Political bias affects brain activity: Democrats and Republicans both adept at ignoring facts, brain scans show

From MSNBC:

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. "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."

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.

More here.

Comments

[sennoma]

One need only read the comments on any Free Republic (or, for that matter, Eschaton) thread to feel that this study has not told us anything new. :-)

[JonJ]

No, nothing new; I think this study is more valuable for calibrating the method of brain observation used in it than for discovering anything new.

The problem it raises, though, is that democratic theory supposes that citizens make reality-based decisions about the best candidates to vote for, but (as we already knew before this study), rational consideration of reality plays a very small role in many citizens' political decisions. No wonder elected governments often drift very far from realistic solutions to problems.

[Alison W]

Alas....the sad this is how completely unsurprising this is.

[Jon]

Why sad?!

I briefly remarked on this report here.

[andy]

Important to remember this isn't simply an issue with politics.... Think intelligent design vs. evolution. Think issues that come up in the workplace. More on this in our January 24 blog entry.