more consensus on the "conservative brain" issue--Yes Repubs are cognitively different

[librechik]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/biology-ideology-john-hibbing-negativity-bias

snip
"Behavioral and Brain Sciences employs a rather unique practice called "Open Peer Commentary": An article of major significance is published, a large number of fellow scholars comment on it, and then the original author responds to all of them. The approach has many virtues, one of which being that it lets you see where a community of scholars and thinkers stand with respect to a controversial or provocative scientific idea. And in the latest issue of the journal, this process reveals the following conclusion: A large body of political scientists and political psychologists now concur that liberals and conservatives disagree about politics in part because they are different people at the level of personality, psychology, and even traits like physiology and genetics.

That's a big deal. It challenges everything that we thought we knew about politics—upending the idea that we get our beliefs solely from our upbringing, from our friends and families, from our personal economic interests, and calling into question the notion that in politics, we can really change (most of us, anyway)."

snip
"One possibility," they write, "is that a strong negativity bias was extremely useful in the Pleistocene," when it would have been super-helpful in preventing you from getting killed. (The Pleistocene epoch lasted from roughly 2.5 million years ago until 12,000 years ago.) We had John Hibbing on the Inquiring Minds podcast earlier this year, and he discussed these ideas in depth; you can listen here: (audio lecture at link)"

snip
"There is by now evidence from a variety of laboratories around the world using a variety of methodological techniques leading to the virtually inescapable conclusion that the cognitive-motivational styles of leftists and rightists are quite different. This research consistently finds that conservatism is positively associated with heightened epistemic concerns for order, structure, closure, certainty, consistency, simplicity, and familiarity, as well as existential concerns such as perceptions of danger, sensitivity to threat, and death anxiety. [Italics added]"

so stop using facts, reason, logic and appeals to community with your conservative friends. They're incapable of understanding anything that doesn't bite or explode. Then they fight or flee.

[PowerToThePeople]

1. The conservative mind is an unevolved mind

I think we all understand that.

Good article.

[Indydem]

4. When people say things like that, I wonder.

How can you ever have a conversation with someone who is "unevolved?"

How can you ever talk to them and make your case, if you start from such a place of blatent disdain?

If you can't recognize that they have a different opinion on things (misguided and wrong, of course) how can you ever hope to change their mind?

I don't know. I just see so much disdain and utter disregard for anyone with a different opinion, I don't know how we can ever hope to unify to fix this country.

[PowerToThePeople]

5. Honestly

I have never had a decent, civilized conversation with a real "right winger." They are too brain dead to converse with. I have had successful discussions with moderates who may have right leaning views. They can be worked with.

[Indydem]

6. "They are too brain dead"

Thats what I mean.

I don't know. I have right wing friends who I converse with regularly. I treat them with respect and have honest conversations with them. We disagree, but we respect each other and in doing so, I have definitely moved them more towards the left in their political opinion.

[The2ndWheel]

7. Not only that, but

it gives the impression that whatever the process is that we've come to call evolution has some sort of a direction(always a diagonal line going upward and to the right). Not just a direction, but a right and wrong direction. Also, that everyone needs to go in the same direction, and be in the same place at the same time.

[RKP5637]

2. Excellent! n/t

[merrily]

3. There are conservative brains, and then there are conservative brains.

As to people like this





the term "conservative brain" is an oxymoron.

For people like Scalia, though, the term "conservative brain" is not an oxymoron. Those people are smart, but as dishonest as can be.

[rock]

8. "cognitively different" = "stupid"

This is our whistle! Gotcha.

[Jim Macafee]

9. Blatant Democracy

Our neocortex is thought to be so expansive so that at its best it can accommodate detailed information about 150 or so tribemates. But most brains fall sadly short of their "best", and my suspicion is that those brains are defective in empathy and character judgment — which I think are the manifestation of what I call "peak cognition", and require a great deal more cognitive capacity than un-nuanced information. It seems to me that this significant limitation equates to an "unevolved brain" as Jost and everyone since has described the conservative brain (mind)!

The exercise I'm asking readers to engage in is below. I chose Democratic and Republican contenders for national office since 1960 as most broadly representative of liberal and conservative values in the modern era, to limit the sample size. My challenge to readers is to select, one-by-one, the labels under the "Virtue" heading, and see if they can honestly make them stick to each of the candidates listed.

For my part I could find only one Republican I felt I could stick the "compassion" label to, and that was Gerald Ford, "the accidental president". I found contemplating the list at length depressing — typifying democracy in action! My own sincere belief is that conservatives are comparatively deficient in empathy, compassion, and character judgment — entwined triplets — occupying the "right" end the of a bell curve. But if I'm right, that disqualifies them from engaging in this exercise in the first place because, deficient in the quality in question, they are incompetent to judge it in the others! — a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

YEAR.........DEMOCRAT...........REPUBLICAN

1960...Kennedy....Johnson........Nixon.......Lodge ...................VIRTUE..........VICE
1964...Johnson.....Humphrey....Goldwater..Miller
.........................................................................................Prudent.........Hawkish
1968...Humphrey..Muskie.........Nixon........Agnew
1972...McGovern..Shriver..........Nixon.*1...Agnew.*2..............Uses.Good
.........................................................................................Judgment......Ideological
1976...Carter........Mondale........Ford.*3.....Dole
........................................................................................Compassion-......Selfish
1980...Carter.........Mondale.......Reagan.... .Bush1......................ate
1984...Mondale......Ferraro.........Reagan......Bush1
...........................................................................................Authentic........Opaque
1988...Dukakis.......Bentsen.......Bush1........Quayle

2000...Gore............Lieberman....Bush2.......Cheney
2004...Kerry............Edwards.......Bush2......Cheney

2008...Obama...... ...Biden .........McCain......Palin
2012...Obama..........Biden..........Romney.....Ryan

2016...Clinton...........Kaine..........Trump.......Pence

__________________________
*1..Resigned.-.Vice
*2..Resigned.-.Vice
*3..“The.accidental.president”.