Subscription Center
Sep 18, 2008 03:35 PM | 45
Here's a fun trick: scare someone you don't know, then guess whether they favor the death penalty and the war in Iraq based on how freaked out they got.
People with stronger startle reactions are more likely to support ideologies associated with conservative American politics, including the Patriot Act, obedience and biblical truth — and less likely to favor gun control, foreign aid, abortion rights, gay marriage and pornography, according to research published in today's Science. Those who are slower to scare are more likely to harbor traditionally liberal politics.
The findings build on previous research showing that experiencing trauma can skew one's politics to the right.
But what comes first: biology or politics? "It could be working either way," says study author John Alford, an associate professor of political science at Rice University.
Your visceral reactions to situations could encourage your political leanings, or your ideology could shape how you respond to circumstances, his study notes. "This could be a fairly durable but still learned response, or a difference in underlying physiological systems themselves," Alford says.
The results are based on surveys of 46 Nebraskans who said either that they strongly identified with policies that protect the social order or with ideologies that do not. Scientists then measured how strong they blinked and how easily their skin conducted electricity when they looked at threatening, non-threatening and neutral images.
Having conservative leanings predicted stronger physiological reactions to the scary pictures, including a spider sitting on a person's face, a bloodied face and a maggot-infested wound. People who leaned more politically left didn’t respond any differently to those images than they did to pictures of a bowl of fruit, a rabbit or a happy child.
Political ads, then, are most likely to reinforce what we already believe than to change our minds. "If the content is not there, you may not alter their position at all," Alford says of campaign spots. "They're more likely to rally the troops and get the base to turn out than to persuade anybody."
(iStockphoto/Claudia Dewald)
Tags:
biology,
politics,
brain,
physiology
More News Blog:
Next: Nobel winners, other scientists advising Obama, report says
Previous: Hackers hit Palin, expose the dangers of using personal e-mail to conduct business
See what we're tweeting about
mdichristina So cool. RT @sciam: 3-D Printed Windpipe Gives Infant Breath of Life http://t.co/7AdlnD0rWr
notscientific Dreaming of animals may be a warning sign of neurodegeneration. By @mocost http://t.co/XTQcbalnXg
sciam 3-D Printed Windpipe Gives Infant Breath of Life http://t.co/sKGKU4BWwf
Deadline: Jul 30 2013
Reward: $100,000 USD
The Seeker desires a method for producing pseudoephedrine products in such a way that it will be extremely difficult for clandestine che
Deadline: Jun 29 2013
Reward: $7,000 USD
The Seeker for this Challenge desires proposals for chemical methods that could rapidly degrade a dilute aqueous solution
Powered By: 
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
45 Comments
Add CommentSounds like a bunch of pop psych to me... then again, those really conservative folks DO tend to be a little twitchy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo "the right" really is AFRAID.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExplains why they want guns.
Sounds to me like they misinterpreted their data. If a conservative sees a spider on a face, or a bloodied face, his skin will begin to twitch and he will blink nervously because he wants to do something about it. It is difficult for a conservative to just sit there and do nothing. If a liberal sees the same thing nothing happens. Why would they get nervous or excited? There is nothing they can do about it. They will sit there until the government rescues them - all the time thinking, why the hell doesn't the government do something?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOdd. I was going to say the opposite: The operationalization seemed very well done in this case.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAm I the only scientist who reads this website? 46 is an extremely small sample size first of all, and what is being presented here demonstrates a correlation wherein there is no reason to believe that the fear causes the political leanings. I would also draw your attention to the fact that the real AMOUNT of correlation is remarkably absent from this report. It could have been a difference of one more person afraid of spiders on the conservative side for all we know.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt doesn't make sense to dismiss these findings altogether, especially without seeing the paper it references.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, it seems likely that social influences play the main role in determining if a person accepts progressive or conservative views. To wit, opposition of gay marriage or abortion are often, though not always, founded in religious notions. Startle reactions may be simply the effect of social factors.
"Black is anger, white is fear, can you hear me? Am I clear?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLyric-red hot chili peppers
Of course fear is the dividing line in politics, it is the most worn tool in the whole governments toolbox. As the fact that the Dems & Repubs have had no real competition from the other parties in quite a long time indirectly shows, the lesser parties do not have as much ability, desire or backing to scare the public. The theory presented in the article is solid and the fact that Mr. Alferd does not presume to say which causes the other does not diminish the parallels he has found.
We know gravity is real, but we do not understand the why. Proof.
Really?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo it's true...only a fool is never afraid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr as John Milton wrote, "Where no hope is left, is left no fear."
The population size is too small; I do agree with the previous comment about that detail. There is most probably no correlation between political leaning and " a startle factor." Where is the science here?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's obvious, isn't it? People consumed with superstition and mired in ignorance are bound to be afraid of everything since they understand nothing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisscene when does 46 sample consutue a vialed study and what about the worry about global warning worry about loosening there right to chose worry abount losing their home and a number of other things
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisscene when is 46 considered a valid study and what about the left and global warming , fast food, overpopulation dibolt voting machines, second hand smoke and there constance doom and gloom perdition that alway seem just around the corner but never happen
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe startle reaction is just the immediate trigger for the "fight or flight" reaction, which is well documented in many animals, including us. A better sample seems likely to wash out the political connection. The variability seen in this study may relate to the experience of the individuals; people may become numbed after seeing a lot of blood and guts movies. Might be interesting to see if the data correlate with age because younger people may view more of that kind of "entertainment". (Oh, and older people are more likely to be conservative.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe other idea expressed above, that fear is useful in electioneering, is beyond dispute --- both sides will tell voters that a vote for the other guy means the end of civilization as we know it. Elsewhere on this site there's been a useful discussion about how fear sells everything from deodorant to religion. It may be true that liberals and consrvatives are afraid of different things.
Sample size is obviously too small for findings to have any real scientific validity. However the general publics immediate change in support for typically conservative ideals after 9/11 would seem to support this hypothesis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf the people I know (which is most of them) that follow politics, the lefties are definitely more suited to handle abrupt change, and if made to make a a snap decision will make it unpredictably, whereas the righties are definitely resistant and if made to make a decision quickly, will default to a status quo nearly every time. Most of my friends and all of my family are very conservative, and the more time I spent observing their reactions to things, the more I noticed that underlying all the talk of big ideals, is a rich layer of fear of anything outside their relatively small comfort zone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFollowing politics is on par with following celebrity news. Want to study something? Study political science, learn the way our governement is supposed to work (and why it doesn't work that way), study history, sociology, biology, psychology, and human behavior. All things that should be taught in schools. Politics is arguing philosophy without the philosophy.
They got the end results wrong, instead of "conservative leaning people are afraid" It should read "liberal leaning people have no real compassion" What kind of person can look at someone with a bloody face, obviously wounded and in pain and have no differant reaction than looking at a happy child? This "research" is skewed in the extreme, as previously noted by the miniscule sampling size.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis was based on 46 Nebraskans? Great sample.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am politically far to the left and I scare very easily.
On the field of battle, where it really counts, I have seen both cowardice and bravery; from both committed liberals and conservatives. This 'study' is at best misinterpreted and poorly constructed, at worst just plain silly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis study is in fact limited in it's source data. There are however several studies/papers written in psycological journals that suggest the victems of acute anxiety/panic or generalized anxiety disorders are easily manipulated by fear rhetoric and sensationalism. Effectively applying this to the supporters of political parties isn't such a stretch when the base ideologies and campaign approaches are taken into consideration. Media watchdog groups have repeated the claim for years that the Republican party does use more "fear based" approaches in it's public statements. Remember the smoking gun "in the form of a mushroom cloud". Study after study has also concluded that Americans respond more to negativity than positivity. I think, while being weak on data this study is not without merit. Especially given the extensive research on fear/judgement done by psycologists for over 100 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are essentially three kinds of people: 1) the person who thinks "I am my brother's keeper" (liberals), 2) the person who thinks "my brother should take care of himself" (conservatives), and, 3) the "person" who thinks "I have no brothers, only objects to be used for my own amusement" (the thankfully small percentage of sociopaths among us). This is over-simplifying, of course, but is the crux of the difference...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf this is poppycock, then why do conservative ads and speeches rely so much on fear? According to Drew Westen (Political Brain) 250 studies have shown that stimuli that stir up mortality salience (thoughts of one's own death) shift people's view rightward. Again, if this isn't true, then why do politicians keep using it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomething is going on. we just don't know exactly what yet. Alford & Hibbing discovered the heritability of political attitudes in 2005.
www.neuropolitics.org www.politicalspecies.com
If this is valid (along with numerous other studies that show how mortality saleince shift people's views to the right - Jost et al) then we would see outward signs, such as conservative politcal ads using fear more than liberal ads, which certainly seems the case.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor furhter reading on the junction of biology and evolution on partisan politics, see www.neuropolitics.org www.politicalspecies.com
I call total BS. The entire left ideology is nothing but one long fear rant. You will starve. You will be back in slavery, you will be under a theocracy, the world will hate you, you will lose your privacy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBefore I even read the article, I knew the answer to this study, because one other thing you can tell about the psychology of the left: a tendency to stereotype.
Your analysis is wrong. Listen carefully, and you will determine the following underlying philosophy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLiberal: Your brother can't take care of himself, you have to do it.
Conservative: Your brother can take care of himself, teach him how to do it.
So you're saying that before you even read the article, you knew what the study results were going to be, because you're saying that "the psychology of the left" has a "tendency to STEREOTYPE"? Awesome... =)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI absolutely agree with the findings. Liberals are those who live in unrealistic academic worlds of comfort and safety or in fantasy worlds of denial. They don't recognize a true threat until it is too late and they have become a victim. Conservatives live in the real world where there are REAL dangers, where we have actually been hurt, or robbed or threatened and our reflexes are therefore attuned for survival. And yeah, we got a little freaked on 9/11. Those who didn't were either not PERSONALLY affected by it and are unable to empathize with people who aren't their immediate firends or family members, or they were, and still are, in deep, deep denial.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article confirms something that many of us have known for some time now. Scientific American is no longer a magazine for serious scientific discussion. Sadly, the magazine has entered a subset of the National Enquirer genre for persons who like to masquerade as intellectuals. This article is a joke like so many others that have appeared here in the past few years. We are witnessing the final decline into mediocrity of a fine journal whose first issue appeared over 160 years ago. The persons responsible deserve to be charged with a crime.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe this article and the science that has also been mentioned is valid. The belief systems of the Right are reactionary and usually address the symptom rather than the root. For instance, a conservative will see statistics that crime is up and suggested tougher sentences more police officers. A progressive may consider that the crime may have more fundamental causes like lob loss, lack of education and opportunity. You know people reacting out of fear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfraid of change, afraid of what they will lose if they aren't sickeningly rich, afraid of the scary brown people (and there are so many all over the world), afraid to think for themselves. It shows the underpinnings of the rights desperate need to control others. You can smoke that weed, you can't choose what to do with your body, you can't choose who to marry? Why? Because you are afraid of what might happen. That somehow something bad is going to befall you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe delusion of control is a symptom of irrational fear. You can't even control yourselves ( see: sex scandals and corruption), anyone with a child knows you cannot control them, and really you have no right to try to control others.
The purpose of government differs for the parties for this reason.
For the right there are actually two levels to consider. The constituents and the politicians who I believe put forth the ideas that they do. For the constituents government is a tool to legislate away anything they are afraid of or threatens there oft superstitious and fragile ideas.
As for the leaders of the party I believe they are using fear as a very useful tool for manipulating the populace into granting them the unreasonable power they need to abuse the systems for sickening war profiteering, tax cuts for the rich and whatever other clever tricks they can devise to turn a profit. Its a standard formula that has been well known for some time. http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.asp
I think the progressives see government as a cooperative tool for national and local DEFENSE and fostering improvements to our society that benefit all and are beyond the scope of any one of us. Would any of you want to do without the progressive work of the government such as the highway system, the internet, municipal plumbing, public education, etc, etc.
I don't want a "day care state" or intend to be blindly pacifistic. People who can work should and realistic threats should be taken out. However I can put aside irrational fears and realize that if we help educate and provide opportunity for our citizens we won't need more police because they can deal with the truly criminal and not with those who are simply desperate. Or that violence begets violence and endless wars will never make us secure. Or that locking up non-violent cannabis users exposes them to worse criminal elements, presents a tax burden, wastes a tax opportunity, and ultimately accomplishes nothing.
You must surely realize that this entire country is "worlds of comfort and safety", "fantasy worlds of denial." Have you ever watched world news? The whole world suffers in turmoil and poverty. 3000 people died tragic deaths in an unfortunate event orchestrated by a CIA trained operative. It was horrible and unnecessary. We all agree. But to extend that threat to the remaining 300 million is unrealistic. It is NOT a REAL threat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd also I view your idea of empathy to be very narrow. You show only empathy for those you feel a close connection. I question if your empathy extends to the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi that have died day in and day out over the last 5 years.
a
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe are vague slanders with no backing and present no intellectual challenge to the relevant findings in this article. There is room for criticism of the sample population for instance. However you chose to make a reactionary and extremist statement. The kind of thing this article correlates to fear. Perhaps you are afraid of the ramifications of this idea and what it means for you. Perhaps you are reacting with fear that yourself or others would view you as a coward. Are you afraid to be afraid?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy reaction to this "study" is similar to other people's reactions. The sample size seems to small to draw the specific type of conclusion spelled out in head line of the article. The content of the article takes us a little further from the notion that fear = right leaning politics. Also, even if the study were conducted on no less than 4,600 people per state, these conclusions would still be invalid (as described in the article). I am a little surprised SciAm would post this sort tabloid science on their website.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI, like a few other posters, do react with fear at times. Other times I react with focussed curiosity (especially when looking at 2 dimensional photographs). I would tend to think this is true of most people. I think the real answer is probably terribly complex... it's not about black, white, or even gray areas.
I suppose, based on some of the responses I've read, the only real lesson here is to think about what you read and see in the news critically. Take the time to consider that it might be in error (whether intentional or not). What does a photo of a bloody child mean? What happened to them? Why am I being shown this picture? Honestly, what inferences can be drawn from the information?
After many other attempts to post my comment regarding this article, here goes . . .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is quite telling that the Republican "right" utilizes fear to motivate voters to their side. The very connotations of the terms "right" versus "left" are designed to elicit fear: fear of not being "right"--i.e., correct, and fear of being "left"--i.e., left behind. The latter tactic has been employed by the "religious right" in their rhetoric regarding "the rapture," by scaring people to join their religion by attempting to convince them if they do not, they will be "left behind" to some terrible fate.
The term "right" is derived from the Sanskrt term "rta" which means correct, but does not have the hemispheric denotation of "right" versus "left." The latter denotation likely derived from desert peoples using the left hand to clean their arses after defication, thus the Arab custom to refrain from using the left hand in social contexts.
The psychological manipulation of the Republican "right" is emblematic of their deceptive and untrustworthy politics (though admittedly, the "left" has employed similar tactics regarding the consequences of global warming, which I believe is a less important issue than other, more directly toxic pollution issues . . .). I would very much like to see some semblance of honest politics return to the stage, where the issues are confronted without appeals to faulty emotional responses.
Left and Right in politics originated due to seating arrangements.. reading too much into this is plainly silly. Articles like this with small groups for study do nothing to prove anything except that the study was performed to create a specific conclusion. Get rid of this tripe and get back to real science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid this really measure a tendency to scare more easily among conservatives, or a tendency to (presumably subconsciously) confuse pictorial depictions with actual things? Are progressives simply more apt to understand "Ceci n'est pas une pipe"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoesn't get any easier than this: "because they're afraid".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sample size is of course too small to be conclusive. I'd like to see the correlations discussed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut the politics of fear is a tactic typically used by the right. Fear of change (conservatism) is also something typically associated with an underlying anxiety about change. Makes sense there might be an underlying correlation if this study were pursued further with a larger and more distributed sample size. Hypothesis has promise, but study isn't yet conclusive.
This article is so flawed that, in fact, it is reporting the results BACKWARDS. The conservatives didn't startle more; the liberals startled _less than normal._
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"People who leaned more politically left didn’t respond any differently to those images than they did to pictures of a bowl of fruit, a rabbit or a happy child." Really? Bowl of fruit vs. spider on face-- the same?
This is actually a classic test for psychopathy, with psychopaths having a diminished startle response relative to controls. (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8436703.)
So the test could quite accurately be interpreted, "liberals tended towards psychopathy."
I'm not picking a side in the debate, but I am alerting everyone to how dangerously biased scientists can be.
For more like this, see: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com
I find it interesting you put Gun Control at the top of your list, but leave off Terrorism, and on the eve of electing an Arab-American president pretending to be black who is Muslim by his own admission and follows the Islam faith one has to wonder on whose shores we shall see fear/politics put to the test next. You should have probably tested Congressmen instead of people in Nebraska, after all they fear nothing except the loss of their $8,000/month pensions should we fall but electing a President that neither respect our flag, nor supports our country seems the best thing to do in these economic times -- a fool and his country are soon parted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour interpretation of the results relies on the fear response being appropriate to the situation. If you consider a fear response to an image to be appropriate then it supports your interpretation. However if one considers that a rational person would consider that these are images, and not actual threats, then a more appropriate interpretation is that those that showed a fear response were more inclined to irrational thought.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIgnorance and irrational fear follow one from the other.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou repeat sound bites that twist truths and spout FUD(Fear Uncertainty and Doubt).
Terror is a concept not an enemy. After 9/11 we needed a international police action to capture a rogue CIA trained operative named Osama Bin Laden. We had the world support after that to get the cooperation to do what was needed. We squandered that however on a war started on false pretenses.
When I think back on the terrorist attacks in this country over the years I remember 9/11, and I remember the airline hostages, but I also remember Oklahoma City, The Unabomber, Waco, Columbine, sniper shootings, and planned parenthood bombings. None of which needed anyone from beyond our borders to instill fear. And none of whom needed an open ended world wide war in response.
The USSR lost the cold war because they suffered economic collapse as a result of reckless military spending. Which is exactly the formula for our future if the war mongers in this country. Our budget is hemorrhaging due to this conflict and McCain would like to run it perpetually or until he can come up with some definition of victory out of this mess. How many more lives will be lost to save his idea of honor. War profiteers get rich and our nation bleeds both capital and the lives of our patriots.
I say if you want to save America; End this American Right Wing religion driven "Jihad" against the Muslim faith and find the guys that did the deed and foster peace in the world so we can all profit.
Of course the sample pop. was too small. Too bad because this is an important question which deserves a more complete study and complete answers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor one thing, the small sample omits permutations of type: I myself have a very high survival index (response to emergency situations). But - I was a strong conservative for decades. [What made me become independent: finally saw that these "parties" have sunk into warfare to "capture hearts and minds" - akin to TV commercials.] So, I don't "startle" easily but go into pychetachia, then jump right into thinking beyond the question of "will I die?"
OTH - I know someone who was deeply traumatized in childhood. This person has a 'hyper' startle response. They are staunchly liberal in their voting habits.
Yet - most of my conservative friends have displayed (over the years) behaviors which show they are more fear-driven than anything. When facing dangers: it has always been the ones who later became conservative who ran. Some of my liberal-leaning friends are cold-steel fearless when confronting real dangers.
Bottom Line: We want more thorough studies and more subtle approaches and more valid answers. We need those most of all.
This can be seen from two point of view:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst, as a mean of making disquialifiying propaganda in favour of leftminded liberals. -
Second, an interesting first aproach to success in humans.
Augus Menmar on 20081018