# Are liberals really more "evolved" than conservatives? Scientific study suggests answer is yes. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 23, 2011, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383 "2011-02-23T21:18:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/1 "2011-02-23T21:18:34Z")
[I think this study speaks for itself.](http://micmn.com/science-says-conservative-brains-are-wired-against-tier-5-unemployment-extension/10057/) I’m sorry to say, it doesn’t look to flattering for conservatives. Cognitive neuroscience seems to be showing us that conservatives are less empathetic, less rational, less likely to correct errors in their thinking, more likely to gather around like minded people and shut out conflicting opinions, and more prone to fear than liberals. Will the day come when we recognize conservatism as a personality disorder that should be treated? :eek: > [@](#): > > In a study published in December by the University College in London, scientists found that, across 90 students and 2 members of Parliament that were scanned, there was a near-universal correlation between conservatives and a large amygdala, and between liberals and a large anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Alone, that doesn’t tell us much, but in conjunction with several other relatively recent studies, a few reasonable (although decidedly unscientific) conclusions present themselves. > > The Amygdala – The Conservative Lobe > > **The amygdala is sometimes considered a part of the basal ganglia, and even if it’s not, is recognized as part of the ‘primitive brain’ — something much less cerebral and much more primal.** [emphasis mine] That alone might go a long way toward explaining why conservatives seem to be much more willing to rely on faith, instinct, or gut reactions than liberals tend to be. > > According to Science Daily, scientists at the California Institute of Technology have used tests to prove that the amygdala is responsible for “loss aversion” — in other words, the desire to NOT give up those things you have. Makes sense, given that one of conservatives’ primary goals is to keep the government from taking their money. > > [snipped for brevity] > > **The anterior cingulate cortex, in contrast to the amygdala, is part of your ‘gray matter’, much more cerebral and ‘formal’ than the conservative lobe. This could explain why most liberals feel the need to make statistical and rational arguments (even to the point of being grotesquely counterintuitive) to make their points.**[emphasis mine] ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/2 "2011-02-23T21:29:32Z")
“More evolved” is a nonsense phrase. Evolution is about context, and not something that can be said to be better in and of itself. Decidedly unscientific is certainly the right point to make. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/3 "2011-02-23T21:32:27Z")
I don’t have time to plunge into the neuroscience right now but I will point out that [people have been suckered](http://www.vdare.com/sailer/041114_iq.htm) by [past phony studies](http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/presiq.asp) purporting to prove the superiority of liberals. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/4 "2011-02-23T21:35:38Z")
I am not sure what you are arguing. I can’t take the last sentence seriously and the “more evolved” part of your title implies a value judgment more than anything else. The correlative evidence does not address evolutionary adaptation because it is unclear if conservative thought leads the amygdala or the amygdala precedes conservative thought. Additionally, if the amygdala precedes conservative thought patterns then is there any genetic basis? Lots of unanswered questions. If I should take this article seriously, then I have to ask: Would I want a nation with people who are all rational and take tons of time to make a decision or would I want a nation that is ready to kill at a moment’s notice? I think I will take a mix. My conclusion is that conservatives have well-adapted minds and people like me would be slaves to some dictator if we didn’t have them. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/5 "2011-02-23T21:38:34Z")
Liberals are, at most, “better evolved” to be liberals (and conservatives to be conservative). “Better adapted” would be a clearer way of putting it though. Like **Revenant Threshold** said, you need to consider the context; a creature can’t just be “more evolved” in a generic sense, since evolution doesn’t have a deliberate direction. It can only be “better evolved” for something, like a mole being better adapted for underground living than an elephant. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/6 "2011-02-23T21:39:40Z")
Did the study break down any differences in structure and function among various parts of, for example, the amygdala, to look at whether supposed differences between liberals and conservatives reflected positive or negative traits (assuming value judgments could always be placed on them)? Not everything about the [amygdala](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala) screams “bad brain part”: _“The amygdalae also are involved in the modulation of memory consolidation. Following any learning event, the long-term memory for the event is not instantaneously formed. Rather, information regarding the event is slowly assimilated into long-term storage over time (the duration of long-term memory storage can be life-long), a process referred to as memory consolidation, until it reaches a relatively permanent state…Buddhist monks who do compassion meditation have been shown to modulate their amygdala, along with their temporoparietal junction and insula, during their practice.”_ Who knows, maybe we should conclude on the basis of this small study that conservatives with larger amygdalas have better memories and greater capacity for compassion than liberals. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/7 "2011-02-23T21:42:01Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Cognitive neuroscience seems to be showing us that conservatives are less empathetic, less rational, less likely to correct errors in their thinking, more likely to gather around like minded people and shut out conflicting opinions, and more prone to fear than liberals. What has any of that to do with being more or less “evolved”? ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/8 "2011-02-23T21:49:23Z")
Holy Crap! A study done using \*an amazing 92 people \* found, well, something that (some) liberals are going to use to justify their self-perceived moral superiority. We could, looking at the another study, state that liberals hold their positions due, not to deep and careful thought about issues, but because they just like to be contrary. > [@](#): > > The results, which will be published next year, back up a study that showed that some people were born with a “Liberal Gene” that makes people more likely to seek out less conventional political views. > The gene, a neurotransmitter in the brain called DRD4, could even be stimulated by the novelty value of radical opinions, claimed the researchers at the University of California [Link](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8228192/Political-views-hard-wired-into-your-brain.html). Therefore liberals are all, emotionally and intellectually, basically teen aged boys who hold opinions just to piss off their parents. Slee ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/9 "2011-02-23T21:52:52Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I don’t have time to plunge into the neuroscience right now but I will point out that [people have been suckered](http://www.vdare.com/sailer/041114_iq.htm) by [past phony studies](http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/presiq.asp) purporting to prove the superiority of liberals. Or, you know, some real studies: > [@](#): > > Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger. > > \ > > New research, published in the journal Political Behavior last month, suggests that once those facts — or “facts” — are internalized, they are very difficult to budge. In 2005, amid the strident calls for better media fact-checking in the wake of the Iraq war, Michigan’s Nyhan and a colleague devised an experiment in which participants were given mock news stories, each of which contained a provably false, though nonetheless widespread, claim made by a political figure: that there were WMDs found in Iraq (there weren’t), that the Bush tax cuts increased government revenues (revenues actually fell), and that the Bush administration imposed a total ban on stem cell research (only certain federal funding was restricted). Nyhan inserted a clear, direct correction after each piece of misinformation, and then measured the study participants to see if the correction took. > > For the most part, it didn’t. The participants who self-identified as conservative believed the misinformation on WMD and taxes even more strongly after being given the correction. With those two issues, the more strongly the participant cared about the topic — a factor known as salience — the stronger the backfire. The effect was slightly different on self-identified liberals: When they read corrected stories about stem cells, the corrections didn’t backfire, but the readers did still ignore the inconvenient fact that the Bush administration’s restrictions weren’t total. > > SOURCE: [http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how\_facts\_backfire/?page=full](http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/?page=full) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/10 "2011-02-23T22:09:52Z")
Rather like the studies that found that those who listened to O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh were better informed about political events than those who listened to NPR - ergo, listening to NPR makes you stupid and ill-informed, whereas listening to Rush is informative. There was a study of Obama voters vs. McCain voters showing that Obama voters were much more likely to believe falsehoods. Another issue with the study about salience is that, of the allegedly “provably false” assertions they tested, only the one about stem cells is actually really false. There were (some) WMDs found in Iraq after the invasion (mustard gas shells, sarin, etc.) and tax revenues rose after the Bush tax cuts (and the end of the recession caused by 9.11 and the popping of the dot-com bubble). Oddly enough, despite the alleged problems conservatives have being corrected, on these boards it is the liberals who assert even more strongly that there were no WMDs in Iraq, even though they have been corrected. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/11 "2011-02-23T22:18:39Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Rather like the studies that found that those who listened to O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh were better informed about political events than those who listened to NPR - ergo, listening to NPR makes you stupid and ill-informed, whereas listening to Rush is informative. There was a study of Obama voters vs. McCain voters showing that Obama voters were much more likely to believe falsehoods. > > Another issue with the study about salience is that, of the allegedly “provably false” assertions they tested, only the one about stem cells is actually really false. There were (some) WMDs found in Iraq after the invasion (mustard gas shells, sarin, etc.) and tax revenues rose after the Bush tax cuts (and the end of the recession caused by 9.11 and the popping of the dot-com bubble). > > Oddly enough, despite the alleged problems conservatives have being corrected, on these boards it is the liberals who assert even more strongly that there were no WMDs in Iraq, even though they have been corrected. > > Regards, > Shodan This is a perfect example. Shodan declares that WMDs were found. But what actually was found was a decades old ammo dump that contained decayed shells. It appeared to be nothing more than an oversight that wasn’t cleaned up when the rest were. Shodan knows this. But he’s willing, adamant actually, about pretending that WMDs were found. Either he’s willfully saying things that are not true, or he’s unable to understand nuance. He might literally have the inability to understand that finding mouldering, unusable shells forgotten in the desert isn’t what the Bush administration were claiming. And with certainty aren’t evidence that Sadam had a WMD program. Some people want simple answers. But reality isn’t simple. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/12 "2011-02-23T22:25:01Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > This is a perfect example. Shodan declares that WMDs were found. But what actually was found was a decades old ammo dump that contained decayed shells. It appeared to be nothing more than an oversight that wasn’t cleaned up when the rest were. > > Shodan knows this. But he’s willing, adamant actually, about pretending that WMDs were found. Either he’s willfully saying things that are not true, or he’s unable to understand nuance. He might literally have the inability to understand that finding mouldering, unusable shells forgotten in the desert isn’t what the Bush administration were claiming. And with certainty aren’t evidence that Sadam had a WMD program. > > Some people want simple answers. But reality isn’t simple. > [@](#): > > With those two issues, the more strongly the participant cared about the topic — a factor known as salience — the stronger the backfire. I think this is what the study was talking about. That study purported to find it in conservatives - on the SDMB it happens with liberals. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/13 "2011-02-23T22:30:44Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I think this is what the study was talking about. That study purported to find it in conservatives - on the SDMB it happens with liberals. > > Regards, > Shodan I leave it to the peanut gallery to decide which of us is irrationally ideological. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/14 "2011-02-23T22:33:55Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Liberals are, at most, “better evolved” to be liberals (and conservatives to be conservative). “Better adapted” would be a clearer way of putting it though. Like **Revenant Threshold** said, you need to consider the context; a creature can’t just be “more evolved” in a generic sense, since evolution doesn’t have a deliberate direction. It can only be “better evolved” for something, like a mole being better adapted for underground living than an elephant. While this is essentially true - it is also essentially true that one can measure divergence from an earlier source. For example, if one were to put Australopithecus in line with Neanderthal and Cro Magnon, one would say that Cro Magnon was “more evolved” than Neanderthal, in relation to Australopithecus. So, the ratio of Amygdala to total brain mass could be measured against earlier sources to support a statement of “more” or “less” evolved (divergent). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/15 "2011-02-23T22:34:47Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Rather like the studies that found that those who listened to O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh were better informed about political events than those who listened to NPR - ergo, listening to NPR makes you stupid and ill-informed, whereas listening to Rush is informative. There was a study of Obama voters vs. McCain voters showing that Obama voters were much more likely to believe falsehoods. Cites for these studies, please, so that they may be compared to the OP’s. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/16 "2011-02-23T22:38:29Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > “More evolved” is a nonsense phrase. Evolution is about context, and not something that can be said to be better in and of itself. Decidedly unscientific is certainly the right point to make. That’s right. Just because Conservatives grunt more and Liberals think more doesn’t mean that Liberals are more evolved-it just means that Conservatives are _differently_ evolved. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/17 "2011-02-23T22:58:26Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Liberals are, at most, “better evolved” to be liberals (and conservatives to be conservative). “Better adapted” would be a clearer way of putting it though. Like **Revenant Threshold** said, you need to consider the context; a creature can’t just be “more evolved” in a generic sense, since evolution doesn’t have a deliberate direction. It can only be “better evolved” for something, like a mole being better adapted for underground living than an elephant. This is really the best answer to the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/18 "2011-02-23T23:01:02Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Rather like the studies that found that those who listened to O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh were better informed about political events than those who listened to NPR Let’s play dueling cites to flush out the details here. _Which_ events are they better informed about about? I can’t comment on that study unless I know more. Here’s a study showing that Fox News viewers [were more](http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php) likely to believe Saddam Hussein had links with Al Qaeda. Fox News viewers are [misinformed](http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/17/fox-news-misinformation-policy-issues-climate-science/) about Climate Change: > [@](#): > > A World Public Opinion (WPO) poll finds that a remarkable 60% of those who watched Fox News almost daily believe that “Most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring,” whereas only 30% who never watch it believe that. Only 25% of those who watch CNN almost daily hold that erroneous belief — and only 14% who listen to NPR or PBS almost daily. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/19 "2011-02-23T23:24:23Z")
Lol, even i’m offput by the bias. This reminds me of the post about 80%+ of psychologists being liberal. Evenso, we are an amygdala world. Getting people enraged and bitter works better than making rational arguments about complex policy. And there are people on the left who try to get people enraged, the whole Bush period was one outrage after another. From a stereotypical viewpoint, I can agree with the concept. Here is another interesting video on the subject. [http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan\_haidt\_on\_the\_moral\_mind.html](http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html) > **[Jonathan Haidt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt#Moral_Foundations_Theory)** > > Jonathan David Haidt (/haɪt/; born October 19, 1963) is an American social psychologist and author. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at the New York University Stern School of Business. His main areas of study are the psychology of morality and moral emotions. > Haidt's main scientific contributions come from the psychological field of moral foundations theory, which attempts to explain the evolutionary origins of human moral reasoning on the basis of innate, gut feelings ... Haidt claims 5 moral factors are in play, and conservatives place more value on tradition and authority than liberals, with the other values being mostly equal ---
**Author:** ![erez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@erez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erez)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383/20 "2011-02-23T23:38:13Z")
If you want to go on this path, having higher IQ would seem to describe “more evolved” much better than having large amygdala or large anterior cingulate cortex, right? We know that having higher IQ is correlated with having higher income. Therefore, if you are willing to say that this study means anything about being “more evolved,” you must also be willing to say that people with high incomes are more evolved than people with low incomes. The same argument could be made about some races being “more evolved” than others. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-liberals-really-more-evolved-than-conservatives-scientific-study-suggests-answer-is-yes/572383.md?page=2)