Liberal and Conservative Brains
What I watched: Liberal vs. Conservative: A Neuroscientific Analysis with Gail Saltz | Big Think. Posted May 29, 2016.
As we approach the November midterm elections, political discussions and debates are heating up around the country. This is true for every election cycle. Lately, though, it seems that the polarization of the American electorate has increased. That’s simultaneously disturbing and a call to figure out how we can best talk to each other between the liberal and conservative camps.
It turns out there has been research that has identified structural brain differences in liberals versus conservatives.
So, I think what's really fascinating is that there have been a number of recent studies looking at brain structural differences between liberals and conservatives. And what's been found in several studies is that liberals tend to have a larger anterior cingulate gyrus. That is an area that is responsible for taking in new information and that impact the new information on decision making or choices. Conservatives tend on the whole to have a large right amygdala, amygdala being a deeper brain structure that processes more emotional information, specifically fear based information. So, it’s really for the flight or fright response.
There are of course political leanings that run the gamut from extremely liberal to extremely conservative and everything in between. The speaker in the video, Dr. Gail Saltz, an esteemed psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, writer, and commentator, clearly points out that everyone falls somewhere on a Bell Curve with people who often call themselves Independents hovering at the mid-range. That said, the information in the video that there appear to be structural brain differences between liberals and conservatives is fascinating and useful.
What was surprising to me is that the studies showed that based just on brain structure size differences alone and nothing else one could predict who is a conservative and who is a liberal with a frequency of 71.6%. Think about that. That’s an incredibly high prediction rate based solely on knowing the differences between people’s brain structures. This says to me that a lot of our liberal and conservative tendencies are built into our physicality.
Another set of studies looked at how predictive one’s parents’ political leanings were in determining a child’s leanings. Turns out you could predict at a rate of 69.5%.
Saltz is quick to point out that our brains are plastic. A person might have a brain structure that informs whether they will be a liberal or conservative, but one could also conclude that the formation of certain thoughts from parents shape a child’s brain structure.
Knowing that our brains are plastic and ever changing, particularly during youth, we can imagine that certain thoughts so strongly influence a child that it also becomes predictive who is liberal or conservative.
Let’s say someone’s right amygdala, the fear processing part of the brain, is large. That person is likely to be more informed by a response to a fearful situation. We might be seeing some of this fear-based processing in the extreme Right-wing elements of the Republican party who are using fear to stoke their political base.
Conservatives have some recurring characteristics. They rate high in stability, loyalty, resistance to change, and being more religious. Conservatives with these characteristics come to opinions and make decisions through the lens of these characteristics.
Liberals tend to have greater tendencies to like change, receptivity to new information, and a respect for science. They form their opinions and make decisions through that lens.
These differences sync with the research done on brain structures.
Saltz again points out that people don’t all fall into one extreme camp or another. One conservative might reside on the extreme Right end of the political spectrum while another conservative might fall somewhere to the right of center of the Bell Curve. An extreme Right-wing Trump loyalist, for example, might have much more conservative views overall than a conservative who anchors their politics mostly in conservative economic theory or the right to own a sporting rifle.
Saltz noted there have not been studies done yet on how brain structures relate to Independents, those who fall closer to the middle of the spectrum. Even if we can predict liberal or conservative leanings with some accuracy at a rate of 71.6%, that leaves a bunch of people who don’t fit into the brain structure explanation for their Left/Right views.
For me, the key takeaway point in Saltz’s presentation is that understanding how brain structure affects a person’s political leanings helps us understand what informs people’s strong opinions. When we are trying to change people’s minds, it’s valuable to know what underpins the ability to change a mind.
Let’s say you’re quite liberal and a family member is more conservative. When you try to convince someone conservative like that family member by presenting new information, it’s received by the conservative person through the prism of their brain. You might present the same new information to a liberal person and they’ll interpret it quite differently than a conservative person.
The science says to us that some people hear information and retreat to the comfort of their original thinking patterns, their comfortable opinions. Yet other people will hear that same information and be more open to changing their mind.
Saltz positions the research results within the construct of political discourse, trying to change people’s minds to our way of thinking, perhaps hoping they’ll vote our way in an election. We need to be able to communicate across the chasm of the political spectrum.
And so, if you’re a liberal and say you want to talk to a conservative about gay marriage, you want to have in your mind how it might still speak to loyalty, stability, and religious belief in some way. You want to have those ideas inform your communication as opposed to simply saying but, you know, this percentage of the population is homosexual and therefore, you know, we should consider whether everybody should have those same rights. And, you know, science shows it’s not a choice. It’s simply a fact you’re gay or not gay. And therefore, shouldn’t those people have the same rights? That’s not the best way to appeal perhaps to a conservative on this issue.
Instead, you want to appeal to a conservative per their own worldview. Maybe emphasize that marital rules or history might be maintained, not altered for those in what’s often called a traditional marriage. Offer information that it won’t interrupt the basic fabric of their lives or whatever rules they currently adhere to. As a liberal, I might feel same-sex marriage is an obvious, absolute right. I stand by that. But that’s not going to always be persuasive to someone entrenched in their conservative thinking, thinking that’s already perhaps predisposed due to their brain structure or childhood upbringing.
Alternatively, a conservative can appeal best to a liberal using new information that is fact or science based and not overly influenced by a religious perspective.
This feels like vitally important information to take in. There is so much political rancor and division these days. There is ultimately no viable solution to that unfortunate situation other than figuring out how to talk to each other, individually and collectively.
By being empathically understanding, and by that I don’t mean sympathetically understanding. I mean truly being able to stand in the other person’s shoes and have some insight into where their brain is directing them and appealing to that argument.
So, if you are a conservative, you will want to appeal with new information because liberals are more novelty seeking potentially. And often science based is a good way to present new information.
These days, as Saltz points out, many among the American electorate are doubling down on their style of thinking per their group’s overall mindset. That intransigence prevents the kind of communication that’s important to our future. We can’t “cross the aisle,” so to speak, because that would require us attempting to think for a moment using the thought patterns of the other group.
This is not easy! Saltz admits to that. It’s difficult to not take a fear-based stance if that’s historically one’s default mode. It’s incumbent upon all of us to step outside of our usual patterns of thinking and established opinions to try on for size someone else’s way of thinking.
Saltz uses the example topic of gun ownership to explain how each side might communicate best to appeal to the other. The conservative camp’s resistance to allowing for science-based research on gun violence is a way they can avoid potentially contrary evidence that might sway opinions about something they consider a cherished tradition or rural family norm. Liberals, on the other hand, want such research to take place, not to take guns away from people, but to validate whether or not certain things about guns are good or bad for us overall.
Saltz concludes by talking about research that’s concluded one could predict a person’s liberal/conservative mindset at a rate of 82.6%. That research looks at using a functional MRI to examine activity taking place in certain parts of study participants’ brains.
It was found that when the subjects did a risky behavior, and their brain activity was tracked,
conservatives were more likely to light up in the fright and flight response area, the amygdala, and liberals were more likely to light up in areas that have to do with social awareness.
Again, you could see how therefore this difference would inform what comes to the mind of either a liberal or a conservative while either involved in a risky behavior or even something that’s happening externally to them but feels like it might impact them in a risky way. And that was actually even more predictive than looking at structure of the brain or what your parents were in terms of liberal versus conservative.
I found this video eye opening. I’ve read and known about strategies and theories about communicating across political viewpoints, but this video gave me an appreciation that much of a person’s political leanings might be under the significant influence of their brain structures, upbringing, or patterns of brain activity.
Let’s hope we can all talk to each other across the liberal/conservative and Left/Right divide because it’s the only way we’re going to govern our country from a place of creating the best legislation and outcomes for the entirety of the population.
You can use this link to access all my writings and social media and ways to support my work.