Politics: All in your head

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, in the spirit of the Great Political Discussion Experiment of 2015, and in advance (slightly) of the bi-annual shouting matches about politics that Americans get into, here's why you shouldn't spend a lot of time demonizing people who disagree with you politically:

A lot of it simply isn't your choice. Attitudes toward the world, and thus politics, are in large part a function of your brain structure and, apparently, your genes.

In a brain scanner, participants were shown disgusting images, such as dirty toilets or mutilated carcasses, mixed with neutral and pleasant images, such as landscapes and babies.

Afterward, the subjects took a standard political ideology inventory, answering questions about how often they discuss politics and whether they agreed or disagreed with hot-button topics such as school prayer and gay marriage.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, scientists from the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute — in collaboration with researchers from University College London, Rice University, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and Yale University — recorded brain activity of the subjects responding to the images.

Responses to disgusting images could predict, with 95 percent to 98 percent accuracy, how a person would answer questions on the political survey.

The results suggest political ideologies are mapped onto established neural responses that may have served to protect our ancestors against environmental threats, Montague said. Those neural responses could be passed down family lines — it’s likely that disgust reactions are inherited.

“We pursued this research because previous work in a twin registry showed that political ideology — literally the degree to which someone is liberal or conservative — was highly heritable, almost as heritable as height,” said Montague, who directs the Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute.

So the next time someone is sharing a hi-larious meme on Facebook mocking people they disagree with politically for their moral turpitude or their general stupidity, remember that they're essentially demonizing people for something that they have as much control over as their height or eye color.

 

[Morrus]

And, more importantly, what you're used to. Something as minor as what insignificant word you use to refer to an object can create dissonance and feelings of wrongness or superiority; your opinion on an actual political stance that matters is a bombshell by comparison.

People do demonize each other over the most trivial things. They get angry here on EN World about the best way to pretend to be an elf. The major things? Wow. That's why we had this rule, and why it's an experiment.

 

[Umbran]

So the next time someone is sharing a hi-larious meme on Facebook mocking people they disagree with politically for their moral turpitude or their general stupidity, remember that they're essentially demonizing people for something that they have as much control over as their height or eye color.

Except, of course, you do have control, as they mention in the article you linked to....

People are unique among animals in their degree of cognitive control. Montague calls it a behavioral superpower.

“People can deny their biological instincts for an idea — think of hunger strikes for political reasons,” Montague said. “That requires a high degree of cognitive control, and that’s the point.”

The takeaway message for Election Day?

“Think, don’t just react,” Montague said. “But no one needs neuroscience to know that’s a good idea.”

People running on autopilot, who are not *thinking* will, of course, lack control, by definition. People's initial reactions may be predictable, what they will do when their brain is in gear is another matter.

Anyone seen the new Pixar film, Inside Out? In it, they use a cognitive model of you having several different emotions that guide your basic behavior. One of them is Disgust. They state that Disgust is there to keep you from getting poisoned, either in a physical, *or* in a social sense. It is about raising your social status and keeping you away from icky things. It then isn't so surprising that this emotion correlates to what we think of as modern conservatism.

 

[Janx]

And, more importantly, what you're used to. Something as minor as what insignificant word you use to refer to an object can create dissonance and feelings of wrongness or superiority; your opinion on an actual political stance that matters is a bombshell by comparison.

People do demonize each other over the most trivial things. They get angry here on EN World about the best way to pretend to be an elf. The major things? Wow. That's why we had this rule, and why it's an experiment.

If I can't get Morrus to agree that he was wrong in how he played his elf and that my way is better, what is the point of actually talking about it then?

Sure, Umbran has explained why I was wrong about something(s) and convinced me, but part of that was because I wasn't too invested in whatever the wrong thing was.

Imagine I believed in something as strongly as it was wrongly. How's Umbran going to fix that?

I reckon if that can be solved, that's the way to talk about religion and politics.

 

[Morrus]

Imagine I believed in something as strongly as it was wrongly. How's Umbran going to fix that?

I guess the thing is, Umbran doesn't need to fix it. As long as we're not about converting people, it should be OK. The important thing is to remember one's manners. If you're polite, you can believe anything, as far as I'm concerned. I might think you're* stupid for doing so, but I won't post it. As long as everyone can do that, all is good.

*For values of "you're" not meaning you specifically.

 

[Umbran]

Imagine I believed in something as strongly as it was wrongly. How's Umbran going to fix that?

With persistence, cunning, and cookies.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Except, of course, you do have control, as they mention in the article you linked to....

People are unique among animals in their degree of cognitive control. Montague calls it a behavioral superpower.

“People can deny their biological instincts for an idea — think of hunger strikes for political reasons,” Montague said. “That requires a high degree of cognitive control, and that’s the point.”

The takeaway message for Election Day?

“Think, don’t just react,” Montague said. “But no one needs neuroscience to know that’s a good idea.”

But the fundamental aspects of personality -- the conservatism or liberalism, among other axes, that those spring from -- are quite literally how people are wired. Mark Twain quotes aside, people don't often flip radically from one well-informed position to another. They might realize that they were on autopilot, agreeing with friends or family before investigating and saying "wow, this doesn't conform with what makes me happy at all," but it's rare that people who've really explored why they're voting the way they are to flip to a radically different position.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If I can't get Morrus to agree that he was wrong in how he played his elf and that my way is better, what is the point of actually talking about it then?

Discuss things to share ideas and help other players solve problems, not because you want to convert everyone to the Borg and your particular way of playing elves.

Imagine I believed in something as strongly as it was wrongly. How's Umbran going to fix that?

I reckon if that can be solved, that's the way to talk about religion and politics.

If every political discussion is about "fixing" other people, then no, it's not possible to have civil conversations about it.

 

[sabrinathecat]

The US doesn't have much actual practice in arguing and debate. This is why so many flame wars start and most arguments quickly degenerate into name calling and logical fallacies. The object is to go for image and emotion, not actual substance. And it happens over and over and over again.
And audiences respond to the emotion because for the the most part this country does not teach students to analyze what they are hearing--not even at college level. Heck, the US barely teaches people their own language (whatever it might be).

 

[Umbran]

But the fundamental aspects of personality -- the conservatism or liberalism, among other axes, that those spring from -- are quite literally how people are wired.

The issue is more nuanced than that, but....

The major point being that humans can overcome their wiring! Behavioral superpower! Your dog can't do that, nor your cat, nor most other living things on the planet. You can.

As they say: You are the product of several billions of years of successful evolution. Act like it.