September 18, 2008

Political orientation and physiological response

I have often noticed when I turn on the TV and there is a political discussion going on with speakers I don't recognize, that it's often possible to guess (better than chance) the participants' side. Whether it's appearance, clothing, or mannerisms, there may be subtle clues that our minds have come to associate with particular political attitudes. For that to be possible, however, political orientation should be made manifest in some way. In this paper, it is shown that people who are startled more easily tend to be more right-wing in the American political spectrum. It would be interesting to repeat this experiment in other countries. (I'll post the abstract when I see it -- posted)

UPDATE (Sep 19): John Hawks posts a long and skeptical commentary on the study, which should be read by anyone interested in the subject.

Political attitudes are predicted by physiological traits
HOUSTON -- (Sept. 16, 2008) -- Is America's red-blue divide based on voters' physiology? A new paper in the journal Science, titled "Political Attitudes Are Predicted by Physiological Traits," explores the link.

Rice University's John Alford, associate professor of political science, co-authored the paper in the Sept. 19 issue of Science.

Alford and his colleagues studied a group of 46 adult participants with strong political beliefs. Those individuals with "measurably lower physical sensitivities to sudden noises and threatening visual images were more likely to support foreign aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism and gun control, whereas individuals displaying measurably higher physiological reactions to those same stimuli were more likely to favor defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism and the Iraq War," the authors wrote.

Science Vol. 321. no. 5896, pp. 1667 - 1670
DOI: 10.1126/science.1157627

Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits

Douglas R. Oxley et al.

Although political views have been thought to arise largely from individuals' experiences, recent research suggests that they may have a biological basis. We present evidence that variations in political attitudes correlate with physiological traits. In a group of 46 adult participants with strong political beliefs, individuals with measurably lower physical sensitivities to sudden noises and threatening visual images were more likely to support foreign aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism, and gun control, whereas individuals displaying measurably higher physiological reactions to those same stimuli were more likely to favor defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism, and the Iraq War. Thus, the degree to which individuals are physiologically responsive to threat appears to indicate the degree to which they advocate policies that protect the existing social structure from both external (outgroup) and internal (norm-violator) threats.

Link

3 comments:

terryt said...

"Although political views have been thought to arise largely from individuals' experiences, recent research suggests that they may have a biological basis".

Not necessarily true. Even dogs learn to respond to surprises in the environment by looking at others' (including their human owners') reactions.

Therefore "measurably lower physical sensitivities to sudden noises and threatening visual images" may result from upbringing as much as, or more than, genetics. So political orientation is inherited, although perhaps not genetically.

Maju said...

I also fail to see any biological cause in physiological reactions that are nothing but emotional expression. It seems the difference, at least for what this paper says is that right-wingers are easy to scare. This is surely a psychological difference but not necesarily a biological one.

Btw, I have always suspected that conservative types are somewhat paranoid. And this is coincident with what Deleuze and Guattari seem to deduce in their "Anti-Oedipus": conservative types get scared by the cultural/moral decodificaion produced by nothing else than Capitalism and tend to react with more or less paranoid attitudes trying to restore an idealized past that makes them feel safer but that has no chances in the mid-run.

Crimson Guard said...

The modern Right-Wing is actually Neo-Con's, they arent very conservative and are especially different from the "Paleo-Conservatives". Besides that, there really isnt much difference between the Liberals and the Neo-Cons, the Right and Left are mainly smoke screens for the general masses.