterior cingulate cortex is generally associated with a wide range of mental processes ranging from emotional awareness, error and novelty detection, to cognitive control. Moreover, the anterior cingulate cortex is paramount in modulating situation-dependent response evaluation and selection. On the other hand, the amygdala is an almond-shaped ball of grey matter located inside each cerebral hemisphere, and directly anterior to the hippocampus. The amygdala is associated primarily with emotion, emotional behavior, and motivation. Research have shown that disease and lesions can have a detrimental effect on the amygdala; for example, in Urbach-Wiethe disease, oxygen flow to the amygdala is restricted due to excess calcium deposits which restricts the ability of the amygdala to carry out normal functions. Patients with this specific disease show an inability to discern emotions in facial expressions but retain the ability for facial recognition. That sounds crazy however some patients even experience an inability to feel and process fear. As such, these regions of the brain are dedicated workers on the job and knowing what they do is important not only in understanding political opinion but thought as a whole.

 

 

 

 

 

The Neuroscience of Liberals, Conservatives, Us, Thems

 

    As the 2011 UCL study has shown, liberals and conservatives differ from each other in the neuroanatomical level – the liberals having a larger anterior cingulate cortex while the conservatives have a larger amygdala. However, brain activation patterns alone do not tell us much about whether an individual is liberal or conservative; that comes down to their thinking style and behavior. According to an interesting study done in 2012 by researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, they discovered that when conservatives and liberals were given a series of photographs, the eyes of conservatives would unconsciously stare at graphic images (i.e. “car wrecks and excrement”) longer than their liberal counterparts by 15 percent. The authors suggest that this could mean conservatives are more accustomed to threat detection than liberals, which makes total sense because one of the hallmark functions of the amygdala is initiating a fear response triggered by a threat stimulus.

 

Other than the conservatives being predisposed with a better ability to perceive threats than liberals, another group of researchers in a shocking study revealed that the bedrooms of conservatives were usually more organized, neat and structured compared to the liberals whose rooms were more messy, had more books, art supplies and travel souvenirs (Carney, Jost, Gosling and Potter, 2008). This study is consistent with the points discussed earlier that conservatives are more conscientious (i.e. they do not like uncertainty, and are very structured in their approach to things) whereas liberals are more open (i.e. they are willing to gain new experiences, and are more free). Interestingly, this is not the only instance where thinking style differs between the two in a non-political manner. According to a 2016 study done by researchers at Northwestern University, liberals and conservatives solve problems linked with political ideology differently as well. The participants were tasked with solving a word association problem known as the Compound Remote Associate (CRA) test which is designed to be solved either through insight or analytic processes. At the end of the assessment, the participants were asked by the researchers on their problem-solving methodologies. Before we move on, if you do not know what the CRA test is: Let us say you are given these three connected words (pine, crab, and sauce). Can you tell me what is the missing link? The answer is “apple”. This is an example of a CRA problem. At the end of the experiment, the researchers discovered that liberals were more likely to use insight thinking over purely analytical thinking to solve problems like these. In other words, liberals are better at “thinking outside the box” than conservatives, so to speak.

 

Interestingly, the two studies above have its own neuroanatomical origins. According to a 2014 study by researchers from Drexel University and Northwestern University, insight thinkers under EEG scanning exhibited greater activity in the right temporal lobe compared to analytical thinkers (Kounios and Beeman, 2014). In psychology, the temporal lobe is associated with creative insight and novelty recognition. On the other hand, conservatives are more analytical thinkers because their natural tendency to oppose change requires far less creative problem-solving strategies - linking them with decreased activity in the right temporal lobe. This is very significant because what this means is that, since insight is basically creative thinking, and creativity is a byproduct of insight, all the studies listed above confirms what political neuroscientists already know as the established hypothesis; thinking styles differ between liberals and conservatives, and the former are more “open and creative” and the latter, more “closed and structured”. As such, the neural correlates between the right temporal lobe and the anterior cingulate cortex are important waypoints for distinguishing liberal from conservative thought processes.

 

There is also the issue of an “Us” vs “Them” dichotomy which simply refers to, as the name suggests, the animus between two opposing groups. The liberal-conservative polarization is an example of this dichotomy however another form of this divide is the growing nationalistic sentiment fueled by populist leaders today. Not surprisingly by now, divisive politics can be explained through neuroscience as well. According to Baars and Gage (2010) in the book Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness, when participants in a research study were asked to make inferences about people who had similar or dissimilar political leanings to themselves, different areas of the brain would activate; judging similar people demonstrated greater ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VM-PFC) activity whereas judging dissimilar people showed greater dorsomedial PFC (DM-PFC) activity. The lower VM-PFC activity shown in the study have serious implications for this dichotomy as it implies that we attribute less emotional processing to people that are dissimilar to us. Another interesting biological component relevant to understanding this dichotomy is the concept of “mimicry” linked to mirror neurons in the brain. Unconscious mimicry is very important in driving human social interactions because we have a natural tendency to imitate one another; and being imitated has been shown to make people more assimilative (Baaren, Janssen and Dijksterhuis, 2009). Some functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging experiments have also shown that our mirror neurons are deactivated upon perceiving someone as an out-group - possibly in an attempt to resist making emotional connections with that person.

 

 

Final Insights and Conclusions

 

Evidently, a lot of our behaviors are dictated by our neurobiology as we are inherently biological creatures, and this is no different for people that fall within certain political spectrums as even their thinking styles could be attributed to their neuroanatomy. So to this end, the cross-sectional study of psychology and political science is especially important in our time because the 21^st century has been characterized by extreme levels of polarity between groups that continue to grow further apart from each other. By understanding the biological underpinnings of political behavior, we may be able to get to the root of the problems facing society today - and perhaps, and this could be wishful thinking on my part, solve them for good.