Emory Study Lights Up The Political Brain

When it comes to forming opinions and making judgments on hot political issues, partisans of both parties don't let facts get in the way of their decision-making, according to a new Emory University study. The research sheds light on why staunch Democrats and Republicans can hear the same information, but walk away with opposite conclusions.

The investigators used functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to study a sample of committed Democrats and Republicans during the three months prior to the U.S. Presidential election of 2004. The Democrats and Republicans were given a reasoning task in which they had to evaluate threatening information about their own candidate. During the task, the subjects underwent fMRI to see what parts of their brain were active. What the researchers found was striking.

"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," says Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory who led the study. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts." Westen and his colleagues will present their findings at the Annual Conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Jan. 28.

Once partisans had come to completely biased conclusions -- essentially finding ways to ignore information that could not be rationally discounted -- not only did circuits that mediate negative emotions like sadness and disgust turn off, but subjects got a blast of activation in circuits involved in reward -- similar to what addicts receive when they get their fix, Westen explains.

"None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," says Westen. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones."

During the study, the partisans were given 18 sets of stimuli, six each regarding President George W. Bush, his challenger, Senator John Kerry, and politically neutral male control figures such as actor Tom Hanks. For each set of stimuli, partisans first read a statement from the target (Bush or Kerry). The first statement was followed by a second statement that documented a clear contradiction between the target's words and deeds, generally suggesting that the candidate was dishonest or pandering.

Next, partisans were asked to consider the discrepancy, and then to rate the extent to which the person's words and deeds were contradictory. Finally, they were presented with an exculpatory statement that might explain away the apparent contradiction, and asked to reconsider and again rate the extent to which the target's words and deeds were contradictory.

Behavioral data showed a pattern of emotionally biased reasoning: partisans denied obvious contradictions for their own candidate that they had no difficulty detecting in the opposing candidate. Importantly, in both their behavioral and neural responses, Republicans and Democrats did not differ in the way they responded to contradictions for the neutral control targets, such as Hanks, but Democrats responded to Kerry as Republicans responded to Bush.

While reasoning about apparent contradictions for their own candidate, partisans showed activations throughout the orbital frontal cortex, indicating emotional processing and presumably emotion regulation strategies. There also were activations in areas of the brain associated with the experience of unpleasant emotions, the processing of emotion and conflict, and judgments of forgiveness and moral accountability.

Notably absent were any increases in activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most associated with reasoning (as well as conscious efforts to suppress emotion). The finding suggests that the emotion-driven processes that lead to biased judgments likely occur outside of awareness, and are distinct from normal reasoning processes when emotion is not so heavily engaged, says Westen.

The investigators hypothesize that emotionally biased reasoning leads to the "stamping in" or reinforcement of a defensive belief, associating the participant's "revisionist" account of the data with positive emotion or relief and elimination of distress. "The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data," Westen says.

The study has potentially wide implications, from politics to business, and demonstrates that emotional bias can play a strong role in decision-making, Westen says. "Everyone from executives and judges to scientists and politicians may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret 'the facts,' " Westen says.

Coauthors of the study include Pavel Blagov and Stephan Hamann of the Emory Department of Psychology, and Keith Harenski and Clint Kilts of the Emory Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/...60131092225.htm

A very informative research.

So we have another evidence for the theory that pure reasoning doesnt exist in reality since information are blocked and the decisions happen through the similar brain "apparatuses" that are used for addiction.

So we have, to some extent, irrational addicts that contribute to this then so-called democracy.

Well let us not be hasty to conclude about "irrational addicts" or failure of reasoning.

To some extend I think the outcome of this reasearch is partly due to the political environment in the States, where politics is dominated by Republicans and Democrats and political issues largely approached from the perspective of these parties, leaving out third parties like that of Nader which is practically of no signicance in US politics. This leads to more polarization and thus the outcome of this research.

Certainly certain specific scientific results can only be made in certain specific environments. But in this case it could be questionable whether the fact or better the degree of polarization in a particular system is the ruling factor. That is to say, the ruling factor which lead to the existence or the degree of rationality in decision making.

Here we could only speculate which final result the research would show in another environment.


So one final question might be:

What are the real ruling factors ?

Yes it is very informative and interesting article.Thanks Cid.


Right vs left brain functions. I want a parlimento who uses both brain functions. would it be possible to connect the brains in hopes of changing the whole political process or maintaining it more stable,more scientifical,more logical?

...haha can anyone give me an example about left/right brain members in parlimento? which side of brain in general in use? in parlimento? bah bahhh.Of course we can not generalize...

such as conservatives? liberals? nationalists?

I dont think the brain halves functions are split in such way that one halve produces liberal thoughts and the other halve facsist thoughts (talk about a major schizophrene) LOL

Am not shure but I think I had read one part of the brain focussed on creation/imagination while the other part is focussed on the rationale/mathematical.

But still I find it controversial to simply relate Political thinking/reasoning to electro-chemical process. These results are as much the product of the location and system under which they were held.