Whether voters agonized over or confidently cast their votes in Tuesday's state primaries, scientists say their affiliation to one political party over another may have origins in the brain.
For years, researchers have recognized political views to be the nuanced product of family values, personality and social experience.
In general, liberals tend to be characterized by a preference for change while conservatives prefer tradition, according to David Amodio, assistant professor of psychology at New York University.
Curious whether the difference in political views could be traced to the brain, Amodio studied the brain activity of college-educated participants who self-reported party affiliation across the political spectrum as they performed a simple computer game. The game tests how well participants are able to respond to information that contradicts an accepted pattern or belief system.
According to Amodio, patterns help people navigate through life.
When you drive home or walk from work, it becomes a pattern, like being in autopilot,"" Amodio said. ""Once in a while, however, you are presented with new information that requires you to break your habits to adapt."" Amodio's computer game recreates the natural situation of developing and breaking a pattern.
Each participant was trained to push buttons in response to a single image on the computer screen. Periodically, the image would unexpectedly switch, forcing the participant to process and adjust to the new image and respond as directed.
When faced with a response that necessitates change in normal reaction, Amodio explained a region of the brain known as the anterior cingulate cortex activates and signals to other regions of the brain to adapt accordingly. ""The ACC turns off the autopilot and grabs the wheel,"" Amodio said.
As published by Amodio in Nature Neuroscience in September 2007, those who reported themselves to be strong liberals completed the adaptive task more accurately and displayed higher activity in the ACC than their conservative counterparts.
Paralleling the generalized beliefs that liberals tend to be more open-minded than conservatives, ""[Our results show] liberals were more responsive to going against the current way of thinking,"" Amodio said.
""In the past, people assumed political views were shaped purely by environmental influences and are surprised to find genes have something to do with it,"" Amodio said. ""But if you think about it, genes are the blueprint for the brain and relate to personality difference, and personality shapes political attitudes.""
Although Dhavan Shah, UW-Madison professor of journalism and political science, admitted Amodio's findings are intriguing, he cautioned over-simplifying the thought processes of political parties.
Though political psychologists have evidence to support the paternalistic, authoritarian nature of Republicans versus the nurturing, compromising nature of Democrats, Shah said both parties show cognitive simple-mindedness as well as cognitive complexity based upon the issue at stake.
""The Republican Party is the party of Abe Lincoln,"" Shah said. ""I think it's safe to say Lincoln showed he was open-minded about change.""
Amodio was quick to admit brain activity alone cannot explain political views but believes his findings do offer a new understanding of how brain activity can contribute to the shaping of political beliefs.
""Liberalism and conservatism is a facet underlying personality. We don't propose your political party is hard-wired in the brain, but there are differences in cognitive styles between political parties,"" Amodio said. ""This [study] is a first step in understanding how the brain contributes to personality and ideology.""
