Conservatives are more fearful than Liberals!

[tony human]

A psychological phenomenon that researchers have been studying for some time now continues to indicate conservatives are motivated by fear in a way that liberals are not. An expanding body of research suggests that Republicans and Democrats differ on some fundamental level in how they respond to positive and negative stimuli. Another new study, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, adds even more evidence to the theory that these two groups literally see the world differently.

 

Researchers at the University of Nebraska Lincoln showed people a series of photos — some endearing, some disgusting — and then measured their physiological and cognitive reactions. Conservatives, in keeping with past literature, reacted more strongly to the negative images, and liberals strongly to the positive ones suggesting conservatives focus more on, and react more, to the negatives!

 

The researchers presented images to subjects and measured the response of liberals and conservatives using skin conductance, which captures the same physiological reaction you might have when your palms go suddenly sweaty in a stressful situation. They then presented subjects — now outfitted with eye-tracking equipment — with collages of four photos. The images were shown in positive and negative combinations, for example: a gruesome car accident, puppies, kittens and chocolate cake.

 

You would think that because Conservatives reacted more strongly to negative things, they’d be more likely to avoid them. That’s not the case. They ended up locking onto them quicker and taking more time on them, which makes kind of makes sense with their political perspective. Oftentimes conservatives end up defining things as threats.

 

Conservatives were drawn to the negative images almost twice as fast as the liberals were. And they fixated there longer, too. This suggests that there exists not only a physiological difference, but also a cognitive one in how political partisans react to such pictures. Political scientists traditionally thought of opinions as being mostly environmental: you adopt your political views based on what you learn and on your experiences. But your politics may also be influenced by your biology.

 

There is now a growing body of research which is pointing toward a common story of how there’s much more of a negative bias in conservatives and a positive one in liberals. You often hear conservatives make arguments that they feel are quite logical, yet don’t understand why the person they’re talking to can’t take this logical argument and incorporate it into their belief system.

 

The suggestion is that that might actually not be possible. You have these two groups, conservatives and liberals, who react and attend to things quite differently. This means each of them fundamentally experiencing the world in different ways.

 

Heuristically, hate and fear go together. What a person does not understand he or she fears. What he or she fears is also an object of hate due to this lack of understanding and perceived “otherness”. This may explain why conservatives are some of the most hate filled people in need of therapy who should never be given positions of power or authority.