Summary: A major study has identified a small but important connection between political ideology and brain structure. Although the size difference between conservatives and other people’s brains is minimal, the study found that conservatives have a significantly larger hippocampus, which controls how much of their emotions are processed.
The study challenges previous hypotheses, arguing that there is a much more gentle connection between mental biology and political values. Although this subtle connection suggests that brain structure may have an indirect impact on shaping political views, it is not as widely accepted as previously thought.
Important Information:
- Liberals have a significantly larger brain than liberals.
- The size of the hippocampus is small, roughly the size of a sunflower seed.
- The research suggests that there is no direct correlation between philosophy and mental structure.
Origin: University of Amsterdam
The state that conservatives ‘ brains are different from those of liberals has been around for a long time. Researchers from the University of Amsterdam ( UvA ) demonstrate that there is indeed a connection between brain structure and ideology by using MRI scans of almost 1, 000 Dutch people. But, the link is smaller than expected.
The experts find it remarkable that mind differences are related to something as abstractly as philosophy, though.
A 2011 study of 90 American students who participated in this study fueled the claim that mental construction and philosophy are related. The largest synthesis study to date has now been conducted by researchers at the University of Virginia to further understand how worldview and brain structure relate.
The researchers compared the MRI scans of 975 French people between the ages of 19 and 26, who were all ages 19 and 26 in terms of education and social preferences.
These images were connected to ideologies-related surveys. According to initial author Gijs Schumacher, philosophy can be seen as a collection of positions on various themes or as an identification.
‘ You can also differentiate between philosophical ideas about socio-cultural issues for as women’s and LGBTIQ rights, and about financial issues such as money disparity.’
The brain is significantly larger
The scientists discovered that the brain of conventional people is somewhat larger, just like in the English study.
It is amazing that our test, which is much larger and more representative, also had this outcome. For instance, the English test did not contain any exceedingly conservative individuals, while ours did,’ says Schumacher.
The researchers also discovered that there is no connection between philosophy and another head region, the anterior cingulate cortex, which the initial study did not discover.
A olive seed’s differences
The amygdala’s size was a olive plant, which was the difference.
The size of the common conservative voter’s amygdala is 157 sunflower seeds, while the size of the typical progressive voter is 156 sunflower seeds. That is a little change, but important. It makes some sense that there is a connection between mental anatomy and ideology, but it is very direct, according to co-author Steven Scholte.
Our desire was so to get no result at all.
Diamantis Petropoulos Petalas, who is also involved in this investigation but is currently employed at The American College of Greece, says,” We do not know exactly how conservative and the size of the brain are related.”
The brain appears to respond much more broadly to sentiments in general and to conflicting information, though it has primarily been studied in relation to threatening circumstances and anxiety.
There may be a connection between more a person’s brain in response to information and their tendency to have more liberal political beliefs.
No easy paradox
However, the study suggests that the brain’s social philosophy is not a silo.
‘ People sometimes speak of blue ( Democratic ) and red ( Republican ) brains in the American context. This analogy is tempting, but absolutely misplaced,’ says Schumacher.
We contend that philosophy should be seen as a far wider principle and that there are fewer brain-related connections than have been found in earlier studies.
Additionally, philosophy itself is more complicated than previously thought. As an example, Schumacher mentions that voters who voted for the SP, a Dutch political group with extreme left-wing financial views but more liberal social values, had a larger brain on average than those who voted for more liberal parties. Therefore, ideology is much more complex than just identifying with socio-cultural themes.
Other brain areas
The researchers then extended their analysis to include connections between ideology and other brain regions. For example, they found a connection between the volume of the right fusiform gyrus, an area of the brain important for facial recognition, and more right-wing positions on social and economic issues. It’s still unclear what caused this.
About this news article on politics and neuroscience
Author: Gijs Schumacher
Source: University of Amsterdam
Contact: Gijs Schumacher – University of Amsterdam
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
” Is political ideology correlated with brain structure? a preregistered copy of Gijs Schumacher et al. iScience
Abstract
Is there a link between political ideology and brain structure? A preregistered replication
We come back to the idea that conservatism has a positive and negative correlation with the gray matter volume of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC).
We replicate a small positive correlation between amygdala volume and conservatism using various ideologies and a large and representative sample ( Amsterdam Open MRI Collection]n = 928 ).
However, we fail to find consistent evidence in support of the ideology-ACC volume link.
Using a split-sample strategy, we conducted exploratory whole-brain analyses on half the data, preregistered the findings, and then conducted subsequent confirmatory tests that additionally highlight weak, positive associations between the right fusiform gyri and conservatism.
In political neuroscience, this is the largest preregistered replication study.
By using Dutch as opposed to British or American data, we also extend the amygdala-conservatism link to a multiparty, multidimensional political context. We discuss the implications for future studies of ideology’s neural substrates.
