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A study at University College London in the UK has found that conservatives' brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other "primitive" emotions. At the same time, conservatives' brains were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate -- the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.
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Originally Posted by sickofnyc
A study at University College London in the UK has found that conservatives' brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other "primitive" emotions. At the same time, conservatives' brains were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate -- the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.
Anyway, I think there is some basis to this. It's really only noticeable in the right-wing and/or religious extremists whose posts I read on the Internet. They seem to share some common characteristics:
- vulnerability to logical fallacies, like emotional appeal and post hoc ergo propter hoc
- a tendency to believe without evidence, or to ignore contrary evidence
- a fondness for argumentam ad ignorantum
- a tendency to react instead of thinking, hence "reactionary."
- complete lack of critical thinking skills, which if they had, would lead them away from their extreme position in the first place
Considering how many people I see that end up with a conservative or liberal mindset depending on where they grow up or end up living--I find these conservatives/liberals have different brain theories fairly humorous. So what do true libertarians brains look like? What about anarchists?
I think political choice in this country is in a way kind of a default to your cultural upbringing at some level. The people in my family that are conservative, grew up in conservative families in conservative areas... The ones that are more liberal grew up in more urban, liberal areas. Big fricking surprise.
Deezus makes a good point. If it is a "brain-thing" how does one explain certain areas or regions being more conservative or more liberal? Wouldn't it be fairly even across the board?
The issue here is that (surprise, surprise) as a general rule conservatives and liberals actually do think differently. That there might be a biological component to the difference is also a pretty unsurprising thing.
And thinking differently has consequences. I merely pointed out one of them.
All those liberal "biological component difference" theories arise from an inferiority complex in my opinion. That's been tried before with the skull shape differences.
A study at University College London in the UK has found that conservatives' brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other "primitive" emotions. At the same time, conservatives' brains were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate -- the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.
Are you suggesting that it's a bad thing? Perhaps libs are just too dumb to realize they should be scared.
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