People with right-wing views tend to have a larger right amygdala.
People with left-wing views tend to have a larger anterior cingulate cortex.
That’s what research commissioned by Colin Firth found. He was guest-editing the BBC’s Today show:
“I took this (experiment) on as a fairly frivolous exercise: I just decided to find out what was biologically wrong with people who don’t agree with me,” Firth said.
The best report of the research I’ve found, with neat diagram, is actually in the Courier Mail.
Professor Geraint Rees, Director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, conducted the study, which is being peer reviewed before publication next year. He expressed himself as “very surprised ” with the result.
Professor Rees said while it was not precise enough to predict someone’s stance from a scan, there was “a strong correlation that reaches all our scientific tests of significance”.
The Wikipedia link says nice things about the anterior cingulate:
The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the frontal part of the cingulate cortex, that resembles a “collar” form around the corpus callosum, the fibrous bundle that relays neural signals between the right and left cerebral hemispheres of the brain. It includes both the ventral and dorsal areas of the cingulate cortex, and appears to play a role in a wide variety of autonomic functions, such as regulating blood pressure and heart rate, as well as rational cognitive functions, such as reward anticipation, decision-making, empathy and emotion.
But look, we can’t do without amygdala, right and left.
The amygdala sends impulses to the hypothalamus for activation of the sympathetic nervous system, to the thalamic reticular nucleus for increased reflexes, to the nuclei of the trigeminal nerve and the facial nerve, and to the ventral tegmental area, locus coeruleus, and laterodorsal tegmental nucleus for activation of dopamine, norepinephrine and epinephrine.
The cortical nucleus is involved in the sense of smell and pheromone-processing. It receives input from the olfactory bulb and olfactory cortex.
And so on. Without functional amygdala we would be emotional and social cripples, lack a fear response and have trouble with long-term memory. Enlarged right amdygala seem to be associated with schizophrenia, which is a worry.
What really annoys me though is the tendency to take the next step and say that our political views may be hard-wired. This report leads off with:
DOCTORS are examining whether political allegiances are hard-wired into people after finding evidence that the brains of conservatives are a different shape to those of left-wingers.
It’s well-known that our brains are quite plastic, especially growing up. It’s axiomatic that different patterns of thinking, acting and feeling will differentially bring different parts of our brains into play.
About the tennis player Rod Laver we read:
Laver was very quick and mobile and had a gigantic left forearm.
It’s quite noticeable here. That’s because he used his left arm to wield the racquet, his right arm to throw up the ball and didn’t do much gym work to balance it out. If he’d taken up weight lifting the relative size and strength of his arms would be different.
My contention is that it is the memes rather than the genes at work, and associated patterns of behaviour over a period of time.
However, I would be interested in research to see whether RWDBs have a greater tendency to be schizoid.
If I interpret this research correctly, isn’t it saying RWDBs are more likely to be lizard brain types? Nice to have science backing it up, even if it is open to misinterpretation.
Anecdotally, of the three schizophrenics I know well, one was middle of the road politically, the other two were/are left wing.
In light of this article it might be worth doing some research into famous schizophrenics (eg Van Gogh) to see how their political views can be classified.
Incidentally, all the people I know suffering from bipolar disorder, and I’ve known quite a few over my life, were/are left wing.
Brian you’re showing your (blog culture) age by bringing up the RWDB’s. Sometime around hurricane Katrina they started to fade into the background. Cliamte change denial and school halls haven’t been able to sustain them like Jr did.
Ideas as complex as political ideologies are highly unlikely to be hard-wired.
However, the following argument can be made:
Political ideas in an individual are to a large degree formed by the individual’s perception of his/her relationship with others. If one is driven by fear of others, then there are certain ideational consequences. Likewise if one is particularly empathetic.
The individual chooses his/her political ideas from a smorgasbord of those on offer. Only very infrequently does an individual autonomously develop political ideas.
The choice of those ideas from the ideological smorgasbord may well be influenced by tendencies patterned by the nature of the operation of the individual’s brain.
Just look as how many lizards are members of the Young Libs.
If you fear people then you want a large state that will control people. If you tend to trust people then a large state isn’t seen as essential and we can self organise without coersion. So on that basis lefties are all nervous nellies scared of their own shadow. Then again so are conservatives.
Personally I’d go with the hunch that brain variations associated with ideology are like tennis muscles. A product of brain plasticity and usage. This suggests that we could develop a program of brain exercises to get everybody thinking “properly”.
The lizard people conspiracies are not new. The scary thing is working out if the lizard people are out to eat you or if they want to breed with you.
Terje Said:
Fearing people sounds like a conservative response rather than a leftwing response to me. We’ve had versions of this conversation before and as you’d know I see myself as a left-winger precisely because I hold that huamns can learn from each other, collaborate equitably, and produce values through equitable collaboration that are beyond those that would follow if, as RWDBs would have it, every humans sees every other as a probable rival for scarce resources.
In so far as a state is concerned, its legitimate role is to give effect to the human desire to collaborate equitably, to belong and have purpose, effecting structures that underpin this project. While the state certainly must restrain harm to legitimate individual and collective human interests, its primary legitimate objective is the augmentation of human community, which, if you wish to couch this in the language of game theory, is a rival position to harm.
I too am sceptical of reliance on neurology to determine political/cultural predisposition. Culture is a subtle and textured entity and there is a complex interplay between it and what may be called, the interpersonal or experiential. Humans (certainly the most interesting ones anyway) are in my view, in a constant process of self-discovery and reimagination, and it is doubtful indeed if one could derive much more than the most banal of conclusions about people’s chosen cultural position by studying the configuration of the right amygdala or ACC. I’m also far from sure that one could even satisfactorily produce a set of these banal conclusions that could be reliably reproduced in a separate study.
If this research is to be believed, the likes of Emperor Rupert, Dolt and their fellow travellers must have amygdalae the size of a small country!
Just think of the ramifications! A quick scan of the old amygdala and a life in exile on Nauru. It would certainly solve the Sussex Street problem! LOL
I think we should start building the scanning stations immediately; eventually people could be scanned catching the bus or trains, when they’re applying for their learner’s permit, starting kindy.
This would make a great Goon Show! Where’s Spike Milligna when you need him?
Category error.
Not all lefties support powerful states. Not all righties are libertarian.
So what sort of political views do people woth big amigdalas in, say, Somalia have? How about Saudi Arabians with large anterior singulate cortexes?
What would be interesting is to look at the brain shapes of those people (of whom there are quite a lot amongst Australia’s right-wing commentariat) who were radical left-wingers in their 20s and 30s, then completely reversed their positions on everything to become rock-ribbed right-wingers in their middle years and beyond, whilst retaining, as right-wingers, the same ways of believing and the same sets of discursive articulations that they displayed as left-wingers.
I like what Fran said @ 6 with the caution from Katz @ 8. On the left, unfortunately there is a culture in places that is authoritarian, hierarchical and controlling.
Conservatives, I would have thought, have a deep distrust of human nature and tend to regard civilisation as a thin veneer, with responsible elites in control. But then there is sometimes a fundamental espousal of individual rights and liberties and a small state.
I did this post with some trepidation, as it is likely to evince prejudiced comments, myself included, and needless and unproductive stoushes. Still I thought it had at least curiosity value and perhaps the potential to yield an insight or two.
An with that in mind, Paul, I’d like to take a look at the contours of Robert Manne’s brain.
Neuroplasticity kind of implies that thinking conservatively for long enough will result in changes in the brain that reflect and promote a conservative viewpoint. Same with progressive thinking. There are clear differences between conservative and progressive attitudes that reflect a different response in the brain.
So you’re a progressive or a conservative? When you process information you will use the parts of your brain (nerve pathways) that reflect how you wish to deal with the information.
Cos of Myelinogenesis use of the same nerve pathways makes those pathways larger, faster and more likely to be used under similar circustances (such as coming across new information,) – this is a feedback loop. The more you think conservatively the more likely you are to think conservatively in the future, same with progressive thinking.
Thats why these studies show differences between “brains with different politics”. people approach issues and judge them differently. In politics this leads to the differences between left and right wing thinking.
Its the process that are used by brains to come to these conclusions that are highlighted by theses studies. (Ie in some people the processes associated with the amygdala are more prominent in their info processing, in other the processes in the ACC are. There’s a correlation between this and their political stance apparently.)
Of course it’d be easy to have a quick look at this and reach the obvious conclusion.
Conservatives are scared of new stuff, progressives are interested by it.
And its probably true.
But using new, possibly questionable science to reinforce your (or in this case my) biases is inherently dodgy.
Its paradoxial that the brains inherent neuroplasticity leads to it becoming less flexible when it actually comes to processing information but it does make sense. YOu want to learn, and in our original situation that learning was directly related to our everyday survival. So once you learn something your survival depends on it makes sense that your CNS would want to fix that information/ process in your brain to make it easier and quicker next time the survival related neural activity is required.
This is the basis of a process called habituation.
BTW if Colin Firth is trying to claim he started this as a field of study he’s lying. These studies have been done a bit over the last few years mostly in the US.
Fran this stuff doesn’t actually provide the details of peoples chosen cultural position. It provides a look at the underlying brain mechanics and they probably help determine the individuals chosen cultural position.
And I’m pretty sure there is a series of studies that provide corroboration.
Here’s a link to a report the studies from several years ago in the US:
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-sci-politics10sep10,0,2687256.story
Paul @ 10, I’d expect the scans to change with the changing patterns of thought.
The article about the amygdala said the a hyperactive left amygdala was associated with depression. When anti-depression drugs were administered, than both changed, the depressive feelings/behaviour and the physical hyperactive left amygdala.
What is surprising is that brain specialists seem to be surprised by this.
I also remember an experiment where people suffering from dyslexia were found to have distinctive brain activity patterns. After behavioural therapy the dyslexia was cured. Brain specialists were then “surprised” to find that the brain patterns had normalised, whereas I thought, Well duh! what else would you expect?
I think it comes from a fundamental dualism that thinks that thought is something that happens apart from the physical brain and somehow has ‘correlates’ with the physical. Thought and feeling IMHO are better understood as electro-chemical physical events. What is hidden from science, and probably will remain so is the exact content of these events, which are unique in the context of the individual’s memories and funded experience.
Don’t get thoughts and feeling confused Brian.
Thoughts are a result of CNS activity, feeling/emotions are a result of endocrine activity as well.
Pressed submit too accidently…
All of those brain functions, and everything else in your physiology happens because of many, many feedback loops.
Really to lay a political worldview at the feet of one potential series of feedback loops is a bit short sighted considering how many there are can potentially affect what you think.
The whole left right political thing correlates to brain activity sure.
But why are people left/right wing inclined, and what other non political experiences contributed to this … or more to the point why do people become politically progressive or conservative?
What determines this? IE What events cause neuroplastic changes and how do these changes determine how people react to political views?
And some people hold views about one thing that are conservative yet their thinking in another field may be quite progressive. I dunno, but it does seem (to me) that some of these differences are as due to hormonal changes and responses from the endocrine system.
To the key to all this may be in how new experiences and profitable new opportunities interact. (At least imo anyway.)
Brian #14:
Yes. However in certain key respects the sort of people have in mind seem to have maintained certain patterns of thought even whilst reversing their political allegiances. For example, it is not hard to imagine that the sort of neurological buttons that were pressed when certain erstwhile lefties shared a stage with Marxist-Leninist “freedom fighters” of various stripes in the 1960s would also have been pressed when their right-wing older selves shared a stage with the Nicaraguan Contra thugs in the 1980s.
My interpretation is that it’s all superficial.
The amygdala is essential for twisting one’s face into an authentic and impressive rictus of hate.
The other bit is essential for saying, in a slightly patronizing tone, “well that’s one way of looking at it but…”
The study is still under peer-review, and I’d say there’s a lot less to the results than meets the (media) eye.
Actually, no, wait, what the hell…our political opponents are all mentally ill and must be locked up and re-educated for their own good!!!?!1111!!!
Sorry, couldn’t resist
Well they are aren’t they?
Isn’t that the definition of a political opponent?
It seems my rampant smileys may have been missed by some.
Katz – the left right divide is quite inadequate in terms of examining political philosophy. It’s useful for stiring up trouble but that’s the extent of it.
Fran – we disagree about the nature and purpose of the state. I think it’s there to clobber other states that try and take our dirt. It’s nature is coersive and suspect. A society built with too much coercion is a bit sick. We should strictly limit the role of the state by institutional measures were possible and by active civil disobedience and obstruction where necessary. The state is not all bad but in any given context it’s best to assume it is until evidence suggest otherwise.
From the link provided @ 13:
Not sure it is a single spectrum. Reality tends to be more textured that that.
jules @ 15, in general terms I think emotion is always implicated in thinking, and in choosing when we think we’ve found an answer.
“feeling” can usefully be thought of as thoughts about emotions, but usage probably runs them together.
You’re all liars.
Nothing wrong with my brain. The amygdala is the only functional part of any human brain. And mine is bigger than all of yours, you stalinist.maoist traitors.
Who says that I’m inflexible? I’m very flexible. I’d readily admit that I’m wrong, if it ever happened. But it never has.
That’s because I’ve got a huge amygdala.
You’re all jealous.
Fucking traitor idiots.
My head hurts.
Paul N, I read @ 10 too hastily and managed to project my own meaning.
Sorry.
Merc @ 19, I tried to highlight that it was under peer review.
I read about three different articles which were clearly from the same source, which was likely to be a press release. The words didn’t change much.
But certainly the scientific results will be less than people make out of it.
Ackerman weighs in: liberals don’t have the sense to be afraid, but Libnats do. Well, there are some drawbacks. (And maybe some benefits?)
I just think it’s funny Colin Firth commissioned this particular study.
I agree actually. You could get a whole bunch of studies … diffs in brains of elite athletes and conservatives or progressive, painters and musos, or any number of other combinations and they’d all show different things (especially the same people at different ages), and from it you could work out there were specific correlations between how brains change over time and the stuff people do. Even then tho you wouldn’t be able to make more than (possibly inaccurate) generalisations about whats probably happening.
At the same time it does enable people to make generalisations that support their worldview. Which is always useful for political purposes.
WRT feeling and thoughts … I always wonder about scans as an accurate way of judging whats going on.
The idea of science is to limit the potential changes in a situation to one, and measure the ensuing result precisely in a repeatable way. So ideally you want to know the starting conditions and keep them consistant.
Because of the feedback between hormonal and neural activity I dunno if its possible to do that with scanning using MRIs etc. Maybe it doesn’t actually make a difference to the results but my “feeling” is it must have some effect.
Speaking of lizard people/reptilians, David Icke has had a very successful career out of ‘them’:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke
However, I would be interested in research to see whether RWDBs have a greater tendency to be schizoid.
Did you mean schizoid? Or schizophrenic? I assume you did mean schizoid, but if they’ve got a big amygdala there’d be less likely to be schizoid, surely?
Without functional amygdala we would be emotional and social cripples, lack a fear response and have trouble with long-term memory.
Well this has got to be bogus then. I’ve never met a right-winger who didn’t have the memory of a goldfish*.
More seriously, the problem with these sort of studies is they attempt to associate neurophysiological attributes to political viewpoints without having any sort of rigorous definition of the political terms used. (At least this Brit study won’t make the usual US mistake of imagining liberals are leftwing.) And note as sodding usual: the subjects are all students, and have self-assigned their political labels. So these results, if they tell you anything, tell you about the differences in brain physiognomy from thinking you are left or right wing, not being either.
*Actually goldfish have a perfectly adequate memory, or so sez Stephen Fry, but I’m torking idiomatically here.
@25 quite so. When I read it, I had a look at my calendar to check it wasn’t April 1.
I wouldn’t be terribly suprised if it turns out that Colin Firth is engineering a
hoaxvery gallant, good-humoured, large-foreheaded, sporting bit of japery on us all…Mercurius, you never know, although as jules’ link @ 13 shows, others had gotten there before him.
weaver, I don’t actually understand this stuff.
jules, I read somewhere that we were made up of 10 interacting systems, so it would seem to be folly to see the brain as operating independently. Of the other systems, the hormonal system would seem to be critical. I had a leaky thyroid once which sent me on a roller-coaster over about 6 months. Not a lot of fun.
Yeah totally.
I studied a bit of neurophysiology at uni before I dropped out in about 1990. It was a long time ago, but these days my wife has epilepsy. Over of the last 10 years I have been re-aquainting myself with it.
One thing that stands out above all others wrt to my wifes condition is the effect of hormonal changes on her consciousness. I don’t mean that in the stupid period joke sense either. I’m not talking about her mood, tho obviously we are all subject to hormonal influence when it comes to our moods. male or female.
I mean the likelihood of her getting sick and exhibiting symptoms of epilepsy, having aura’s or more serious events like seizures. IT was, before the medication was optimised and her condition controlled, one of the most accurate predictors of hormonal changes in her cycle. Even now its noticable, tho the medication “cloaks” it (her words just then.)
Not every case of epilepsy is like that, but its not unheard of either.
Obviously because the nervous system is “awash” in hormones all the time and the concentration changes that happen are meant to create changes in consciousness there is an important feedback loop, or loops in there.
The easiest example I can think of is adrenaline and a fight or flight response.
By the same token I can see while a study like this might not support the generalisations that flow from it, those generalisations are true.
(AS much as they can be being generalisations, which by definition means they are also untrue or that they obscure some other valid truth.)
COnservatives like old and familiar things and progressives like the new. And progressives are better able to pick the flaws in their own thinking and adjust.
(Thats true, to a point. Its probably also completely untrue in that a sexual conservative might be progressive in many other ways. And that other bit is just bollocks.)
It certainly reflects what I’ve noticed over the years. (So its obviously right. I mean come on.)
Well this is all very interesting. I’m in tune with Firth’s reasoning on this. In light of the published results, my business partner and I are examining the feasability of a new, but very popular cell phone, with an additional antenna to fire hypersonic waves from the speaker through the ear directly at the amigdala to cause shrinkage of this area. Before completing the design concept we are awaiting evidence for the part of the brain which must change when both the conservative and liberal brains see the failing of their beliefs and finally go Green. When this area, which must expand significantly with fresh new energetic neurones, is identified we imagine that a pulsed laser beam (sometimes referred to as a love ray) applied to that area will promote tissure growth along with a thinning effect of excessively thick skull matter.
I just love science?
This subject has been through the media and blogs before recently.And I am not suffering from Deja Vu.Being left handed I am inclined to think Liberal or Conservative voters actually trust people.The reason being they are most often dependent on the honesty of others because of ,often than not, being the boss class.What is proferred by this nonsense is a split brain hypothesis that then ,in the Australian context approves of the slowing down two speed economy.
Fine @ 27
I prefer Colin Firth plunging into a stream with his shirt undone
I don’t care about his brain.
I am reliably informed by prople who know about these sorts of things that Mr. Darcy is a secret vampire,but Lizzie doesn’t know it.
“Being left handed I am inclined to think Liberal or Conservative voters actually trust people.”
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Don’t know about Mr Darcy, Paul, but Lady Catherine de Bourgh definitely belongs in the ranks of the undead…
I hadn’t thought about this until your post, bmitw, but do you think that Mr Collins and Uriah Heep are blood-brothers (or, at the very least, brothers under the skin…)?
Na, Uriah Heap is definitely a zombie.
And Mr. Collins is a bit like Renwick, the fly-eater in Dracula.
You might be onto something Fiona – there’s the fake humility in both. Although I am by no means an expert on Uriah Heep, having been taught all I know about English by a man who hated Dickens.
Pride and Prejudice is another matter though – I read that every year, and on top of that is David Bamber’s Mr Collins, which nailed that toady perfectly.
By the way are any of those classic novels plus vampires/zombies etc any good? I have avoided them up to now after reading a P&P sequel by Emma Tennant, which sucked big time. PS Sorry to be OT.
bmitw,
a 23 year old friend of mine who is a genuine fanatic about both Austen and vampires tells me the vampire one about P&P is excellent. with Lizzie realising Darcy is in fact a vampire, who is trying to cure his vampirism through his love for Lizzie etc etc. She warmly recommended it. I haven’t read it, but in the past I’ve found her judgements and reccomendations on literature to be excellent. (Though I’ve never taken up the dare to read Harry Potter, and, anyway, it appears not all the HP are of equal literary worth, or so I gather.)
The P&P vampire novel is a sequel, apparently, to the original P&P where all left unrevealed by Jane Austen re the mysterious nature of Mr. Darcy is at last revealed. (From what I’ve been told about it.)
Paul the HP get darker and more interesting as they go. But JKR has written them in such a way as to interweave hints throughout all 7 so you can’t understand what goes on in the last one without reading the other 6.
Not great literature but enjoyable nevertheless. And much more all-encompassing and detailed than the movies.