Brain studies in regards to who becomes a Republican and whobecomes a Democrat (heroin, death)
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The article is misrepresenting the study to imply that conservatives are risk averse, whereas it actually implies the opposite.
The article states:
Quote:
Liberals tend to seek out novelty and uncertainty, while conservatives exhibit strong changes in attitude to threatening situations. The former are more willing to accept risk, while the latter tends to have more intense physical reactions to threatening stimuli.
Building on this, the new research shows that Democrats exhibited significantly greater activity in the left insula, a region associated with social and self-awareness, during the task. Republicans, however, showed significantly greater activity in the right amygdala, a region involved in our fight-or flight response system.
The first paragraph above references a meta-analysis of psychometric data. I've read through it, and it doesn't even attempt to demographically stratify its findings, meaning that it's close to useless to draw any meaningful inferences from.
The second paragraph states correctly that the right amygdala is more active in Republicans and the left posterior insula in Democrats when they engage in a basic gambling task. However, it misrepresents the roles of these brain areas.
The study states that the amygdala is concerned with "risk-taking", "reward-related processing" and emotion-processing. The posterior insula is concerned with "intolerance of uncertainty", social and emotion-related processing, "pain" and bodily self-awareness.
Relevant quotations from the study are below, and the link to the full text is here.
Quote:
"Functional neuroimaging studies have shown amygdala activation in reward related processing[34], encoding of emotionally salient information [35], risk-taking[36], processing positively-valenced stimuli[37], and appetitive/aversive olfactory learning [38]."
"The amygdala plays a critical role in orienting of attention to external cues [31] and fear conditioning[32]; however, this structure is also important for other emotional information processing and behavior [33].
"In the context of risk-taking decision-making, the amygdala is thought to be important for the processing of affective attributes involved in decision making [16]–[18]."
"In comparison, neuroimaging studies of insular cortex have observed critical involvement of this neural structure in pain [39], interoceptive [40], emotion-related[41], cognitive [42], and social processing[43]."
"The insular cortex is involved in the representation of internal bodily cues crucial for subjective feeling states and in signaling potential changes in interoceptive state to possible decision-related outcomes [10], [11], [19], [20]. Further, intolerance of uncertainty is related to posterior insula functioning [11]."
this sounds like an ad for the smithsonian magazine, i wonder what the mods would think of this? on the forum that i help administrate, this would be enough to get you banned from the forum permanently.
What, discussing the results of a scientific experiment?
There might be something to it. But lefties do seem fearful of softer things, like hurt feelings. Righties are afraid of different things, like losing personal rights. But everyone is afraid of something.
It is interesting there are different parts of the brain to represent broad social connectedness and tight social connectedness. Seems a little suspect they could be so distinguished.
We aren't "afraid" of hurting feelings. We are just more empathetic enough to give a crap more often...we don't want to if it can at be avoided. But for the most part we aren't "afraid". My emotional state in those situation is not one of fear.
Other scans have shown that brain regions associated with risk and uncertainty, such as the fear-processing amygdala, differ in structure in liberals and conservatives. And different architecture means different behavior. Liberals tend to seek out novelty and uncertainty, while conservatives exhibit strong changes in attitude to threatening situations. The former are more willing to accept risk, while the latter tends to have more intense physical reactions to threatening stimuli.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...J535p4TcZ2G.99
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Are tax payers paying for this kind of BS research. How about we spend more on cancer, depression and things that really matter.
Dude, I hope they didn't spend much money on this. Everyone knows the answer already. If the brain is located in the cranium, that person is a Republican. If it's located in the rectum, they are a Democrat.
I think it is more likely that a Liberal will become a Conservative the day he gets mugged going to work by a guy that does nothing but hang out leaching off the system and robbing people for weed money.
this sounds like an ad for the smithsonian magazine, i wonder what the mods would think of this? on the forum that i help administrate, this would be enough to get you banned from the forum permanently.
Maybe they have policies against it on Stormfront, but here we like to discuss scientific studies. Sorry you don't approve.
It does resonate with everything I know of conservatives that they fear change. They wring their hands about the fate of the country and yearn for the good old days when they were kids in the 50s or 60s. Everything was always better back before women got out of the kitchen, before blacks started opening their mouths, before gays got to be publicly gay, etc. Trump basically ran and won on the promise that he would turn the clock back to 1982. And the answer to threats usually involves "I'ma get my guns and hole up" kind of stuff.
So yeah, they definitely have trouble coping with a changing world. They don't want everything to stay even as it is; they want it to stay as it was in their minds when they were growing up. The world doesn't work this way.
Conservatives tend "to have more intense physical reactions to threatening stimuli."
This stuff is worth thinking about.
Conservatives tend to have intense physical reaction to what they perceive is threatening and everything is threatening.
So they are constantly on alert, looking askance at those who "aren't from around here," and yearning to go back to a time when it felt safer.
Seems that they are afraid of everyone from Lesbians to Libyans.
Is there any way to help Conservatives feel less threatened, less afraid?
I'm not seeing how any of that would explain liberals' mortal fear of poverty (as in always asking for more freebie welfare handouts), and their complete unwillingness to correct their own poverty issues. 2/3 of those on public assistance vote Dem.
FBI stats show more violence in the south.
More infant and maternal mortality in the south.
People from Alabama live about 2 years less than average Americans.
LA, NC, AL, etc. have highest STD rates.
Highest Obesity - therefore all associated disease:
1 w West Virginia 37.7% ±1.4
2 Y Mississippi 37.3% ±1.9
3 B Alabama 35.7% ±1.6
3 C Arkansas 35.7% ±2.4
5 R Louisiana 35.5% ±2.1
6 p Tennessee 34.8% ±1.8
7 Q Kentucky 34.2% ±1.5
8 q Texas 33.7% ±1.7
9 j Oklahoma 32.8% ±1.6
Blacks and Latinos don't vote GOP. They're a HUGE voting bloc for Dems.
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, given the following stats:
