349
The liberal brain and the conservative brain works differently
Twenty three million seven hundred sixty three thousand nine hundred twenty three
You are put into the MRI scanner. Scroll before my eyes a series of photos, absolutely plotless and without a hint of policy. After 10 minutes, the scientists in the next room, already able to tell what you prefer — "krymnash" or Maidan, Bolotnaya and Poklonnaya. What do you think about Pussy Riot, gays, abortion, and immigrants.
More precisely, liberal or conservative.
This trick works, of course, with all sorts of photos. Those that are used during the procedure, there is a peculiarity: they are very unpleasant. In an unexpected and unpleasant degree. They all come from a closed database of IAPS (international affective pictures system). The most innocent examples — the plague between your index and middle fingers, dog feces on the fresh grass, flies on his corn.
Psychologists cherish IAPS from falling into the hands of laymen no less carefully than once a set of spots Rorschach: all test subjects will see these images in the laboratory tests, should be for him a complete surprise. Therefore, even academic publishers are in the position and allow scientists to not put "affective image" in the section about materials and methods.
Our political orientation is programmed in the brain is not less than the tendency to write with the right or left hand.Actually in science so is not accepted. Teach a chimp to make out the letters — please submit all cards which were shown to the monkey. Described a new optical illusion — let video. But in the case of IAPS is more important to avoid leakage. As the virologists who work with dangerous pathogens.
Experiment report printed at the end of October magazine CurrentBiology. Nine of the 11 authors — physicians, biologists and experts in the processing of the tomograms. The name of John Higgins, Professor of political science at the University of Lincoln, Nebraska, modestly appears in the middle of the list. But he is the scientific formulation of the idea that our political orientation is programmed in the brain is not less than the tendency to write with the right or left hand.
The difference is that left-handers with right-handers aware of: it is innate, biological, it can not be helped. But leftism or rightness in the views hitherto accepted to explain a conscious choice, life experience and proper education. In extreme cases the influence of propaganda.
At the request of scientists 83 adult Americans answered the questions of the long questionnaire about politics. How do you feel about the death penalty? Toward gay marriage? To the teaching of evolution in school? Is it possible to have sex before marriage? And to torture terrorism suspects? The results of all divided into roughly equal groups — 28 liberals, 28 conservatives and 27 people with moderate views. Then each was placed in an MRI scanner, and built-in screen of the device there is the very photo from the database of IAPS.
The authors of the experiment at first tried honestly to put pressure on different emotions. Here are the images of pleasure: an evening in the Alps, playing in the garden children. But the threat of the gun at the person in the mouth, a knife at her throat, a fighting dog without a leash. But the pattern of brain activity when you look at all of this is disappointingly similar in all subjects.
As soon as it comes to disgusting, the difference is finally apparent. Especially if you show mutilated animals. "When a saw cut throat dog, do not pucker up" is Brodsky invites readers to go against their intelligentsia (the liberal, on the machine we think up) nature. But, apparently, not the offers. Because frown, judging by the results of the experiment, namely the conservatives. On the CT they have flashes brightly amygdala, a subcortical center of emotions, and after it, the work included a whole orchestra of brain areas. Supplementary motor cortex begins to prepare the body to escape, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, responsible for rational thinking, has struggled to quell the panic: you're in the scanner, it's just a photo, to run and to turn away is not necessary.
"The paradox of the offended feelings of believers": those who are easily offended, ready to give the stimulus more time and attention.Liberals instead of all this variety lights up two barely visible plot in the center of the island Rala, and neuroscientists do not ascribe this activity meaningful. Of course, the rest of the brain excluding the mentioned zones is not asleep, simply in — those and others — the same routine work: visual cortex processes the image, frontal lobe finds it familiar objects. And so on.
Sensitivity and vulnerability of the conservatives, says Higgins, is a consequence of the "negative attitudes of consciousness." Ugly, he was about to loom on the horizon, given the conservative brain is the highest priority, because any deviation from the norm is a signal of a problem that needs to be addressed. This mechanism of thinking, it seems that evolution has secured a long two and a half million years of the Pleistocene, when the maintenance of the old order of things, perimeter defense and constant vigilance were given more advantages in the struggle for survival than, for example, ingenuity.
The Pleistocene ended a mere 12 thousand years ago. About the same time humans domesticated the dog is alive the alarm and need to throw up at every little noise. But the genes responsible for this ability, anywhere from a population has not disappeared. Brain by that time was, as they say paleontologists, "anatomically modern", i.e. not different from ours.
One of the side effects of the prehistoric mechanism of vigilance conservatives — what can be called the "paradox of the hurt feelings of believers." Those who are easily offended, ready to give the stimulus more time and attention. Although it would seem, do not like do not eat.
In a laboratory experiment, organized in 2012 by the team of Higgins, it looked like this. On the computer screen, four pictures at the same time, joint to joint. One is neutral or even attractive — well, for example, playing children. And three repulsive (for example, all of the same ulcer-feces-flies).
Sensitivity and vulnerability of the conservatives, says Higgins, is a consequence of the "negative attitudes of consciousness."A special device, the eye tracker monitors the movements of the eyeballs in experimental. A matter of milliseconds: it seems to us that the brain absorbs the picture instantly, in one sitting. Consciousness really does not have time to take control of it. But this technique lays unconscious on the sitting phase. As time lapse — bullet in a balloon.
The liberals are slowly exploring the entire field of view, then stop at some random picture of the four and focus on her. And if it is unpleasant, and rapidly switches to the next — until you reach neutral. And conservatives find some repulsive picture quickly — and permanently stick to it.
Does it follow that a conservative is doomed to vulnerability, irritability, constant vigilance and artificially narrowed picture of the world? On the contrary, who was born sensitive, alert and irritable — he will grow up to be conservative. Political orientation, say Higgins with colleagues — a consequence of inborn qualities and, consequently, is a thing inborn.
When you need to separate the "innate" from the "purchased" on the scene a Gemini. Identical matches the entire genome, fraternal — only 50 percent of genes. Regardless of this, both the child, unless given to foster families, receive the same education: we live in the same house, go to the same school and listening to the same bedtime story.
And if fraternal twins political views differ more often than identical, so the case is still in the genes. In 2005, this convinced the Higgins team on the basis of statistics collected accidentally by doctors for 20 years before that. In the late ' 80s, the doctors sent mail 5670 pairs of twins and their next-of-kin questionnaire for all occasions — about health, bio, and, in particular, about political views. (This last series of questions which tallied so exactly with those which were asked 83 volunteers in 2014 before a session of imaging, is the basis of both studies were used the same questionnaire, the Wilson—Patterson.) The twins answered, the researchers sat down to analyze and found that the contribution of genes in the responses to different items of the questionnaire varied. Hardest heredity manifests itself in the evaluation of school prayer, and the weakest — in relation to contemporary art and the distribution of flats to the poor at state expense.
Anyway, it became clear that DNA that does not naturally change appreciably restricts the freedom of political will.
Does this mean that we have a gene for gene liberalism and conservatism? Hardly. Year ago clear decided to make James Fowler, a classic of the new sociology (his popular science book "one Connected network" has been translated into 19 languages, including Croatian and Thai). Team Fowler has collected in Sweden 1000 pairs of twins-men from 52 to 67 years and asked about economic policy. And extracted from military archives, the results of the IQ tests that they took place several decades ago during the military service (Sweden abandoned the appeal just recently in 2009).
The young conservatives have more gray matter in the amygdala, the center of emotions, the young liberals in the anterior cingulate cortex.IQ, as neatly expressed genetics has a strong hereditary component. Political leanings too. Fowler with colleagues suggested that one — just the consequence of the other. Those whose IQ is higher, opposed high taxes and redistribution of wealth. Accordingly, spoken like a typical American right-wing. That is like the conservatives. It was quite unexpected.
Fowler said: Sweden is not America, and the state with exaggerated social policy. High taxes, subsidies to the poor and other valuables left is the current state of things. So the "take away and divide as before" — the most that neither is a conservative slogan. And right in this context — the liberals, the party of change. The higher the IQ, the stronger and the desire to change something.
You can go the other way and look for differences directly, at the level of brain structure. In 2011, it became clear: the young conservatives have more gray matter in the amygdala, the center of emotions, the young liberals in the anterior cingulate cortex. This zone difficult mission: as we learn, our successes encourages dopamine "reward system". But to assess our progress she doesn't know how, and anterior cingulate cortex helps her.
Hypothesis is confirmed by the experiment with repulsive photos and MRI, described in Current Biology. Bark study, subcortex is not much, so the difference in subcortical activity is difficult to be attributed to life experience. If a professional soldier smiles while standing at the wall waiting for the shooting, or a professional tightrope Walker walks the tightrope between skyscrapers — it does not mean that they weaned their child to generate fear. On the contrary, peace is both two brain areas: one, subcortical, sends an alarm, the other, in the bark, trained to suppress the reaction to this signal. A psychopath whose amygdala is not working since infancy, can act as fearlessly however, his CT scan, two areas in the cortex and in the subcortex, just asleep.
How to live with this knowledge? First the bad news: if conservatism is hardwired in the genes, perechitivay person the liberals will not work, no matter how you honed your skill of the polemicist. Bulk for your uncle and will remain an American spy, and Ebola — the machinations of the Pentagon. Another issue is that liberalism and conservatism are in different circumstances appear differently. In the US it will be a debate about the right of a gay man to be a priest, conditional in Uganda on how best to enforce the death penalty for homosexuality: with a loop or a machete. The difference is worth it to fight for it. published
Author: Borislav Kozlovsky
P. S. And remember, just changing your mind - together we change the world! ©
Source: www.colta.ru/articles/science/5265
You are put into the MRI scanner. Scroll before my eyes a series of photos, absolutely plotless and without a hint of policy. After 10 minutes, the scientists in the next room, already able to tell what you prefer — "krymnash" or Maidan, Bolotnaya and Poklonnaya. What do you think about Pussy Riot, gays, abortion, and immigrants.
More precisely, liberal or conservative.
This trick works, of course, with all sorts of photos. Those that are used during the procedure, there is a peculiarity: they are very unpleasant. In an unexpected and unpleasant degree. They all come from a closed database of IAPS (international affective pictures system). The most innocent examples — the plague between your index and middle fingers, dog feces on the fresh grass, flies on his corn.
Psychologists cherish IAPS from falling into the hands of laymen no less carefully than once a set of spots Rorschach: all test subjects will see these images in the laboratory tests, should be for him a complete surprise. Therefore, even academic publishers are in the position and allow scientists to not put "affective image" in the section about materials and methods.
Our political orientation is programmed in the brain is not less than the tendency to write with the right or left hand.Actually in science so is not accepted. Teach a chimp to make out the letters — please submit all cards which were shown to the monkey. Described a new optical illusion — let video. But in the case of IAPS is more important to avoid leakage. As the virologists who work with dangerous pathogens.
Experiment report printed at the end of October magazine CurrentBiology. Nine of the 11 authors — physicians, biologists and experts in the processing of the tomograms. The name of John Higgins, Professor of political science at the University of Lincoln, Nebraska, modestly appears in the middle of the list. But he is the scientific formulation of the idea that our political orientation is programmed in the brain is not less than the tendency to write with the right or left hand.
The difference is that left-handers with right-handers aware of: it is innate, biological, it can not be helped. But leftism or rightness in the views hitherto accepted to explain a conscious choice, life experience and proper education. In extreme cases the influence of propaganda.
At the request of scientists 83 adult Americans answered the questions of the long questionnaire about politics. How do you feel about the death penalty? Toward gay marriage? To the teaching of evolution in school? Is it possible to have sex before marriage? And to torture terrorism suspects? The results of all divided into roughly equal groups — 28 liberals, 28 conservatives and 27 people with moderate views. Then each was placed in an MRI scanner, and built-in screen of the device there is the very photo from the database of IAPS.
The authors of the experiment at first tried honestly to put pressure on different emotions. Here are the images of pleasure: an evening in the Alps, playing in the garden children. But the threat of the gun at the person in the mouth, a knife at her throat, a fighting dog without a leash. But the pattern of brain activity when you look at all of this is disappointingly similar in all subjects.
As soon as it comes to disgusting, the difference is finally apparent. Especially if you show mutilated animals. "When a saw cut throat dog, do not pucker up" is Brodsky invites readers to go against their intelligentsia (the liberal, on the machine we think up) nature. But, apparently, not the offers. Because frown, judging by the results of the experiment, namely the conservatives. On the CT they have flashes brightly amygdala, a subcortical center of emotions, and after it, the work included a whole orchestra of brain areas. Supplementary motor cortex begins to prepare the body to escape, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, responsible for rational thinking, has struggled to quell the panic: you're in the scanner, it's just a photo, to run and to turn away is not necessary.
"The paradox of the offended feelings of believers": those who are easily offended, ready to give the stimulus more time and attention.Liberals instead of all this variety lights up two barely visible plot in the center of the island Rala, and neuroscientists do not ascribe this activity meaningful. Of course, the rest of the brain excluding the mentioned zones is not asleep, simply in — those and others — the same routine work: visual cortex processes the image, frontal lobe finds it familiar objects. And so on.
Sensitivity and vulnerability of the conservatives, says Higgins, is a consequence of the "negative attitudes of consciousness." Ugly, he was about to loom on the horizon, given the conservative brain is the highest priority, because any deviation from the norm is a signal of a problem that needs to be addressed. This mechanism of thinking, it seems that evolution has secured a long two and a half million years of the Pleistocene, when the maintenance of the old order of things, perimeter defense and constant vigilance were given more advantages in the struggle for survival than, for example, ingenuity.
The Pleistocene ended a mere 12 thousand years ago. About the same time humans domesticated the dog is alive the alarm and need to throw up at every little noise. But the genes responsible for this ability, anywhere from a population has not disappeared. Brain by that time was, as they say paleontologists, "anatomically modern", i.e. not different from ours.
One of the side effects of the prehistoric mechanism of vigilance conservatives — what can be called the "paradox of the hurt feelings of believers." Those who are easily offended, ready to give the stimulus more time and attention. Although it would seem, do not like do not eat.
In a laboratory experiment, organized in 2012 by the team of Higgins, it looked like this. On the computer screen, four pictures at the same time, joint to joint. One is neutral or even attractive — well, for example, playing children. And three repulsive (for example, all of the same ulcer-feces-flies).
Sensitivity and vulnerability of the conservatives, says Higgins, is a consequence of the "negative attitudes of consciousness."A special device, the eye tracker monitors the movements of the eyeballs in experimental. A matter of milliseconds: it seems to us that the brain absorbs the picture instantly, in one sitting. Consciousness really does not have time to take control of it. But this technique lays unconscious on the sitting phase. As time lapse — bullet in a balloon.
The liberals are slowly exploring the entire field of view, then stop at some random picture of the four and focus on her. And if it is unpleasant, and rapidly switches to the next — until you reach neutral. And conservatives find some repulsive picture quickly — and permanently stick to it.
Does it follow that a conservative is doomed to vulnerability, irritability, constant vigilance and artificially narrowed picture of the world? On the contrary, who was born sensitive, alert and irritable — he will grow up to be conservative. Political orientation, say Higgins with colleagues — a consequence of inborn qualities and, consequently, is a thing inborn.
When you need to separate the "innate" from the "purchased" on the scene a Gemini. Identical matches the entire genome, fraternal — only 50 percent of genes. Regardless of this, both the child, unless given to foster families, receive the same education: we live in the same house, go to the same school and listening to the same bedtime story.
And if fraternal twins political views differ more often than identical, so the case is still in the genes. In 2005, this convinced the Higgins team on the basis of statistics collected accidentally by doctors for 20 years before that. In the late ' 80s, the doctors sent mail 5670 pairs of twins and their next-of-kin questionnaire for all occasions — about health, bio, and, in particular, about political views. (This last series of questions which tallied so exactly with those which were asked 83 volunteers in 2014 before a session of imaging, is the basis of both studies were used the same questionnaire, the Wilson—Patterson.) The twins answered, the researchers sat down to analyze and found that the contribution of genes in the responses to different items of the questionnaire varied. Hardest heredity manifests itself in the evaluation of school prayer, and the weakest — in relation to contemporary art and the distribution of flats to the poor at state expense.
Anyway, it became clear that DNA that does not naturally change appreciably restricts the freedom of political will.
Does this mean that we have a gene for gene liberalism and conservatism? Hardly. Year ago clear decided to make James Fowler, a classic of the new sociology (his popular science book "one Connected network" has been translated into 19 languages, including Croatian and Thai). Team Fowler has collected in Sweden 1000 pairs of twins-men from 52 to 67 years and asked about economic policy. And extracted from military archives, the results of the IQ tests that they took place several decades ago during the military service (Sweden abandoned the appeal just recently in 2009).
The young conservatives have more gray matter in the amygdala, the center of emotions, the young liberals in the anterior cingulate cortex.IQ, as neatly expressed genetics has a strong hereditary component. Political leanings too. Fowler with colleagues suggested that one — just the consequence of the other. Those whose IQ is higher, opposed high taxes and redistribution of wealth. Accordingly, spoken like a typical American right-wing. That is like the conservatives. It was quite unexpected.
Fowler said: Sweden is not America, and the state with exaggerated social policy. High taxes, subsidies to the poor and other valuables left is the current state of things. So the "take away and divide as before" — the most that neither is a conservative slogan. And right in this context — the liberals, the party of change. The higher the IQ, the stronger and the desire to change something.
You can go the other way and look for differences directly, at the level of brain structure. In 2011, it became clear: the young conservatives have more gray matter in the amygdala, the center of emotions, the young liberals in the anterior cingulate cortex. This zone difficult mission: as we learn, our successes encourages dopamine "reward system". But to assess our progress she doesn't know how, and anterior cingulate cortex helps her.
Hypothesis is confirmed by the experiment with repulsive photos and MRI, described in Current Biology. Bark study, subcortex is not much, so the difference in subcortical activity is difficult to be attributed to life experience. If a professional soldier smiles while standing at the wall waiting for the shooting, or a professional tightrope Walker walks the tightrope between skyscrapers — it does not mean that they weaned their child to generate fear. On the contrary, peace is both two brain areas: one, subcortical, sends an alarm, the other, in the bark, trained to suppress the reaction to this signal. A psychopath whose amygdala is not working since infancy, can act as fearlessly however, his CT scan, two areas in the cortex and in the subcortex, just asleep.
How to live with this knowledge? First the bad news: if conservatism is hardwired in the genes, perechitivay person the liberals will not work, no matter how you honed your skill of the polemicist. Bulk for your uncle and will remain an American spy, and Ebola — the machinations of the Pentagon. Another issue is that liberalism and conservatism are in different circumstances appear differently. In the US it will be a debate about the right of a gay man to be a priest, conditional in Uganda on how best to enforce the death penalty for homosexuality: with a loop or a machete. The difference is worth it to fight for it. published
Author: Borislav Kozlovsky
P. S. And remember, just changing your mind - together we change the world! ©
Source: www.colta.ru/articles/science/5265
