or something not exactly like that. Research in this month’s issue of Science that finds a significant correlation (among people with strongly-held political views) between certain physical reactions and political leanings. The physical reactions studied had to do with how intensely people responded to being scared by shocking images (photo of a spider on a face, gaping wound filled with maggots, sudden noises etc.).
The strongest responses to the shocking stimuli were witnessed in people who favored “socially protective policies,” which…
…tend to be held by people “particularly concerned with protecting the interests of the participants’ group, defined as the United States in mid-2007, from threats.” These positions include support for military spending, warrantless searches, the death penalty, the Patriot Act, obedience, patriotism, the Iraq War, school prayer and Biblical truth, and opposition to pacifism, immigration, gun control, foreign aid, compromise, premarital sex, gay marriage, abortion rights and pornography.
The paper concluded, “Political attitudes vary with physiological traits linked to divergent manners of experiencing and processing environmental threats.” This may help to explain “both the lack of malleability in the beliefs of individuals with strong political convictions and the associated ubiquity of political conflict.”1
- From the Science Daily summary (because I certainly can’t afford a subscription to Science), [↩]
0 comments ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
Leave a Comment