I was reading an interesting article that looked at the differences in brain structure between samples of people who identified themselves as liberal and people who identified as conserative. The study indicates that conservatives have larger amygdalas while liberals have larger anterior cingulate cortexes.
The amygdala is involved with
memory and processing emotional reactions. This suggest that conservatives are
more efficient at processing threats.
The anterior cingulate cortex is involved with several autonomic functions, such as regulating blood pressure and heart rate, as well as
rational cognitive functions like reward anticipation, decision-making, empathy and emotion. This means that liberals may be
more efficient at managing conflicting information
Current Biology - Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults
This study says that liberals, on average, have higher IQ's than conservatives:
Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent
I can't wait for all of the rants about the supposed "liberal indoctrination" in higher education as a response to this thread.
You either in ignorance or deliberately failed to mention something REALLY important with all of this.
The word "conservatism" as used by the authors of these studies does NOT mean "those who favor the free market and a decentralized federal government" and the word "liberal" does NOT mean "those who favor socialism or communism or totalitarianism". Conservatism and liberalism were used the same way they were in other studies of this kind that have been done for years.
Sorry to break the bad news to you - but there are NO studies showing those who believe in the free market system are somehow more stupid than those who believe the historically proven failure of a system of communism will surely work if tried just one more time. Because that isn't true.
The word "conservatism" as used in these studies refers to one's opinions about what should and should not be socially acceptable and nothing more. NOT their opinions about economic systems, NOT their opinions about systems of government and NOT their opinions about the proper role of government. Someone who thinks tampon ads should not be on tv when children would be most likely watching and thought gay marriage should not be legal would be "conservative" and someone who believed drugs should be legalized and that having children out of wedlock should be no big deal would be liberal. But it has nothing to do with either one's opinions with regard to systems of economics and government. And it isn't predictive of voting behavior. For example, blacks tend to measure as "conservative" as the word is used here -they overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage for example. But they also overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Libertarians are social liberals but vote Republican.
And it claims there is a difference in the brains In YOUNG adults. So what? That suggests that difference is not there at all in more mature brains. Does it still look more like the undeveloped brain of a child then? Young adults tend to believe what they FEEL determines "truth" and it takes maturity to realize that feelings are can too often be perverted, irrational, counterproductive, untrustworthy and at times just dead wrong.
That young adults are more liberal as the word is defined in these studies (and is NOT with regard to what system of economics and government one subscribes to) is not and never has been a secret but something every older generation has known about the upcoming one going back thousands of years! Seriously.
So...wow. You mean it really takes a "study" to know what has been common knowledge all along? Really impressed you, huh? Or did you think the study actually had something to do with the opinions a person held about the proper role of government and an economic system because they used the words "conservatism" and "liberal" and YOU had a NEED to assume it referred to the opinions regarding economics and government or how someone voted? Probably a mistake of being a hasty youth reading something into it that didn't exist. Because you have to be a moron to think those who think the historically proven failure of a system of government will surely work if given just one more chance actually have a higher IQ honey.
You would no doubt like these to be studies that totally contradict those that correlate the level of education to voting behavior -but these aren't trying to do that. And couldn't anyway. There ARE numerous studies that correlate the level of education to voting behavior though. And sorry to tell you but those studies have shown those who vote Democrat -tend to have a lower level of education than those who vote Republican. Not only have studies proven this -so have polls where people have been polled regarding the way they vote and their education, including the most recent Harris poll on this. Which is all just common sense anyway if you just thought about it.
Think about who votes Democrat, ok? Take lawyers out of the equation and who is largely left? The least educated among us, those most likely to be receiving government handouts of some kind - and NOT coincidentally also those most likely to be promised increases in their government handouts if they vote Democrat. Duh. Oh and among those who vote Democrat -be sure to count most of Hollywood too -where the average level of education is 10th grade.
The "liberals and atheists are more intelligent" bullshit -is just that. Bullshit. Get real -it is something liberals and atheists desperately WANT to believe but not true even though someone wanted this outcome SO much, he managed to get what so many others could not! ROFL
Young adults think differently, they behave differently, they are often still in school, still lack much real world experience and it is also a fact that a person's IQ drops a couple of points every decade starting in their 30s until it plateaus in their 60s. But that last fact isn't correlated with either wisdom or common sense, neither of which is measured in an IQ test -which isn't really measuring raw intelligence anyway. What the authors are calling "liberal" refers to the individual's belief system regarding social values. If you think its an eye opener that young adults tend to be more socially liberal than their older parents -that would certainly suggest you lack critical thinking skills given the fact our society didn't reach this level of permissiveness overnight, did it? No -it took many generations, each more liberal in their social values than the one before. I didn't even need a study to know that -what does it say about you that you did? (And that isn't even getting into the studies showing the permissiveness and restrictiveness of social norms are cyclical in nature and not related to intelligence whatsoever.
