Politics and our brains

Partisan politics is more than just a difference of opinion. New research reveals that our brains process politically charged messages differently based on those affiliations.

Two teams of researchers at Brown and Tel Aviv universities publishing respectively in journals Science Advances and Neuroscience used functional MRIs that measure differences in blood flow in areas of the brain that process emotion and cognition.

The first team noted that politically charged words like “immigration” and “America” showed significant differences in the cognitive brain area based on the subjects’ liberal or conservative politics. The differences were greater than in the emotional brain area. Viewing news clips about immigration generated bigger differences than stories about policing or abortion.  This suggests that some of us have hard-wired tendencies toward nationalistic thinking.

The second team found similar differences when subjects viewed political ads. Additional brain changes in the areas involved with vision, hearing, and motion led the researchers to believe they could predict the subjects’ political views based on their scans alone.

These findings are both ominous and hopeful. We know that tribalism is a real thing that might be genetic or the result of early developmental brain changes. It also suggests that reaching a consensus among lawmakers or rank-and-file voters is not easy.

But it also suggests that being exposed to diverse populations and cultures in early childhood might help us to be more open to negotiation throughout our lives. 

In our nation’s history, we have had times when more consensus was common. This may have been the result of more uniformity in news programing and less misinformation. But most of us have changed our beliefs on many subjects as we mature and learn more. 

Maybe there is still hope.

William Culbert lives in Oak Ridge. He is a retired physician.