Editor’s Page

By Alejandro Grattan-Dominguez

Liberal Or Conservative?

(In the 16 peer-reviewed scientific studies summarized below, researchers found that liberals and conservatives have different brain structures, different physiological responses to stimuli, and activate different neural mechanisms when confronted with similar situations. The following results were published in the magazine ProCon.org)

·         Conservatives spend more time looking at unpleasant images, and liberals spend more time looking at pleasant images.

·         Conservatives react more strongly than liberals to disgusting images, such as a picture of someone eating worms.

·         Liberals have more tolerance to uncertainty and conservatives have more sensitivity to fear.

·         Conservatives have stronger motivations than liberals to preserve purity and cleanliness.

·         Liberals follow the direction of eye movements better than conservatives.

·         Republicans are more likely than Democrats to interpret faces as threatening and expressing dominant emotions, while Democrats show greater emotional distress and lower life satisfaction.

·         Conservatives and liberals react similarly to positive incentives, but conservatives have greater sensitivity to negative stimuli.

·         Conservatives have more activity in their prefrontal cortices, the part of the brain that activates complex social evaluations.

·         Conservatism is focused on preventing negative outcomes, while liberalism is focused on advancing positive outcomes.

·         Genetics influence political attitudes during early adulthood and beyond.

·         Compared to liberals, conservatives are less open to new experiences and learn better from negative stimuli than positive stimuli.

·         Conservatives tend to have a stronger reaction to threatening noises and images than liberals.

·         Liberals are more open-minded and creative whereas conservatives are more orderly and better organized.

·         When faced with a conflict, liberals are more likely than conservatives to alter their habitual response when clues indicate it is necessary.

·         Conservatives sleep more soundly and have more mundane dreams, while liberals sleep more restlessly and have a more bizarre, active dream life. Conservative men sleep a bit longer, with better quality sleep; they recall the fewest dreams, but have the most lucid awareness. Liberal women have the worst quality sleep, recall the greatest number and variety of dreams, and have the most dream references to homosexuality.

Any surprises? If you found yourself “visiting” both camps, don’t think that is so unusual. Of the ten people the Ojo tested, nine of them (including myself) had the same experience!

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