An article in the Washington Post a few days back described the ways in which social psychologists are using high tech tools like brain scans to study political bias.
The new interest has yielded some results that will themselves provoke partisan reactions: Studies presented at the conference, for example, produced evidence that emotions and implicit assumptions often influence why people choose their political affiliations, and that partisans stubbornly discount any information that challenges their preexisting beliefs.
Nothing too surprising there. But here’s where it gets really interesting:
Emory University psychologist Drew Westen put self-identified Democratic and Republican partisans in brain scanners and asked them to evaluate negative information about various candidates. Both groups were quick to spot inconsistency and hypocrisy — but only in candidates they opposed.
When presented with negative information about the candidates they liked, partisans of all stripes found ways to discount it, Westen said. When the unpalatable information was rejected, furthermore, the brain scans showed that volunteers gave themselves feel-good pats — the scans showed that “reward centers” in volunteers’ brains were activated. The psychologist observed that the way these subjects dealt with unwelcome information had curious parallels with drug addiction as addicts also reward themselves for wrong-headed behavior.
Apparently there’s more truth to the term “political junkie” than any of us realized.
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:21 am
It sounds to me like these research findings would apply to any activity that triggers cognitive dissonance.
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:21 am
I don’t know how to quit you, politics.
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:47 am
That report is just ridiculous!
Ahhhhh, reward centers…
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:47 am
It seems to me that, with all the rantings and ravings about how brilliant a leader Dubya truly is, Republicans have found a more potent and, in all likelihood, injectible version of the enzymes. Frightening, but I have to admit I want some.
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:53 am
“reward themselves for wrong-headed behavior”
This behavior, of course, reaches its ultimate flower when we kill each other in the name of [insert slogan here].
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:05 am
They didn’t find whether stupidity causes political partisanship or political partisanship causes stupidity. I would guess it’s a codependent relationship.
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:08 am
This is why I’m trying to develop a real drug habit as soon as possible. Damn you Bush for making me have to support Democrats again!
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:09 am
I can’t help but wonder… is this the great secret Republican plan? Perform so many stupid and reprehenible acts for their base to blindly ignore that they become rabid idolizers? Is that their secret?
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:11 am
The problem here isn’t ideological convergence but that mainstream Americans view politics much as they do sports: Team loyalty takes precident over the facts. In this case both “teams” share owners.
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:22 am
Great, scientific evidence of man’s ability to doublethink.
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:42 am
This actually explains so much. I know otherwise intelligent people who are absolutely unable to reason about politics.
It should also make all of us look in the mirror and re-examine our beliefs…
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:50 am
I personally would like to see the questions that were asked. I have always thought I was willing to accept the hippocracy of my fellow democrats and myself.
Read this nervous republican.
“Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said he disagreed with the study’s conclusions but that it was difficult to offer a detailed critique, as the research had not yet been published and he could not review the methodology. He also questioned whether the researchers themselves had implicit biases — against Republicans — noting that Nosek and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji had given campaign contributions to Democrats.”
I personally thought the report was extremely even handed but of course that wasn’t enough for the Repub. What a Jerk!
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:53 am
I wonder if this also sort of explains the whole “thanks to 9/11, now I’m outraged by Chappaquiddick” thing? Or I guess the Democratic corallary would be “Thanks to the attacks on gay marriage, now I’m outraged by Bush’s choice for Ambassador to the UN!”
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:56 am
Rik said: It should also make all of us look in the mirror and re-examine our beliefs…
Now, now… that’s crazy talk.
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Nice page
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Tom, Tom, Tom.
You disappoint me. A good Democrat like you should never have published such a thing.
But, I guess it’s OK. Sometimes a little indiscretion by someone who’s just a cartoon Democrat is OK.
Ooooooooooo!
I feel better somehow.
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Tom is a good Democrat? Oh, Lord, you never read his cartoon during the Clinton years. The man started ripping into Clinton on the day he was elected.
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:00 pm
And DG, do you know anything about John Bolton? The man is a maniac on wheels…
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:07 pm
i don’t understand why you left out the great quote at the end of the article:
“If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial,” he [Jon Krosnick] said. “We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, ‘This takes me aback,’ they are ignoring a huge volume of research.”
– and they will, you can be sure. after all, this is just ‘junk science,’ right?
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:35 pm
I believe it. With what is know about neral nets and neral pathways, this makes sense. The methodology would not be hard, they would just have to see which parts of the brain light up. Is the parts that deal in logic or emotion. Suprise! Suprise! it was the emotional part of the brain that lit up.
One of the things that that people need to look at is that life is far more amibious and has more shades of gray than we think. I am very good at seeing through other peoples BS unfortunately, I am not good at see through my own. I have learned to do my best to listen and hear what is being said. Hell, in groups I participate in I have even been know to oppose my own motions.
I have a close friend who is a liberatrian conservative. Huge worshiper of the invisible hand and all that. We have a blast arguing for hours on end. Debate is a wonderful thing. I can’t help but love it. I grew up in family where discussion was considered a contact sport. I learn more from people I disagree with than I those agree with. I have also found it strange that groups thatare in basic agreement on broad goals will slpit and spend more time fighting with one another, usually over silly points of minutia. The best artist example is Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian”
In fact, most ideologs (Left, right or center)I have met are more concrened about making point then they are about making a change.
Well I went on way too long. Socretes once said that “The wisest (hu)man uses the fewest words possible.” I am very concerned about what that says about me.
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Speaking of not seeing through your own BS. Sorry about the misspellings and horrid grammar of my previous post. Editing it is a good thing!
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:51 pm
Rik:
It was an attempt, a quick attempt, at satire.
And, I also voted for Nader. So I guess I’m as sympathetic to the Democrats as TT aka DP.
February 2nd, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Wartoad says: I learn more from people I disagree with than I those agree with.. I agree (and I still learned something!) one thing about this study is that it takes no account of… a process of digestion (or indigestion). I’m willing to admit my own bias upon reflection, (is that really me in the mirror?, darn I need a shave!) It takes time, sometimes years, sometimes days, and nites w/ strange dreams… to arrive at the simplest reality that does not jive with your own constuct.
February 2nd, 2006 at 2:12 pm
a reflection… gosh I’m a poor typist.
February 2nd, 2006 at 2:53 pm
There’s absolutely nothing new about these concepts. They’re taking 50 year old social psychology research and using brain scans to see what specifically about our neurology is involved in the process. This is different from breaking new ground.
What they’re looking at is calld a confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. Confirmation bias occurs when we look at facts that support our views as reinforcing evidence of them. Cognitive dissonance is when new informaton that is inconsistent with our world views is either rejected or reinterpreted so as not to cause any inconsistencies or force us to change our mind.
As for the information with the reward centre and the ‘addition,’ that’s a bit of a stretch. That reward centre isn’t just activated by drugs, it’s the centre that operates when we eat, drink, evacuate, see faces we find attractive and about a million other things. Of course, we shouldn’t blame the scientists for the great exaggerations, 99% of the time it’s the media that does the misinterpreting.
February 2nd, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Heh, Hudson, it’s hard to tell satire nowadays. Any satire you can come up with, probably at least 10% of the population believes something more absurd!
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:04 pm
Rik:
And I’m, uh, unpracticed at satire.
My forte is a form of discourse technically called “shouting at the television”.
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Dear Tom,
You’ve just been added to the ‘no fly’ list. Enjoy your next trip to the airport!
Your pal,
George W. Bush
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:18 pm
LOL Hudson, Good God! I thought that I was the only one who got into agruments with the idiot box. I hate that the TV is very unresponsive to my ranting.
Yeah Rik, it just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser doesn’t it? I recently saw a promo for a show all about amputations and fake limbs.
It is getting to the point where soon reality will be more surrealistic than any acid trip could be.
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:26 pm
People need to be more skeptical about studies of this nature. There is a lot of unsupported inference in any claim that because such and such a brain region is active, such and such a mental process is happening. The results are intuitively reasonable, and may be supported, but take any brain scan research with a BIG grain of salt.
Important to notice also, that these results were about how staunch believers of any stripe react. The belief structure (dem/rep) didn’t matter.
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Hmmm…why aren’t gun makers marketing pistols and shotguns to liberals who watch O’Reilly?
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Last time I shouted at a television, it was in a bar in Key West, FL, during my vacation in September. I believe my exact words were “WHO GIVES A $#!#??? JUST GET THOSE #^@%ING PEOPLE OUT OF #^@%ING NEW ORLEANS!!! SEND #^@%ING EVERYBODY IF YOU HAVE TO!”
The other people in the bar seemed a bit taken aback.
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Of course, we shouldn’t blame the scientists for the great exaggerations, 99% of the time it’s the media that does the misinterpreting.
yeah!, another made up statistic on an intraw3b board.
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:33 pm
Important to notice also, that these results were about how staunch believers of any stripe react. The belief structure (dem/rep) didn’t matter.
uhm , we get that. That’s what most of the jokes in this board were about: our own partisanship. pay attention.
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Sears.
I shouted at the television in Sears last week during the Preznit’s press conference.
I shouted softly, but still I shouted.
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:01 pm
wish I could remember exactly where, there was a post at Chaos Manor that suggested the survival value of this phenomenon and the value of groupthink overriding personal observation. Of course this is the basis of religious organizations. It’s fascinating, except for the repercussions.
The great tyrants of history implicitly knew of this and exploit[ed] it - Hitler et al for example. Now Karl Rove.
Doesn’t bode well for our future, now that technology has enabled groupthink on massive scales and the powerful have mastered manipulation of the media so enabled. Signs democracy’s death certificate, absent resurgence of an enlightenment movement that pursues a fact-based vs. belief-based reality. Probably not in my lifetime.
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Another study presented at the conference, which was in Palm Springs, Calif., explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes — subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups.
That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.
My liberal-junkie brain of course, immediately zoomed in on this, and thought to myself “Why isn’t -this- the lead paragraph!?! FUCKING LIBERAL MEDIA MY ASS…!”
Next, we will have a study showing people pictures of their kids’ baby pictures, daisies, and puppies (group a), and then show them pictures of slaughterhouses, genital herpes, and movie still of Tom Cruise in a too-short chain mail skirt from Legend (group b). Scientists will be shocked to learn that people’s pleasure-center is rewarded by pictures from group a, whereas they find ways to avoid looking at pictures from group b.
…I’m not saying that I compare our current V.P. to a genital herpe, but I’m also not denying it.
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Actually, I always imagined Dick Cheney to be more of a crab. But that’s just me. Maybe a crab with herpes?
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:45 pm
See, if he were an even-color of red, I would sign on to the crab theory. But as he’s red n’ blotchy, I think he bears more of a resemblence to a herpe. :p
February 2nd, 2006 at 5:23 pm
I was a die-hard conservative several years ago - I listened to Rush, subscribed to National Review, etc. I also had a problem with my anger and my wife was worried that I was screwing up my kids getting mad with a “hair-trigger” and yelling at them all the time.
So I talked to my doctor and she prescribed anti-depressants. I have been taking them for almost six years. My life has pretty much done a 180. Life at home is much better, my kids are doing great, etc. Politically, I am NOT a conservative anymore - but not a liberal in the Democratic party sense - more of an independent. Most importantly, I don’t waste all that time watching the “Sunday Shows” or much of any political TV (theater, really).
It’s definitely some sort of brain chemistry thing with the hard core political junkies.
February 2nd, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Speaking of independants, I wonder what performing these tests on self-identified independants would come up with?
February 2nd, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Jimmie
I wonder what brain scans of people who have changed their political affiliations would reveal. Would both emotional and logic sections light up, suggesting a more integrated brain functioning?
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:04 pm
I know there are many blowhard liberals (including myself) who sometimes do react in an emotional knee jerk sort of way to various forms of right wing rhetoric. But as liberals, I think we often do try to be open to at least thinking about opposing points of views…unfortunately, this can easily be portrayed as wishy washy, while the right, being ridiculously obstinate is seen somehow as strong and resolute. Interesting stuff! A good post!
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Tom - I can’t believe you wasted space on this topic, when there are so many other, more important topics to discuss!
OK, OK, I was just hoping for the pirate translation. :D
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Sounds like those who vote should just say no or be thrown in jail.
Maybe politics leads to harder things like religion or terrorism. Is rehabilitation possible? Proabaly not!
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:31 pm
What is this pleasure of which you speak? What are these “good feelings”? Please send further instructions! Yours,
Winchester Bannister Ryder III
c/o The Foundation
2916 K Street
Washington, DC
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:44 pm
St Paul E Wog-
I don’t think it would be seen as wishy-washy by reasonable people, if worded in a way that doesn’t SOUND wishy-washy. What seems wishy-washy is, well, wishy-washiness, AKA attempting to take all stands at once and offend nobody.
Of course, there are unreasonable people who will spin any liberal/progressive/Democrat who tries to “see both sides” as wishy-washy. Then again, many of these same people will portray Lieberman as a wild-eyed radical. They are best ignored.
February 3rd, 2006 at 1:02 am
Even more interesting than that, is the studied that suggest we actively deceive ourselves.
February 3rd, 2006 at 1:10 am
I’m sure we’ve all wondered just what is going on in the brains of the 38% or so who approve of Bush no matter what his latest disaster is. And exactly how bad does he have to screw up before the number drops below 1%?
February 3rd, 2006 at 2:57 am
yarrr, we landed on the strange isle of (insert topical paradise here) tho’ me first inclination was to search fer water, afterwards, the natives fed me a strange dish made of the native plants and fauna. What me eyes beheld then was a terrible site. Luck would have it that the local Shaman bludgeoned me wit’ me own sword. I awoke to the drums of a pagan danse. Lord fergive me fer what followwed, I partook of a native lass and it shivred me timbers. I do not judge these here a goin’s on, but pray fer savation in t’ lord.
February 3rd, 2006 at 3:46 am
As a Democrat I can’t remember the last time I got a buzz. No reward centers have been activated for this poor dem.