Reaction to Mutilated Animal Imagery Accurately Predicts Political Leanings

[Suzanimal]

Interesting.

One of the most fascinating things about political ideology is that it's likely much more genetic than most people realize. Of course "nurture" matters, but there's strong evidence that people are also born with certain features and personality traits that predispose them toward leaning liberal, conservative, or libertarian. A new study suggests that unconscious reactions to a single "disgusting image" can reliably predict whether someone identifies as liberal or conservative.

The study, published in the most recent issue of Current Biology, relied on brain scans of people shown a series of gross, pleasant, and neutral images. Researcher P. Read Montague, a Virginia Tech professor and head of the school's Human Neuroimaging Lab, said he was inspired by research showing political affiliation is highly heritable and how one identifies politically has deep connections to biology, especially the way our bodies respond to threats of "contamination" or violence.

The brain scans revealed that, indeed, the way one's neurons fired in response to gross-out imagery was a pretty damn good indication of whether one identified as liberal or conservative. While responses to the pleasant and neutral images were predictive of nothing, responses to an image of a mutilated animal body were split neatly down political lines.

"A single disgusting image was sufficient to predict each subject's political orientation," said Montague. "I haven't seen such clean predictive results in any other functional imaging experiments in our lab or others." The results "suggest that important foundational parts of political attitudes ride on top of preestablished neural responses," he said.

Self-reported responses to the imagery were not an accurate predictor of political persuasion.

"These results provide strong support for the idea that fundamental neural processing differences that emerge under the challenge of emotionally evocative stimuli may serve to structure political beliefs in ways formerly unappreciated," the researchers concluded.

Ronald Bailey has written here previously about research showing political conservatives are more easily grossed out. Other research has shown that those with low sensitivity to disgust tend to be liberals or libertarians.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/10/30/di...cts-party-ties

[Zippyjuan]

Conservatives who like guns and killing things are more easily grossed out? Hunters are used to that sort of thing as are people who raise their own animals for food who also tend to be more conservative. I would have thought liberals would be more squeamish- "ew, don't hurt that! We need to save them and protect them!" PETA, etc.

[luctor-et-emergo]

I am not easily disgusted with what I am seeing but I am often disgusted by what other people do to each other or animals for no good reason. I can watch these things but my blood starts boiling.

[Danke]

Conservatives who like guns and killing things are more easily grossed out? Hunters are used to that sort of thing as are people who raise their own animals for food who also tend to be more conservative. I would have thought liberals would be more squeamish- "ew, don't hurt that! We need to save them and protect them!" PETA, etc.

Liberals are more into war and mass killings.

[Zippyjuan]

Traditionally, Conservatives have been more hawkish on wars. Though lately liberals have moved in their direction supposedly to remove it as a "political advantage".

[pessimist]

Conservatives who like guns and killing things are more easily grossed out? Hunters are used to that sort of thing as are people who raise their own animals for food who also tend to be more conservative. I would have thought liberals would be more squeamish- "ew, don't hurt that! We need to save them and protect them!" PETA, etc.

My nervous system can't tolerate seeing any abuse of children or animals. I can't even handle hardcore porn.

However, I can watch someone get sliced to pieces with a chainsaw in a movie, or watch some faces of death video of a politician blowing his brains out, with complete and utter indifference.

How strange is that?

[heavenlyboy34]

Liberals are more into war and mass killings.

A conservative was the first person to give orders to annihilate a city with an atomic bomb...

[green73]

A conservative was the first person to give orders to annihilate a city with an atomic bomb...

Harry Truman was a conservative?

[Anti Federalist]

Harry Truman was a conservative?

Yeah that...he may have been many things, but I'd hardly call Truman a "conservative".

[Zippyjuan]

"Conservative" and "Liberal" have varied over time. By some measures, Reagan (the "king of conservatives" for some) would be considered liberal today.

[Danke]

"Conservative" and "Liberal" have varied over time. By some measures, Reagan (the "king of conservatives" for some) would be considered liberal today.

Progressives is a better term for most Liberals.

[heavenlyboy34]

Harry Truman was a conservative?

Yeah that...he may have been many things, but I'd hardly call Truman a "conservative".

He made the top 10 conservative POTUS list at Human Events. http://humanevents.com/2011/02/20/to...ve-presidents/

[heavenlyboy34]

"Conservative" and "Liberal" have varied over time. By some measures, Reagan (the "king of conservatives" for some) would be considered liberal today.

This^^ Semantics change wildly over time.

[Brian4Liberty]

Conservatives who like guns and killing things are more easily grossed out? Hunters are used to that sort of thing as are people who raise their own animals for food who also tend to be more conservative. I would have thought liberals would be more squeamish- "ew, don't hurt that! We need to save them and protect them!" PETA, etc.

What evidence do you have that hunters and/or butchers were included in the study?

[Brian4Liberty]

This article by the person who did the study sheds more light on the subject. And there is a fairly simple explanation that is consistent with expected results.

I would guess that an assumption that the cause is hard-wired vs. learned is not accurate at all. Eating a bowl of worms is a learned behavior. One group may find it to be an appetizing image, another group might not. Completely learned. This would mean that "conservatives" have a stronger reaction to anything that violates learned and established norms.

Are you easily grossed out? Then you might be a political conservative. That’s the suggestion from a new study published in the scientific journal PLoS ONE by a team of researchers led by University of Nebraska political scientists Kevin Smith and John Hibbing. The October study, “Disgust Sensitivity and the Neurophysiology of Left-Right Political Orientations,” tested a group of people whose political predilections had been previously identified on a survey. While hooked up to an apparatus that measures skin conductance, the subjects were shown a series of disgusting (a man eating writhing worms) and pleasant images (a bowl of fruit). As predicted, political conservatives tended to have a much stronger physiological reaction to the gross images than did liberals.

http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/18/ewww-politics

[phill4paul]

This^^ Semantics change wildly over time.

For the simple purpose of confusion and obfuscation. It is engineered.

[green73]

For the simple purpose of confusion and obfuscation. It is engineered.

But, but how is that done, Phil? It just seems too impossible. o_O

[euphemia]

I must be extremely conservative. I don't even like to read the thread titles when police shoot dogs.

Some kid killed a bobcat and hung it up on the goal posts at Tullahoma High School. He will be fined $50 for killing the bobcat.

[mczerone]

My theory (first fleshed out over at io9 where I first saw the story) is that conservatives have a physical reaction, and thus can trust themselves to act on "grossness" (i.e. injustice, defense, etc, etc.). Liberals recognize the grossness cerebrally, but have no compulsion to take individual action, thus they turn to the government to force everyone into action.

I also pointed out there that these "groupings" are created by the system we have: it molds people, by and large, into one of two camps. It pits them against each other, it changes their language, and makes them oblivious to the meta-issues by focusing them on wedge problems.

[XNavyNuke]

The actual journal article did not conclude that conservatives were more grossed out.

PDF
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/...14)01213-5.pdf

Instead, the imagery indicated that exposure to the stimuli resulted in increased neural processing in those self identified as conservative (figure 4). To me what is interesting is that the effect in liberals is not only diminished but also lags temporally.

XNN