Jump to content
Washington Football Team Logo
Extremeskins

Democrats and Republicans Both Adept at Ignoring Facts, Study Finds


China

Recommended Posts

:obvious: says all they had to do was come here and read a few of the political threads and they would have figured this out a long time ago.

Democrats and Republicans Both Adept at Ignoring Facts, Study Finds

By LiveScience Staff

posted: 24 January 2006

10:03 am ET

Democrats and Republicans alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way, a new study shows.

And they get quite a rush from ignoring information that's contrary to their point of view.

Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered.

The results were announced today.

"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. "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."

Bias on both sides

The test subjects on both sides of the political aisle reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted, Westen and his colleagues say.

Then, with their minds made up, brain activity ceased in the areas that deal with negative emotions such as disgust. But activity spiked in the circuits involved in reward, a response similar to what addicts experience when they get a fix, Westen explained.

The study points to a total lack of reason in political decision-making.

"None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," Westen said. "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."

Notably absent were any increases in activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most associated with reasoning.

The tests involved pairs of statements by the candidates, President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, that clearly contradicted each other. The test subjects were asked to consider and rate the discrepancy. Then they were presented with another statement that might explain away the contradiction. The scenario was repeated several times for each candidate.

The brain imaging revealed a consistent pattern. Both Republicans and Democrats consistently denied obvious contradictions for their own candidate but detected contradictions in the opposing candidate.

"The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data," Westen said.

Vote for Tom Hanks

Other relatively neutral candidates were introduced into the mix, such as the actor Tom Hanks. Importantly, both the Democrats and Republicans reacted to the contradictions of these characters in the same manner.

The findings could prove useful beyond the campaign trail.

"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 said.

The researchers will present the findings Saturday at the Annual Conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:obvious: says all they had to do was come here and read a few of the political threads and they would have figured this out a long time ago.

Cannot argue with the study or your leadoff quote...although seems the rabid right wing fact-inventors seem to outnumber the left leaning posters on this website.

I'm particularly speaking to the experts on military affairs who claim that they speak for all veterans and active duty. When I was active duty and even after I got out and went back to the real world, I could never get the other sobs I was serving withor hanging with to agree on a doggone thing...no matter how simple it might be.

We were mostly a bunch of independent, irascible, opinionated thinkers who were pretty sure that most everyone in authority, particularly politicians, were full of gas. Still haven't met anyone able to refute those ideas but still open to listening to contrary arguments.

Unfortunately most of these "political" threads start off in the toilet rather than ending up there.

The threads are predictably spewing the 'talking points' of the day as issued by the spinners in the party offices rather than expolring the relative merits of the argument particulars.

We won't reclaim our country until we can break up the two-party stranglehold on the election systems and stop attacking the people rather than the arguments.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now I can believe the Republicans might ignore facts that are contrary to their beliefs, but the liberals and dems? We don't don't ignore facts no matter what some opionated study might say. Ah, I feel better for getting that out. Now it's on to the next rightwing/Bush bash...afterall I need my fix!

:laugh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was telling a co-worker about this thread yestuday.

I said there are a certian number of people that will rip each other up over political debates all day long, but this thread slipped down to the next page before anyone other than myself looked at it.

It's kind of scarey, but some people get their kicks in these no win arguements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think we needed a study to prove this. I just hope it is more about people not caring enough about politics than not caring enough to try thinking.

Yep. Its not that politics are boring, its just that every article written for the most part has either a right-leaning or left-leaning agenda floating right below the surface. Its not that is hard wading through the BS, its just that their isnt anything on the other side.

Or maybe its just the articles posted on this site. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see this thread has been largely ignored by the forum politicos thereby confirming the conclusion claimed by the study. :)

Haha, what are you talking about? I never had any reasoning to begin with, how could they detect my brain patterns?

Could not agree more with the study, I am glad the results are officially out there for all of us to ignore and go straight back to talking points.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Gichin13

great post China.

I find the cited article pretty darn interesting -- not just the ignoring facts in favor of emotional reaction, but the actual biochemistry involved. Pretty fascinating ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...
I don't think we needed a study to prove this. I just hope it is more about people not caring enough about politics than not caring enough to try thinking.

Liberty, are you deliberately ignoring the facts that most people don't know how to think, or find it too difficult to think....

or are you just on something that you are not sharing?

:cool:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This forum is an excellent case study.

Hard core donkeys and elephants are blind and deaf to being objective.

All of these political threads are really a drain on intelligence since they all only offer bickering and tit for tats. This is what politics have become.

It's a reality TV show. Seriously, go to TWOP and read those forums and then read the political threads here. Exactly the same. Arguing over nothing important.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

even when I point it out to them.

Hilarious.

Politics is a highly ritualized activity. It doesn't suprise me that this happens. We've all been noticing it while reading these threads. What would be interesting to me would be to see how those people who switched parties would react. For instance if you grew up a Dem and then became a Repub would you brain react differently than most Repubs?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hilarious.

Politics is a highly ritualized activity. It doesn't suprise me that this happens. We've all been noticing it while reading these threads. What would be interesting to me would be to see how those people who switched parties would react. For instance if you grew up a Dem and then became a Repub would you brain react differently than most Repubs?

Well, since that would be me (started out a Republican, became a Democrat)... go ahead and strap on the electrodes.! :silly:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This forum is an excellent case study.

Hard core donkeys and elephants are blind and deaf to being objective.

All of these political threads are really a drain on intelligence since they all only offer bickering and tit for tats. This is what politics have become.

It's a reality TV show. Seriously, go to TWOP and read those forums and then read the political threads here. Exactly the same. Arguing over nothing important.

GF-

Read an older 'narrative style' US History book from the library. You will see that this behavior is not unique at all to now. Been with us ever since two party politics emerged as the system we used here. Both parties are really the same animal at their core, and both practice the politics of distracting the voters from what we really need as a country, and generally escape accountability for not delivering it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...