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Ransom Riggs
Left or Right, It’s All in Your Genes
by Ransom Riggs - September 19, 2008 - 7:36 AM

At a time when American politicians are calling for more cooperation between left and right, boasting about having “reached across the aisle” and heralding the coming of a “post-partisan” era, I think it’s fair to ask: can liberals and conservatives ever really, truly understand one another?

vote.jpgIt’s something you hear a lot when discussing “the other side” (whichever side that may be): “I just don’t get it; why do they think that way?” Well, a new study suggests that in addition to economic and geographic factors, your genes may play a significant role in determining how you vote. Could it be that the true die-hards are simply born either liberal or conservative? Could there be a biological basis for your political leanings?

According to the study, the key is “differing levels of fear that people naturally feel.”

The researchers, whose findings were published today in the journal Science, looked at 46 people who fell into two camps — liberals who supported foreign aid, immigration, pacifism and gun control; and conservatives who advocated defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism and the Iraq war.

In an initial experiment, subjects were shown a series of images that included a bloody face, maggots in a wound and a spider on a frightened face. A device measured the electrical conductance of their skin, a physiological reaction that indicates fear.

In a second experiment, researchers measured eye blinks — another indicator of fear — as subjects responded to sudden blasts of noise.

Compared with staunch liberals, people with strongly conservative views were three times more fearful after factoring out the effects of gender, age, income and education, which can all affect political attitudes.

While it seems far too early to jump wholeheartedly on board such a strange and limited study, it’s certainly interesting. It’s also important to echo political scientist James Fowler, who notes that there’s a growing body of research regarding the evolution of two distinct human cognitive styles: liberal and conservative. Cautious conservatives prevented societies from taking undue risks, while more flexible liberals fostered cooperation. “For the species to survive, you need both,” he said.

Source: LA Times.

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Comments (8)

  1. Fascinating article Ransom! As a Democrat married to a Republican, any way to figure out our differences is a good way.

    posted by Tricia on 9-19-2008 at 8:30 am

  2. might explain why people become more conservative as they grow older and vote that way…

    remember how fearless you were when you were 20?

    posted by David K. Israel on 9-19-2008 at 8:57 am

  3. That’s a really interesting study. Great article! I’m liking these election season articles.

    posted by adrienne on 9-19-2008 at 9:02 am

  4. That’s incredibly fascinating. I’ve seen studies before that show that a significant portion of people vote based off of emotional reactions anyways. Fear sounds like reasonable driver for much of this.

    posted by Jennings on 9-19-2008 at 9:14 am

  5. I would love to see the results of a study like this on a large scale. And (no offence to anyone) it fits about right with the concept I had of both sides.

    Here in Latin America we also have different political parties: the corrupt parties and the other corrupt parties. How are we supposed to vote? :) (Unless of course you are in Venezuela or you HAVE to vote for Chavez or you dont get a passport or identity papers… Sounds fun, no?)

    posted by GTT on 9-19-2008 at 9:57 am

  6. There’s another interesting article/study done by Jonathan Haidt “WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN?” He has found that conservatives actually have a far easier time understanding liberal decisions than liberals do understanding conservative decisions. In other words, conservatives are more likely to be able to imagine what’s going on in a liberals head than the other way around.

    He goes on to make the argument that this inability of liberals to understand conservatice choice-making is detrimental to… well… ever getting anything done.

    A search for the article should easily bring it up– interesting stuff…

    posted by merv on 9-19-2008 at 10:29 am

  7. I thought it was a well known fact that conservatism depends on fear. The question is: To what do we attribute the rise of the radical right? They are hardly conservative in the true sense of the word (even in its political definition.) They like to stir up fear, but what they want is a revolution.

    posted by BassMan on 9-19-2008 at 11:47 am

  8. I don’t see this at all and of course it IS a small and flawed study.

    Education and mental health seems to be the only difference I have seen. Those who are well educated and nonsociopathic are more likely to be liberal or left-leaning.

    posted by Brenda on 9-19-2008 at 5:57 pm

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