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Conservatives and Liberals

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Overview of the theory of conservatives and liberals


Overview of the theory of conservatives and liberals


Conservatism and Liberalism in the context of deliberation is states of mind that create different reaction to deliberation. When people in the state of mind of conservatism they usually will be less suspitable to adopt new ideas, they will be more planed-action driven and sometimes more aggressive or fearful[1]. Conservatism is driving people to group more closely[2]. On a state of liberalism, people will be more ready to exam new ideas, be less action driven, and more friendly and cooperative toward strangers. In liberalism state, people tend to be more individualistic or to get along according to occasionally sharing of interests.

Recently I have seen that Liberals and Conservatives can also be looked at as Thinkers and Doers

See also: Conservatives and Liberals: literature review

Contents

description of liberalism and conservatism

"Recent research provides evidence that one important difference between liberals and conservatives is their basic moral intuitions. These studies suggest that while liberals and conservatives respond similarly to considerations of harm/care and fairness (what Graham and Haidt call the “individualizing” foundations), conservatives also respond strongly to considerations of in-group, authority, and purity (the “binding” foundations) while liberals do not."[3]

Conservative Society

In conservative society, there is a tendency to align according to legitimate theories and customs. People afraid to think differently, otherwise they will be criticized heavily, as enemies or as collaborators with the enemy. This is probably due to the need for closure and the feelings of threats.

Observed: Doron Tzur, 2013, private talks.; Tal Yaron, establishing the forum in Kedumim 2007.

Conservatives show more anger towards criminals[4]

high levels proposed causes of liberalism and conservatism

Causes of conservatism

Enviromental threat elvate conservatism[5]

Jost et al, did a very large survey on research about conservatism. They have found two main causes for conservatism. One is a reaction to a state of fear, and the other is a reaction to a need to do work in limited time[6]. The idea that threat is causing people to bevcome more conservatives was further corroborated by an experiment that showed that under fear conditions, liberal students judge like conservative students[7].

Conservatives are more easily disgusted than liberals[8]


"Recent research provides evidence that one important difference between liberals and conservatives is their basic moral intuitions. These studies suggest that while liberals and conservatives respond similarly to considerations of harm/care and fairness (what Graham and Haidt call the “individualizing” foundations), conservatives also respond strongly to considerations of in-group, authority, and purity (the “binding” foundations) while liberals do not. Our study examined two alternative hypotheses for this difference—the first being that liberals cognitively override, and the alternative being that conservatives cognitively enhance, their binding foundation intuitions. Using self-regulation depletion and cognitive load tasks to compromise people's ability to monitor and regulate their automatic moral responses, we found support for the latter hypothesis—when cognitive resources were depleted/distracted, conservatives became more like liberals (de-prioritizing the binding foundations), rather than the other way around. This provides support for the view that conservatism is a form of motivated social cognition."[9]

This strength the idea that conservatives uses their self-regulation to be social? while the other say that implicit....

here is an example that conservatives favor the state power, and there fore blame a situation (liberal tendency) when the police make misdeeds.[10]

I think conservatives try to comply to society(system 1 and rACC), while liberals try to comply to reason (system 2 and dACC).

ideo-attribution effect: Our current work in this area has been primarily focused on understanding the sources of what we call the “ideo-attribution effect,” that is, the tendency for liberals and conservatives to make different attributions for the causes of various social and personal problems. Specifically, conservatives tend to attribute poverty, crime, homelessness, AIDS, foreign aggression, and even obesity to causes internal to persons, whereas liberals tend to attribute the same phenomena more to situational factors.

This is probably due to rACC and dACC tendencies, which causes the liberals to engage more in situational causes and conservatives to engage more in societal reasons.

The causes in the light of brain research

Amygdala and ACC

Neurocognitive research has strength the suggestions of Jost et al[11]. Chronic state of conservatism is characterized by smaller anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and enlarged amygdala[12] [13]. Conservatives handle risk with the right amygdala, while liberals deal the same tasks with the left insula. The left insula was fund to be connected to warmth and painful sensations [14]. this suggest that conservatives are feeling more threat[15].

It was found the liberals reacts better to conflict detection, and their anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was more active during conflict detecting [16]. The ACC is active in conflict detection [17]. And is a major player in the process of creating novel knowledge after puzels [18][19].

The Amygdala is involved emotional learning, and especially fear conditioning [20][21]. The amygdala volume correlates positively with both the size (the number of contacts a person has) and the complexity (the number of different groups to which a person belongs) of social networks [22]. The Amygdala can be controlled by the rACC [23]. The idea that threat is causing people to become more conservatives was further corroborated by an experiment that showed that under fear conditions, liberal students judge like conservative students[24]. Conservatives are more easily disgusted than liberals [25]. Individuals with measurably lower physical sensitivities to sudden noises and threatening visual images were more likely to support foreign aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism, and gun control, whereas individuals displaying measurably higher physiological reactions to those same stimuli were more likely to favor defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism, and the Iraq War [26].

Proposed Outcomes

This strength that conservative learn more through social learning, and on threat, they will react more with the FFFF reaction.

Conservatives will prefer "conservative" decision (well established past decisions) The ACC is turned off when there is enough past information for making a decision [27]. Therefore, people with lower volume of ACC have more "closured" decision making system, and therefore they will prefer "conservative" decisions.

Liberals will prefer less "group" prefernces and more intelgent solutions.

More intelligent people tend to adopt liberal ideology (Kanazawa, 2010). Liberals are more trusting but have smaller social networks, while conservatives find faster threatening facial emotion and have larger social networks (Vigil, 2010). Conservatives detect threatening faces more easly. With less stress(Giuseffi, 2012).



Liberals have the same implicit intuitions about moral, but explicitly they adjust to liberal morals (Graham et al., 2012) Conservatives, is suggested, are more aware of social asspects, due to more learning through the amygdala, and therefore conform to society (Wright & Baril, 2011) All in all, conservative learn and react more to emotions through the amygdala, and may exhibt more aggresivnes toward threat, while liberals are less effective in the social filld, but are more effective in conflict detaction, thoughs create more non-social ineligible solutions. Liberals are more wise on the social level, while liberals more wise on the non-social level.


Causes of Conservatism

Chronic state of conservatism is characterized by smaller anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and enlarged amygdala[28]. The ACC is used to control efforts and also rostral ACC is active in learning intuitively social behaviors. if having small volume of the ACC, people will react more impulsively, and will have difficulty to understand social interactions. This will cause them to perceive unfamiliar people with less understanding and therefore with more mistrust.

Conservatives handle risk with the right amygdala, while liberals deal the same tasks with the lef insula. this sugest that conservatives are feeling more threat[29].

Conservative statments make you stop: "Zamboni et al. (2009) found that, regardless of participants’ own political orientation, the processing of conservative statements was associated with greater activity in the right dlPFC—a brain region that is associated with withdrawal motivation, negative affect, and response inhibition in prior research (e.g., Aron et al. 2004; Davidson 1992; Harmon-Jones 2003). Although this finding may have multiple interpretations, one could speculate that thinking about more conservative positions elicited a withdrawaloriented response among these participants, which would be consistent with responses to disgusting or threatening stimuli (cf. Helzer and Pizarro 2011; Terrizzi et al. 2010). This pattern of activation was unrelated to the extremity or level of abstraction of political statements" from Amodio 2012

Causes of Liberalism

Why liberals and atheists are more intelligent[30]

Liberals have the same implicit intuitions about moral, but explicitly the adjust to liberal morals[31]

it seems that conservatives uses more [system 1] while liberals uses more of [system 2].

Greater liberalism was associated with stronger conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern[32].

Threat causes liberals to think like conservatives[33]

More

Power Distance Index

The power distance index (PDI), describes how anequivlante sharing of power is accepted as legitimate. see this site, and see how low Israel is on this scale. This article calim that PDI is important factor for grouth[34]

Conservatives and God Complex

Good complex et TED WOW! write how he presuase, how Archy works to presuase people, and The god complex in conservatives. and the greatnes in liberal trial and error, and the chalngs he put before schools and politicians.

(Fear and need for certainty, fits brain research.... and show how it fits)

Why liberals are socialists

Th0: Abstract-Liberals have poor social intuitive understanding probably due to small volume of rACC, and they have trouble to work at "productive jobs". Therefore they will prefer to avoid community help for the poor, and will prefer to let the government do the help for the poor. Thy will also resist capitalism, because capitalism emphasize "productivity", and therefore capitalism is inhospitable to liberals. Mild-Conservatives are more "productive" and are more closed-communities oriented; therefore they will prefer capitalism and self-helping communities. As people become more conservatives they more closed minded, adhere more to the "truth" and are more critical, their communities start to disintegrate. They will shift to "strong leadership" regimes like Theocratic regime or nationalistic regime. These regimes are usually working on "Justice" and much less on "Benevolence". Tal Yaron 00:03, 26 December 2012 (IST)

Other

I suspect that the NMDA have something to do with liberalsem-conservatism

References

  1. ↑ Oxley, D. R., Smith, K. B., Alford. John R., Hibbing, M. V., Miller, J. L., Scalora, M., Hatemi, P. K., et al. (2008). Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits. Science, 321, 1667–1670.
  2. ↑ Lakoff, G. (1995). Metaphor, Morality, and Politics, Or, Why Conservatives Have Left Liberals In the Dust. Social Research, 62(2), 177–213.
  3. ↑ Wright, J. C., & Baril, G. (2011). The role of cognitive resources in determining our moral intuitions: Are we all liberals at heart? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(5), 1007–1012.
  4. ↑ Fodor, Wick, Hartsen, & Preve, 2008
  5. ↑ Duckitt, J., & Fisher, K. (2003). The Impact of Social Threat on Worldview and Ideological Attitudes. Political Psychology, 24(1), 199–222. doi:10.1111/0162-895X.00322
  6. ↑ Jost, J., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003). Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 129(3), 339–375.
  7. ↑ Nail, P. R., McGregor, I., Drinkwater, A. E., Steele, G. M., & Thompson, A. W. (2009). Threat causes liberals to think like conservatives. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 901–907. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.04.013
  8. ↑ Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D. A., & Bloom, P. (2009). Conservatives are more easily disgusted than liberals. Cognition and Emotion, 23(4), 714-725.
  9. ↑ Wright, J. C., & Baril, G. (2011). The role of cognitive resources in determining our moral intuitions: Are we all liberals at heart?. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(5), 1007-1012.
  10. ↑ Morgan, G. S., Mullen, E., & Skitka, L. J. (2010). When values and attributions collide: Liberals’ and conservatives’ values motivate attributions for alleged misdeeds. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(9), 1241-1254.
  11. ↑ Jost, J., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003). Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 129(3), 339–375.
  12. ↑ Jost, J., & Amodio, D. (2012). Political ideology as motivated social cognition: Behavioral and neuroscientific evidence. Motiv Emot, 36, 55–64.
  13. ↑ Kanai, R., Feilden, T., Firth, C., & Rees, G. (2011). Political orientations are correlated with brain structure in young adults. Current biology : CB, 21(8), 677–80. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.03.017
  14. ↑ Stephani, C., Fernandez-Baca Vaca, G., Maciunas, R., Koubeissi, M., & Lüders, H. O. (2011). Functional neuroanatomy of the insular lobe. Brain structure & function, 216(2), 137–49. doi:10.1007/s00429-010-0296-3
  15. ↑ Schreiber, D., Simmons, A., Dawes, C., Flagan, T., Fowler H., J., & Paulus, M. (2009). Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans.
  16. ↑ Amodio, D. M., Jost, J. T., Master, S. L., & Yee, C. M. (2007). Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism. Nature neuroscience, 10(10), 1246–1247.
  17. ↑ Botvinick, M. M., Cohen, J. D., & Carter, C. S. (2004). Conflict monitoring and anterior cingulate cortex: an update. Trends in cognitive sciences, 8(12), 539–546.
  18. ↑ Holroyd, C. B., & Yeung, N. (2011). An integrative theory of anterior cingulate cortex function: Option selection in hierarchical reinforcement learning. The Neural Basis of Motivational and Cognitive Control, 333–349.
  19. ↑ Holroyd, C. B., & Yeung, N. (2012). Motivation of extended behaviors by anterior cingulate cortex. Trends in cognitive sciences, 16(2), 122–128.
  20. ↑ LeDoux, J. E. (1992). Brain mechanisms of emotion and emotional learning. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 2(2), 191–197. doi:10.1016/0959-4388(92)90011-9
  21. ↑ LeDoux, J. (2004). The Emotional Brain, Fear, and the Amygdala. Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology, 23(4-5), 727–738. doi:10.1023/A:1025048802629
  22. ↑ Bickart, K. C., Wright, C. I., Dautoff, R. J., Dickerson, B. C., & Barrett, L. F. (2011). Amygdala volume and social network size in humans. Nature neuroscience, 14(2), 163–4. doi:10.1038/nn.2724
  23. ↑ Etkin, A., Egner, T., Peraza, D. M., Kandel, E. R., & Hirsch, J. (2006). Resolving emotional conflict: a role for the rostral anterior cingulate cortex in modulating activity in the amygdala. Neuron, 51(6), 871–882.
  24. ↑ Nail, P. R., McGregor, I., Drinkwater, A. E., Steele, G. M., & Thompson, A. W. (2009). Threat causes liberals to think like conservatives. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 901–907. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.04.013
  25. ↑ Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D. A., & Bloom, P. (2009). Conservatives are more easily disgusted than liberals. Cognition and Emotion, 23(4), 714–725.
  26. ↑ Oxley, D. R., Smith, K. B., Alford. John R., Hibbing, M. V., Miller, J. L., Scalora, M., Hatemi, P. K., et al. (2008). Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits. Science, 321, 1667–1670.
  27. ↑ Domenech, P., & Dreher, J.-C. (2010). Decision threshold modulation in the human brain. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 30(43), 14305–17. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2371-10.2010
  28. ↑ Jost, J., & Amodio, D. (2012). Political ideology as motivated social cognition: Behavioral and neuroscientific evidence. Motiv Emot, 36, 55–64.
  29. ↑ Schreiber, D., Fonzo, G., Simmons, A. N., Dawes, C. T., Flagan, T., Fowler, J. H., & Paulus, M. P. (2013). Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans. PloS one, 8(2), e52970.
  30. ↑ Kanazawa, S. (2010). Why liberals and atheists are more intelligent. Social Psychology Quarterly, 73(1), 33-57.
  31. ↑ Graham, J., Englander, Z., Morris, J., Hawkins, C., Haidt, J., & Nosek, B. (2012). Warning Bell: Liberals Implicitly Respond to Group Morality Before Rejecting it Explicitly. Available at SSRN.
  32. ↑ Amodio, D. M., Jost, J. T., Master, S. L., & Yee, C. M. (2007). Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism. Nature neuroscience, 10(10), 1246-1247.
  33. ↑ Nail, P. R., McGregor, I., Drinkwater, A. E., Steele, G. M., & Thompson, A. W. (2009). Threat causes liberals to think like conservatives. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 901-907.
  34. ↑ Gorodnichenko, Yuriy, and Gerard Roland. "Which dimensions of culture matter for long-run growth?." The American Economic Review 101.3 (2011): 492-498.
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