Today’s Doonesbury, by Garry Trudeau, echoes some old research news (trigger warning: Chris M**ney):
I haven’t read the relevant papers (I have neither the time nor the interest), but if conservatives have bigger amygdalas (amygdalae?), is there evidence that their politics, and their “innate” fearfulness, is a consequence rather than a cause of conservativism? Even if it’s “genetic” (as M**ney claims), well, political affiliation also is inherited, but through culture rather than DNA, and even if it’s really genetic, it could still be some other trait that causes the amygdala to enlarge as a consequence of political affiliation.
Finally, Mooney argues that this is an evolutionary adaptation. If so, then why the variation? If fearfulness was adaptive, or is still adaptive, why do we have so many liberals today? Mooney says this about Republicans:
And thus are we drawn to the only context in which we can make any sense of any of this — the understanding that we human primates evolved. As such, these rapid-fire responses to aversive stimuli are something we share with other animals — a core part of our life-saving biological wiring.
But then are liberals somehow maladapted? There’s surely more to it than this, but, as I said, I haven’t read the papers.
h/t: Linda Grilli
Fear helps keep people survive. Fear of heights, of going too fast, or losing control.
Fear of losing loved ones to an unnamed thief or losing property to a nameless government is very different than how we react to individual humans. Personal experience tends to parse fears like xenophobia and homophobia by reducing the justification for that fear.
There are more whacko conservatives today who are not so fearful of gay people anymore.
Isn’t there pretty much always some variation within traits that we wouldn’t question as adaptive? Isn’t that the raw material that evolution works on all the time?
That’s my understanding. Perhaps liberal traits are adaptive in one sort of environment, while conservative reactions are more adaptive in other situations, and the species experiences enough of each kind of environment to maintain adaptive variation at relative levels…
Maybe conservatives are just atavistic?
The larger Amygdalae would seem a little far out but it should be easy to measure. A lot more testable than most of the conservative ideas.
If they fear anything besides liberals and people who do not look like they do, they should fear returning to the 19th century in America for good.
Unfortunately, science journalism has (as Doonesbury suggests) has become shoddy and always looking for an angle rather than sorting out the real implications of a study. I believe the study being referred to is the one by Kanai et al (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/) published in 2011. In the paper, Kanai et clearly state “Although our data do not determine whether these regions play a causal role in the formation of political attitudes, they converge with previous work [4, 6] to suggest a possible link between brain structure and psychological mechanisms that mediate political attitudes.”
Kanai stated to the press (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/08/brain-scans-lean-left-right/) “”It’s very unlikely that actual political orientation is directly encoded in these brain regions,” he said. “More work is needed to determine how these brain structures mediate the formation of political attitude.” and cautioned against taking the findings too far (which obviously was ignored by the press).
Fear has long been known to be associated with the amygdala, but the data Kanai et al present (and as they make clear) that it is not known if the size differences developed in the womb or through experience. We do know that brain structures change due to experience – so conclusions of ‘born republican’ are – well – just plain silly.
Although it’s certainly not controversial that brain structure has implications for behavior, as the authors say, “more work is needed”.
Another issue, it seems to me, is that “fear” is not the only path to conservatism. I’d say selfishness and a diminished capacity for empathy can get you there as well.
On another note, this study was done in the UK – and a ‘conservative’ in the UK is not the same as the ‘tea party wingnuts’ in the US.
Studies like these are very interesting, not because our political views are pre-determined (please, let’s not bang on about free-will is it or isn’t it)- but a single piece of a much greater library of knowledge of the brain. We have only just started on the trek to understanding the way brains function through the new techniques of neuroscience. It is exciting, thrilling, and full of missteps and blunders.
“I’d say selfishness and a diminished capacity for empathy can get you there as well.”
Unfortunately that straw man definition really misses the point.
Depends on your definition of ‘conservatism’. In the more pure sense (without the political baggage), it’s cautious about change, cautious about throwing away things that have worked well on a whim or to satisfy a current ideological fad.
This is not a bad concept, in fact science is inherently conservative. Theories are conserved unless and until there is real reason to replace them.
What political “conservatism” could be at its theoretical best is not the same conservatism as actually practiced by most people who would identify as conservative.
You write “it’s cautious about change”. I’d write “it’s averse to change, even in the face of circumstances or information that require it”.
You write “things that have worked well”. I’d write “things that have worked well for a narrow slice of the population”. (And even that is a short-sighted view. Giving the oil industry what it wants right now might work well for the bigwigs for the next x years, but climate change and resource depletion will catch up and they do not discriminate.)
You write that political orientations other than conservatism want to implement change based on “whim” or “ideological fads”. Well now who’s strawmanning?
But we are talking about politics here, not other possible definitions of conservatism. In fact, I’ve often referred to myself as pretty conservative when conservative is used in the context that you just defined it. When change is needed, I prefer incremental change that is less risk averse than sweeping change that redesigns a whole system. But, this is not the same thing as saying we should have incremental social policy changes and, for example, give gay people a little bit of freedom, but let’s not be too quick to level the playing field.
Political conservatism in the United States is too often tied to ideological belief in tradition and individualism, consequences be damned. In some instances, I am a proponent of libertarian principles; in others, I am not. It depends on what the topic is. On the other side of the spectrum, liberalism is now too often tied to ideological political correctness, consequences be damned. When people ask me if I am a conservative or a liberal, I tell them it depends on the issue. To answer otherwise presents a whole list of assumptions about where you stand on every issue, which speaks to the current problems with our two party political system in the United States.
I have to go with Frank Zappa and Harlan Ellison on this one. Stupidity: The basic building block of life.
I hear that evolution is in principle able to result in anything biologically possible, even intelligent organisms. But they will be extremely rare.
The search continues…
What if it isn’t the amygdalae but the prefrontal cortex? Everything comes in through the amygdala first but what happens later that determines how you respond.
…but what happens later is determined by everything that happened before, including (perhaps critically) the amplitude and context of signals from amygdala to cortex.
I expect that the heritability and causality relationships will fall out of the data as an increasing number of people get multiple brain scans from childhood into adulthood, as long as study of these questions isn’t specifically prevented by fear-crazed authoritarian rightists or loony-left blank-slaters…
I’ve read that the way you manage anxiety is set during infancy and how you bond with your caretakers.
I wish I had the small amygdala of psychopaths but coupled with how easily I injure myself, that would probably end badly.
Small child of liberal parents : “Mommy! There’s a monster under my bed!”
Liberal mother: “I’m here to protect you dear but you don’t have to worry, sometimes we imagine things to be afraid of when there isn’t anything there. Let’s look together and see that there’s nothing there but dust bunnies.”
Small child of conservative parents : “Mommy! there’s a monster under my bed!”
Conservative mother : “Yes! There is! And it’s SATAN coming for your soul if you don’t obey everything some self appointed authority tells you to do!”
A causes B
B causes A
C causes A and B
or the whole thing is a fluke.
I am having trouble getting too excited about this
I think it’s been 15 years or more since I first heard about conservative-liberal brain differences, the first being a study out of Berkeley if I recall. The physical predisposition explanation has always seemed unlikely to me, largely because there are so many different motivations to conservatism – religiosity, libertarianism, greed, resentment of freeloaders, desire to punish others – that “fear” is not necessarily the just-so explanation. There are just too many fearless and well-meaning conservatives. I don’t think Mitt Romney is afraid of anything.
Also, I don’t necessarily think of “courage” as the defining trait of liberals, to include yours truly.
So whether or not there really are measurable brain differences I would expect nurture – that is, external stimuli – to be the far greater factor. Also just to note, the motivation in Ebolamania, if not ISISmania, has seemed as much like impotent rage as it does fear per se. Maybe those emirate from the same primitive impulses, but you can’t deny people have been taught to have those reactions.
Ah, you already made the point about fear being only one thing that might help lead to conservatism.
I like the verb ’emirate’, particularly when coupled with primitive impulses…
“Maybe those emirate from the same primitive impulses…”
I’m sheikh-ing my head in agreement.
I don’t know. I think his claim is rather Dubai-ous.
I can imagine liberalism not being adaptive in dangerous and uncertain environments, but liberalism can be adaptive in stable environments.
I’ve thought of it that way, too.
I have no problem in learning that there is deeply seated variation in fearfulness, but it does not have to be all genetic. It could just as well be imprinted from experiences in the womb or early in life. In either case, one is sort of stuck with it. To be a little flippant about it, a republican is not likely to be able to change.
A prospective d*g owner who is wise will know to watch the puppies in a litter from which they will pick a new pet. It is common to see some puppies in a litter that ‘hang back’, and are not impulsive about exploring. These generally grow into d*gs that continue this type nervous personality. Other puppies in the same litter will bounce into new things, approach strangers, etc. These will likely grow into bold d*gs. Both of these varieties of personalities have their positive and negative points for mature d*gs. But it is by watching them as puppies an owner can start with a pet that has the beginnings of the personality that they want.
I grew up in a very Republican family but at the same time was always encouraged NOT To be fearful about virtually anything. Moving house and country every couple of years added to the broadening experience. That said, I turned into a Democrat. I don’t think the old-school Repubs had the paranoia of the current ones. Except possibly about the commies.
I think fear usually is part of the causal cocktail that leads one to lean right, although of course it doesn’t have to be. I think there are different kinds of “fear” at issue. The kind that you can often find in a conservative will be something more like deep-seated mistrust, xenophobia, etc. things that originate in a fear of the unknown. This is why they love them some status quo. You won’t necessarily find the kind of fear that, say, keeps you from playing in busy streets or doing other dumb things.
And yes, change is possible, although I do think it’s rare. My family is heavily Republican, and to my eternal shame I went along with it in late high-school and undergrad. But that was only because I wasn’t thinking about the issues. It was simply a matter of going along with my tribe. Once I bothered to examine the issues, I realized my family was on the wrong side of them. I wonder if you did something similar. I wonder how many current Republicans are so only because they’re not thinking very hard, and would “turn into Democrats” if they did.
I too come from a deeply Repub. family. My grandfather was a Bircher in fact. In high school, I started looking into the issues and knew that Democrats were the way to go. I know of many people who have moved from the Repub. tribe to the Democrat, but don’t know anyone who moved from D. to R. I know they are out there, but I don’t think it is very common (like atheists who turn to religion).
The right wing Republican extremists in the Tea Party are simply sociopaths imho.
My hypothesis, which is mine, is that we are born conservative– i.e. those psychological traits are the closest to those evolved in the dog-eat-dog past and that it takes an understanding of that to to move away from there to something better.
Oh, definitely. The conservative (in the US Republican sense) worldview is a child’s worldview centered on themselves with no appreciation for how complex things are. A good example is the analogy they frequently make between a household budget and the entire economy of a huge nation. Or not realizing how social safety nets benefit everyone, even those who will never need to use it.
gah. Insert colon between first “worldview” and “centered”.
OTOH, I believe there are some data that show people tend to get more conservative as they age…and that babies/young children have to learn fear stemming from prejudice–it doesn’t necessarily come naturally.
True, people can pick up specific aspects of conservatism as they
agegain experience, for instance becoming more reluctant to trust the unknown. This kind of maturation (disillusionment?) is pretty common, I think. I think it’s less common for once left-leaning folks to buy into large parts of the right’s worldview, hook line and sinker.I understood Kevin’s comment to be more about the general psychology out of which conservatism springs, that being “hey, let’s worry about me and my immediate needs, to the exclusion of other kinds of worrying.” And that is the psychology of a child.
IIRC there were experiments done with baby rhesus monkeys where the baby, having no experience with snakes, was shown a rubber snake. If the baby was alone it showed fascination with the snake but not necessarily fear which indicates that there is something in it’s brain from before birth, i.e. in it’s evolution.
If however the baby is accompanied by an older monkey who shows a fear reaction then the baby will learn that reaction. It works as a reinforcement of something that is already there.
Indeed, you’ve got to be carefully taught.
b&
I kind of gradually moved left in college and was definitely a Dem when I first voted at age 21. I’m sure I was influenced by being at Stanford and Berkeley in late 60s and early 70s, but my one only slightly younger brother, also at Stanford, is a staunch Repub, and his twin a Dem. Youngest bro’ fairly conservative, but not as much as other one. Super Repub bro’ had Bruce Franklin, a kind of crazy Maoist who got fired, for Freshman English, and I think that pushed him to the right. He and I can easily elevate each other’s bp when discussing politics, so usually desist…unless we have some really irresistible satirical political cartoons to share.
Typo ergo sum Merilee
>
A fearful disposition can be mitigated or exacerbated by experience, and by parental cues.
Many eons ago, my doctoral dissertation research focused on resultant personality differences between children whose parents saw a breadth of experience as beneficial, and those whose parents saw such experiences as “evil outside influences”.
If parents do not see exposing their children to a wide array of experiences, those kids are much more likely to become fearful adults. I never pursued the investigation of differences in brain structure, but I could imagine that there would be some effect.
I disagree with the above poster who asserted that Mitt Romney is probably not afraid of anything. People who are raised in a “tribal” environment have an enormous potential to be xenophobic, whereas those who experience a wide variety of other cultures have much less tendency in that direction. When Romney was a missionary in France, he did not live in the culture, but, as is typical for Mormons, lived with his fellow missionaries and only went out to sell his BS to the locals. That is NOT engaging the different culture; it’s maintaining your tribe, while trying to lure others into it.
During my literature search, I found a study done with dogs (sorry no citation, it’s been over thirty years ago) where puppies from shy mothers were adopted by less shy bitches and raised by them. The resultant personalities were usually somewhere in between shy and outgoing. They were then more easily acclimated to people, and while they may not have ever completely lost their shyness, it was overcome to enough of an extent that they could be successfully adopted.
I have noticed that with my goat kids, some are more outgoing than others. They are all hand-raised together, away from their mothers, so their environment is consistent from animal to animal. Usually, extra time handling the shy ones overcomes the problem, so environment can definitely influence the outcome for the better.
Sorry for the long post. L
as is typical for Mormons, lived with his fellow missionaries and only went out to sell his BS to the locals.
I suspect that as well as maintaining the tribe, all that door knocking business is also intended to reinforce their own self-hypnosis and emotional investment.
Sub
Uh, sub
So what’s next, DNA testing instead of elections?
Leaving aside the explosive question of political orientation, I can easily imagine how variation in innate levels of fear can be beneficial to tribal societies. You’d get the fearless gung-ho hunters who brave death to bring home the meat, and you’d also get the paranoid stay-at-home weapon-makers who triple-check their work out of an excess of caution before selling it to the hunters in exchange for meat.
b&
This is taken from Steven Pinker’s book *The Blank Slate* on what the sciences of human nature have to say about politics:
//
GILBERT AND SULLIVAN got it mostly right in 1882: liberal and conservative political attitudes are largely, though far from completely, heritable. When identical twins who were separated at birth are tested in adulthood, their political attitudes turn out to be similar, with a correlation coefficient of .62 (on a scale from –1 to +1).2 Liberal and conservative attitudes are heritable not, of course, because attitudes are synthesized directly from DNA but because they come naturally to people with different temperaments. Conservatives, for example, tend to be more authoritarian, conscientious, traditional, and rule-bound. But whatever its immediate source, the heritability of political attitudes can explain some of the sparks that fly when liberals and conservatives meet. When it comes to attitudes that are heritable, people react more quickly and emotionally, are less likely to change their minds, and are more attracted to like-minded people.3
This three-question quiz from Big Think can predict whether one believes in God:
http://bigthink.com/praxis/a-three-question-math-quiz-that-predicts-whether-you-believe-in-god
Marion
Well, that lead-in was irresistible. And I got all the math questions right, but of course I’ve also heard them all before.
EU eliminates science advisor position, because science doesn’t support banning GMOs.
What gets me about this thesis is that it is terribly parochial, both geographically and historically. The concepts of conservatism and liberalism as used in the American context are meaningless to most humans on this planet (in fact liberalism means something different everywhere outside of the USA and Canada), and three hundred years ago the idea of a “GOP brain” would have been similarly meaningless because there was no GOP. Is anybody seriously arguing that today’s Americans have a different brain than all other humans, including their very recent ancestors? Surely not.
It is for that reason alone that this whole “conservative brain” stuff looks rather misguided, at least in the way things are categorised.
That is not what the original article is about. It was the press that grabbed onto the idea that one could identify republicans etc. As the lead author of the original article indicated, don’t take the findings and run off with it. Unfortunately, it is more often than not that science research is misquoted and misrepresented by the press or anyone who has an agenda. It is also why many scientists shy away from talking to the press. All science graduate students should take courses in communicating science to the public and how to handle the press. But even the best of them are misquoted and if they don’t say what the reporter wants them to say, they are simply edited out.
Well yes, in case it wasn’t clear, I was referring to the Mooney et al “Republican brain” meme, not to the original paper.
Sorry – thanks for clarifying that point.
Studies of mono zygotic twins reared apart do show a correlation between genes and behaviour.. we are not a blank slate. Conservative traits would have been of high value in our evolutionary past. Such as,
movement in a bush, was it the wind or a predator? a false positive as opposed to a false negative action may result, where the former you get to live another day, the latter you are lunch, being nervous and fearful saved your butt. A conservative approach was favoured.
Not to say risky behaviour was not unfavoured and reaped nil rewards but a conservative approach, maybe in the form of a hunting plan would have brought more rewards over time (further bonding, etc) for the group with less risk.
Human life (like you need to be reminded)has become more complex and in group, out group behaviour has become in many cases the beginning and the end, irrational and destructive and a danger to our collective and planetary well being.
We are gifted (NS) with a brain that can change and it is the emotional attachment (weight) to that will that can make a difference. More passion for Science and Reason I say.
London cabbies grow a bigger hippocampus the longer they stay at the job than non cabbies due to the navigational requirements of their occupation so the brain does grow areas when needed.
Further all brains are as unique as your fingerprints i,e, shape, density.. it is little wonder we have so much variation in humankind.
But why is having plans ‘conservative’? And why is not having one and taking risks, not condervative? Any one who is – like David Attenborough, say – interested in making close observations of animals in the wild will move carefully and be just as sensitive to small movements and sounds as the good hunter is.
To err on the side of caution, to take a conservative approach and not take a risk. Making a hunting plan is a way of ameliorating risk and making sure the maximum pay off results. To be organised in such a way would benefit the group thus creating a link between a group and conservative behaviour.
In part, these ancestors lived in a dangerous and risky environment, paying attention (a conservative behaviour) to the group rules would have had fitness rewards. Conservativeness may be the default, metaphorically speaking it is better to be in the hut that outside where all the wild things are.
I wish to show that from our deep evolutionary past subtle conservative behaviours would be favoured. After several millions of years of natural selection I see no reason why this (gulp, via our genes)could not impact on the innate temperament of humans, that is, on their brains. Conservative or liberal innateness would capture and use your leanings until you engage and move away, or towards one or the other.
Well, if you wish to show this, as you say, then I think you should come up with something rather less vague and unsatisfactory than that, and also show how your hypotheses, such as they are, relate to conservatism or liberalism of the political kind, and in particular of the American political kind, since the peculiarities of American history, society, and political structures clearly have a great deal to with the cultural and political struggles going on there and with the attitudes that inform them.
A writer I admire greatly in some ways is the German novelist and essayist Ernst Juenger, who was very much a German patriot and a ‘conservative’, and whose account of fighting in World War I, in which he won the highest German military honour, Pour la Merite as well as the Iron Cross and was wounded seven times, is one of the greatest accounts of war ever written (In Stahlgewittern [Storm of Steel]). He also published, in 1939, a haunting novel, Auf den Marmorklippen [On the Marble Cliffs], which was an allegory of Hitler’s rise to power, and shows his contempt for the Nazis. I should be interested to see how your hypotheses, such as they are, might be shown to be applicable to such a man’s life.
It seems sir that I am wandering around on the savannah plains and forests of a Pleistocene Africa looking for the origins of conservative traits while you are curious as to how that equates to the last two centuries and in particular WW1 and modern day America.
Vague is not how I would put it.. ‘My hypothesis’ is more a personal projection from what I understand of evolutionary psychology and evolution. I will try again.
First this:
“There is no single set of policies that are universally regarded as conservative, because the meaning of conservatism depends on what is considered traditional in a given place and time” from Wikipedia and from what I’ve read this is putting it mildly.
With that in mind, modern man and early anatomical man biologically physiologically speaking from the last 120,000 years has changed little. What holds for group behaviour then holds today with all it’s complexity. Why do we have sports teams, armies, gangs and corporate group cultures? Conservative behaviours have had a steady dose of natural selection up to today from beyond pre history, since primates are highly social with a hierarchical social system. Just as our innate sense of morality evolved so has the conservative biases we display today, in fact the two are closely linked.
In-group behaviour is the root of conservatism and is our default state. It took living in unrelated (non kin) clusterings from the last 7000 years or so to the metropolis we see today for anything like liberalism to arise. That is, to restrain the excess of conservative behaviours within non related groups. Liberalism is the child of conservatism.
We are now well off the plains of Africa.
Briefly, in reference to American politics, they will choke on the biases of their left to right leanings (in the nicest possible way) and this holds for any democracy, unless unbiased reason from understanding our past, aided by the science of today e.g. neuroscience for one, has more to say about where we or they are going.
Ernst Juenger was a complex individual by all accounts, conservative with high values according to his beliefs and his biases.
I would add that because of the deep conservative nature of the European states and the populations of the day, the bloody, brutal and senseless war we call ‘the great war’ (great is debatable) would not have been anywhere near the scale it wreaked upon millions, if at all.
I am an admirer of Stephen Pinker’s (The Blank Slate) and Michael Shermer (The Believing Brain) see chapter 11.
Apologies for the long post.
Well, grand! Collectives are important in human society! You know, Oliver Cromwell and those on the Parliamentary side were not isolated individuals all with their little individual ideas about this and that, any more than were those men who made the American and French revolutions… I have read Pinker’s Blank Slate for which I have some respect (ie, I have small respect for his views about the arts), thank you, and – forgive me – have small desire to read chapter 11 of Shermer’s book; I have read enough on ‘belief’ (Whitehouse, Lewis-Williams, Boyer et al)to last me what remains of my life. I respectfully suggest that you stop wandering about in the Pleistocene and attend to how people actually behave here and now.
“I respectfully suggest that you stop wandering about in the Pleistocene and attend to how people actually behave here and now.”
Sorry, but I think you have missed my point and I respectfully decline to stop my wanderings. Why? because it helps me understand the behaviours of the here and now.
Why we do what we do and from that, how to progress. If it was not for our understanding of evolution, our past, we could not ditch the insane fairytales of religion.
Thanks for the discussion I have learnt from it and that is all I ask.
In general, conservatism is a “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” system, whereas progressivism is novelty seeking. That both orientations may be adaptive makes sense in that sometimes old ideas are better than new ideas and sometimes new ideas are better than old ideas.
Kind of like how most mutations are harmful (or perhaps neutral) and thus disfavored against the existing sequence. But sometimes mutations confer an advantage and thus replace the old.