I think that it is the use of pejorative terms that would offend a conservative. You could say that conservatives are more steadfast, less impacted by outside influences, demanding of clarity, and more cherishing of past experiences. I question the entire study when it insists on derogatory conclusions.

I’m a liberal but I have to agree with Chip. It’s better to avoid putting value judgments on biological functions. A trait that’s adaptive in one setting could be maladaptive in another. That’s why variability in phenotype helps preserve the species.

Also - we need to steer clear of simplistic biological determinism in interpreting data like these. The differences in the anterior cingulate gyrus could just as well reflect the result of different patterns of thought (different neural modeling) as the cause of them.

In other words, one could conclude that conservative brains look a bit different from liberal brains because their owners think differently - rather than that they think differently because their brains are different.

Random thought from someone with no scientific background or knowledge of the physical brain make-up…

I agree completely with the above 2 posters. If we can keep these kinds of studies from sounding even REMOTELY biased, we can probably make major changes in our government and laws - for the better. More research is needed, without resistance to it so it can be done openly and results can be shared the way they ought to be. Conservatives will violently resist any findings in studies that they see view them as derogatory. Think about it for a minute, folks. It is very well known that if you’re smart enough you can impose your opinion onto someone else. We’ve insisted, as a society, to broadcast this knowledge. We’ve also insisted on sharing it. Light references such as stating someone is closed minded or rigid would not be a good thing. They’re very much so considered “bad” characteristics in general terms such as the above. I trust science, scientists and their studies - I trust that it’s not biased and will yield true results versus the results we want. I have a hard time with trusting in this study though because it very much so sounds like someone wants to set me up for a “Divide and Conquer” situation. What I’d also fear is that the sheep that are human beings will interpret it as divide and conquer and begin to do so. Part of me wonders how we’ve regressed so far as a society. We really seem to think that’s the way life ought to be lived - and I thought we stopped playing that game once humans populated the world over. We are not meant to be separate but equal and cannot reinforce that opinion. *Hopping off the soapbox*

I read this study and could only smile. It’s so screwed up that it’s worth a laugh. A great rundown of what is wrong with this study can be found in a Slate.com article titled, “Rigging a study to make conservatives look stupid.”

I also like that this study seems to ignore the fact that there are moderates, Independents and Libertarians out there, and our thinking is quite different from both the groups who align themselves to one political/moral extreme. I consider myself Libertarian–so, socially liberal, fiscally conservative–and I’m not sure how solid this study would turn out on people like me. I suppose we’d be “halfway” inflexible.

Thou dost protest too much, methinks…

This study is simply putting an explanatory model on a phenomenon we already see in our politics. Yes, yes, it’s more complicated than that … blah blah blah. Has anybody been paying attention to the hyperpartisan Republican shenanigans over the past 20 years? Ever since Newt Gingrich and Frank Luntz disseminated a list of words to use when talking about Republicans vs. Democrats, the right has thrived on gossip, innuendo, manipulation, deceit and partisanship.

You can wring your hands and fret about whether the words being used in the study are “derogatory”. The right-wing attitude of putting party before country is what is derogatory… to our civil rights and our American principles. Anything that helps us figure out what the hell is going on inside the head of a Republicanite will potentially help us defuse these extremists.

Once again, science proves what we all knew to be true anyway. I have a plan to fix this problem-

http://hostilethoughts.blogspot.com/2007/10/brave-new-waterworld.html

I have worked with & for “Republicans” and people who think like they do. I have found out one thing as being a consistent behavior pattern. If you display attitudes of tolerance and empathy, especially towards anyone not as fortunate and/or powerful as yourself…they begin a pattern of derogatory actions and comments towards you. Not to your face fo course, and NOT to the people who work with or for you, but to anyone who can influence your carreer and lively-hood. ALWAYS

I agree with Clavis: “…the right has thrived on gossip, innuendo, manipulation, deceit and partisanship,” especially on manipulation and deceit–this is observably quantifiable for anyone who is thinking the liberal-left does the same. The left is far more free to rely on facts and data and deal with them honestly, because the two ideologies have produced very different (measurable) results, especially over the last few decades.

I see no reason why these characteristics wouldn’t be reflected in brain activity; in fact the surprise would be if it weren’t.

Andrew Schamess wrote: “In other words, one could conclude that conservative brains look a bit different from liberal brains because their owners think differently - rather than that they think differently because their brains are different.”

That seems to put an even worse spin on it, saying people shouldn’t think conservatively because it has a negative impact on brain function.

I’m almost shocked to find that nobody has put this study together with earlier studies that confirms this one.

In 1969, Berkeley professors Jack and Jeanne Block embarked on a study of childhood personality, asking nursery school teachers to rate children’s temperaments. They weren’t even thinking about political orientation.

Twenty years later, they decided to compare the subjects’ childhood personalities with their political preferences as adults. They found arresting patterns. As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient. People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3. The reason for the difference, the Blocks hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics.

The most comprehensive review of personality and political orientation to date is a 2003 meta-analysis of 88 prior studies involving 22,000 participants. The researchers—John Jost of NYU, Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland, and Jack Glaser and Frank Sulloway of Berkeley—found that conservatives have a greater desire to reach a decision quickly and stick to it, and are higher on conscientiousness, which includes neatness, orderliness, duty, and rule-following. Liberals are higher on openness, which includes intellectual curiosity, excitement-seeking, novelty, creativity for its own sake, and a craving for stimulation like travel, color, art, music, and literature.

The study’s authors also concluded that conservatives have less tolerance for ambiguity, a trait they say is exemplified when George Bush says things like, “Look, my job isn’t to try to nuance. My job is to tell people what I think,” and “I’m the decider.” Those who think the world is highly dangerous and those with the greatest fear of death are the most likely to be conservative.

Liberals, on the other hand, are “more likely to see gray areas and reconcile seemingly conflicting information,” says Jost. As a result, liberals like John Kerry, who see many sides to every issue, are portrayed as flip-floppers. “Whatever the cause, Bush and Kerry exemplify the cognitive styles we see in the research,” says Jack Glaser, one of the study’s authors, “Bush in appearing more rigid in his thinking and intolerant of uncertainty and ambiguity, and Kerry in appearing more open to ambiguity and to considering alternative positions.”

The point I am making here should be obvious. Conservatives think the way they do because they have deep seated personality defects and certain areas of their brains simply do not function. I’m not surprised to learn that they whine about these findings. Nor am I surprised to find they can’t learn from the results.

“Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism” by David M. Amodio at NYU demonstrates that people who self identify as liberal are better at noticing differences. Perhaps this is the foundation of the Democratic obsession with race politics and class warfare.

It might also be worth noting that liberal minded people are far more likely to go into the mental health professions. Liberals tend to gravitate to fiends in which they can “make a difference” where as Conservatives gravitate to business with a focus on profit. In my experience I can tell you that every psychiatrist, psychologist, counselor and social worker I have had political discussions with identify as liberal, moderate or uninterested in politics. I have yet to meet any who self identifies as conservative. We must seriously consider bias in our own ranks. Being a rare Libertarian in the mental health field, I am frequently appalled by politically / socially bias assumptions mental health practitioners carry over into their work. Women are seldom held to the same standards as men in cases of sexual abuse of children or domestic violence. Practically every boy who’s mother complains about his behavior to a mental health professional will be diagnosed as ADHD, IED or ODD and medicated. Unproven 12 step programs which promote the disease / victim model are widely promoted. A problem with mental health being so deeply populated by folks who lean left wanting to “make a difference” that their desire to do good compounded by a professional bubble lacking dissenting opinions leads to a climate skewed by pervasive yet not necessarily accurate assumptions.

So scientists from California and New York conduct studies and later write an article that flatters liberals and dismisses conservatives as inflexible numbskulls. Why am I not surprised by these ’scientific’ findings?

If these findings are true, then the Democratic Party should have no problem digging itself out of the Michican-Florida voter disenfrancizing fiasco. They will surely use their flexible brains to figure out how not to splinter the Democratic Party over a superdelegate/popular vote fight.

My stunted inflexible brain can’t wait to see what these geniuses do.

@ Bushs 3 recessions failure or treckle down economics and 18 th economics when Nixon gave up a bastion of 18th economics and gave up the gold standard to finace the Veit Nam war finally the industral rev had the capital advance conservation a total failure 2 Bushes 3 recessions 18 th century economics

Gerald L Ellingsworth demonstrates his cognitive flexibility by grossly deviating off discussion topic. Classical rules of grammar and punctuation are also abandoned in favor of more dynamic hybrid language technology. Clearly leftists like Gerald L Ellingsworth are shining examples of intellectual superiority. It’ was all so brilliant, I have no idea what all he said.

A comment on the study noted by Marq Goldberg:

quote:
“Twenty years later, they decided to compare the subjects’ childhood personalities with their political preferences as adults. They found arresting patterns. As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient. People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3. The reason for the difference, the Blocks hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics.”

Wouldnt “self-reliant” be a more apt description of conservatives? Its conservatives that tend to champion smaller government, less government intervention in personal affairs, and laizzez-faire economic practices.

Also, the conservative children were described as “indecisive”? yet elsewhere in this thread, conservatives are described as inflexible and steadfast in thier viewpoints. Liberals are characterized as being the more flexible and seeing more grey area. That just doesnt add up.

I’m Libertarian/Conservative and i see a lot of myself in the descriptions given to both groups of children.

re Marqs comment:

“The point I am making here should be obvious. Conservatives think the way they do because they have deep seated personality defects and certain areas of their brains simply do not function. I’m not surprised to learn that they whine about these findings. Nor am I surprised to find they can’t learn from the results.”

In my life experience it is Liberals who tend to show the same “personality defect” namely arrogance. they tend to think that anybody who doesnt believe as they do is somehow stupid, and by stupid i mean has much lower intelligence. Conservatives are often portrayed unrealistically as uneducated countrified rednecks or trailer trash. i have a liberal friend who honestly believes that President Bush is functionally illiterate. He has insisted so many times. I tried to point out that Bush is a Yale grad and that Yale isnt in the habit of passing idiots through that school but he just wouldnt let facts get in the way of his opinion. I would not describe him as “flexible” in his thought.

also:

“Liberals are higher on openness, which includes intellectual curiosity, excitement-seeking, novelty, creativity for its own sake, and a craving for stimulation like travel, color, art, music, and literature.”

i love all that stuff.

response to gerald:

“@ Bushs 3 recessions failure or treckle down economics and 18 th economics when Nixon gave up a bastion of 18th economics and gave up the gold standard to finace the Veit Nam war finally the industral rev had the capital advance conservation a total failure 2 Bushes 3 recessions 18 th century economics ”

i cant understand most of what you wrote, but there has only been 1 period of economic recession during the Bush administration. This occurred early in 2001 a few months after he took office and months before most of the economic bills he signed went into law. Recessions are a normal part of overall economic growth and historically happen about once every 5-10 years in this country.

————————————–

I think the first 2 posters got it right. Many shades of conservative/liberal and several other outliers.

The most important thing to recognize about
this debate is that there are actual
categorical differences between the two. A
Conservative individual is not going to be
comfortable in a mostly Liberal dominated
world. Neither is a Liberal going to be
comfortable in an all Conservative world.

I believe the pain for each would not just be
“uncomfortable” - it would be profound.

Now stand back and look at the political
platforms of each group and ask yourself this
question; “Which group makes the most
allowances for the others existence and
self expression” in the way it views society?

Which world view has as it’s core value the
idea that EVERYONE should thrive?

I’m not going to tell you. I have found that
where sensibilities are concerned, arguments
seldom surfice. You can’t argue color
coordination with somebody born color blind.

So if you get it - than you know who you are
and if you don’t? - you’re probably going to
join a political party with people who don’t
make you feel like you have missing pieces.

Thank You