Monday, September 10, 2007

Am I A Hard-Wired Liberal?

Are you one? Are you programmed to think like a conservative? One random question in the universe may have been solved by researchers at UCLA and NYU. The answer is......yes. Their studies tested the brains of liberals and conservatives with a very simple test and the results were strikingly different. Now of course the researchers claim it does not mean being liberal or conservative is a bad thing...but, well....you know.

From The Los Angeles Times:

Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC Berkeley's Institute of Personality and Social Research who was not connected to the study, said results "provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity."

Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.

Sulloway said the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a flip-flopper for changing his mind about the conflict.

Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

Hmm, sounds like there is a bias here. Scientists are more accepted by liberals, hence they cannot be trusted with God's creation....or something like that. Of course this information isn't surprising in the least. Conservatives are reluctant to the ever-changing world while liberals are open-minded and explore many different options whether it comes to politics or grocery shopping. The George Bush v. John Kerry example is one of many that you can look to see differences between libs and cons.