Scientists conducted a study on The connection between politics and the brain without any particular expectations, and the results surprised them. It turns out that such a connection exists.
In science, for a study to be considered valid must be reproducible. That is, an independent group of scientists can repeat the procedure and achieve the same results. In 2011, a in Great Britain a study that concluded that there are significant differences in the brains of conservative and progressive people. The results attracted a lot of public attention, but raised many doubts among scientists, since the experiment involved very few participants. They barely had 90 students.
So a new team of researchers, this time from University of Amsterdamrepeated the study with a larger number of participants: 10 times more. It is not an exact copy, because 928 participantsYes, but the procedure was very similar. The authors of the study did not expect to continue to find this connection between politics and the brain; but, curiously, they came face to face with it again.
Politics in your head?
It is logical that our political ideology is conditioned many social and environmental factorssuch as our education or where we live. But since the 2011 study was published, there has been much talk of even more rigid conditioning. The one who positions policy in the brain.
The authors of this study found differences in two areas of the brain. On the one side, amygdalaprimarily responsible for emotional processing. And, on the other hand, anterior cingulate gyrus, It is also connected with emotions and, moreover, with automatic reactions.
To test whether this was true, a new group of scientists asked their volunteers to answer the question. a survey about your political ideologywhich included questions of an economic and social nature. This was the first test, and the second was a brain scan. After completing both parts of the experiment, they compared the results of the survey with the images of their brains and, although they did not find a strong connection with the anterior cingulate cortex, they did see it with the amygdala.
Conservative people usually had the largest tonsil than progressive voters. The amygdala seems to be somehow linked to people’s political preferences. But the reason remains unclear.
Benefits of studying in different countries
The United Kingdom is clearly bipartisan. However, in the Netherlands, where the second study was conducted, there is a system multi-partya, s a very wide range of ideologies. So it was a good time to repeat the experiment, because you could see that the differences in amygdala size were consistent across the spectrum. Clearly, politics and the brain seemed to be linked.
In fact, differences were observed between specific political parties. For example, in Holland, the Socialist Party, even though it considers itself progressive, has clear differences in economic and social policy. In the first, it coincides with the left parties, and in the second, it is more conservative. It was noted that voters of this party had more gray matter in the amygdala than voters of other progressive parties. But less than those on the right.
Other regions that link politics to the brain
The only point of connection between this study and the 2011 study is the amygdala. And while those scientists found nothing remarkable about the anterior cingulate cortex, they did find differences between the parties in other areas of the brain. For example, they observed a larger size in right fusiform gyrus conservative people, both socially and economically.
This area of the brain is associated with visual and cognitive functions. It helps us process memories in the form of images. Among these memories are face treatment from other people. For this reason, the authors of the study believe that perhaps right-wing voters think more about the faces of politicians of the same ideology when voting.
A bigger brain does not mean more intelligence
It must be clear that intelligence is completely independent of political ideology. A bigger brain does not mean more intelligence. Moreover, we are talking about specific parts of the brain, not the entire organ. However, it is interesting that the party we vote for does not depend only on the education we have received or the experience we have gained. Some of it has already been recorded in our brains. Keep this in mind when arguing with someone about politics.
Source: Hiper Textual
