Dr. Darren Schreiber of the University of Exeter has discovered a correlation between brain activity and political views. Dr. Schreiber, along with his colleagues from the University of California, have found that people with different political views deal with risk differently. The study was done by monitoring 82 people's brain activity while playing a gambling game. Although there weren't any differences in the choices made during the activity, the sections of the brains being used were very different. The results showed that Democrats used an area of the brain that focuses on social and self-awareness called the left insula. Republicans used a different area associated with the fight-or-flight instinct called the right amygdala. According to the journal published February 4th, monitoring this brain activity alone can allow you to predict the persons political preferences with 82.9% accuracy; predicting by using parents' preferences only results in 69.5% accuracy.
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| Democrats |
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| Republicans |
Themes of NOS:
- Science is collaborative
- Science is based on evidence
- Role of credibility
- Person's views can influence data
- Role of motivation and curiosity
Article:
University of Exeter. "Red brain, blue brain: Republicans and Democrats process risk differently, research finds." ScienceDaily, 13 Feb. 2013. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130213173131.htm
I was wondering, if I'm neither a democratic or a republican, then what part of the brain would I be using the most? Maybe Dr. Darren Schreiber should further research on that!
ReplyDeleteIn a related article, it found that political views make people interpret the same election message differently. I guess our political views really distinguishes what kind of people we are. I mean, it's kind of the same with religious views, too. People of different religions do things differently than each other. That would probably explain why different political views make people think differently.
Related article link:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100427190941.htm
This is very interesting and I can kind of see the effect of this in parties values. But what I want to know is if there are similar instances for other things in modern things. One main example is Macs vs PCs. Another that could be more diverse is different types of religions.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110407121337.htm