Brain Scans Show Extremists Don't Use Reason

[Lemur]

This will only interest those of you who accept scientific research as a credible means of obtaining knowledge. And having read the results, I don't expect that will be anything like all of you. The Backroom is Partisan Central, after all.

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."

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.

[Navaros]

Of course there is not much brain activity involved. Politicians' jobs are to shout at and insult the members on the other side of the room than them. That's it. That's the full job. There is zero reason for them to ever consider anything whatsoever that an opposing member says; hence they do not.

I thought this conclusion was common sense: didn't know a fancy machine would be required to allow some people to finally reach that conclusion.

[Lemur]

Nav, I don't think it's the politicians who are being held accountable here. The study deals with sheep, not shepherds.

[Navaros]

Nav, I don't think it's the politicians who are being held accountable here. The study deals with sheep, not shepherds.

Ah, good point. Yet, the principle stated in my previous post applies equally well in both cases.

[AntiochusIII]

My God, I agree with Navaros!



Though, thinking logically, it might not necessary show a complete lack of reason in decision-making, since one thinks about his or her position only once in a while. For example, the sheep in question might already got an idea of what's his/her position on abortion rights is, and "reason" is not used when answering that question to others, rather, "conviction" is "used" to confirm the position with confidence -- emotions. Even though "reason" (messed up as it may) was used when thinking about that position beforehand.

[Xiahou]

Though, thinking logically, it might not necessary show a complete lack of reason in decision-making, since one thinks about his or her position only once in a while. For example, the sheep in question might already got an idea of what's his/her position on abortion rights is, and "reason" is not used when answering that question to others, rather, "conviction" is "used" to confirm the position with confidence -- emotions. Even though "reason" (messed up as it may) was used when thinking about that position beforehand.

Indeed, I don't feel the need to undergo some internal idealogical crisis every single time I'm presented with an opposing argument. I arrive at most of my positions after much consideration and wouldn't expect a single statement to cause me to rehash everything that I've already worked out.

I think, based on the article, that this study was a pointless exercise.

This will only interest those of you who accept scientific research as a credible means of obtaining knowledge. And having read the results, I don't expect that will be anything like all of you. The Backroom is Partisan Central, after all.

Scientific research is great and all- but I don't see how this proves anything significant.

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.

I'd be curious to know what "threatening information" was revealed.

[doc_bean]

I'd be curious to know what "threatening information" was revealed.

They used to be lovers back in Yale.

[Adrian II]

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.

This is known as 'cognitive dissonance' ever since Leon Festinger and research associates baptised the term in A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957). Briefly put, it says that people refuse to learn or accept facts that contradict what they already know or think they know.

Festinger's cause célèbre was a religious cult that believed the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood. When it didn't, most members put their survival down to the fact that they were right all along and the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult.

There was bound to be a neuronal substructure to the phenomenon, but somehow this Emory research seems rather thin. Intuitively I would say that both disqualifying deviant facts and sticking to the facts-as-you-know-them in the face of contradiction require lots of reasoning, as shown for instance by Festinger's cult members.

On a side note, I think humans survive thanks to the fact that they reason very little about any subject and take many things for granted unless they are forced by circumstance to reconsider them. And I am not sure that a middle-aged psychologist in a bow tie is everybody's idea of 'circumstance'.

[Just A Girl]

I dont neciseraly agree that extreemists used reasoning to come to there origional conclusion And then no longer use reasoning but instead use conviction.

Extreemists seem to have been Told. Brain washed if you like when they were younger to beleive, If some 1 kills some 1 its ok to kill tat perosn, or its ok to kill some 1 in self defence,
IMHO.
Any 1 who used any sort of reational reasoning,
Would lead to the conclusion
"its not right to kill any 1 of any reason"

the same could be said for gun rights people,
Theyve been brought up with guns and as such cant see the Reasoning in removing guns.
Or they seem to see the reason But there reasoning part of their brain just fails.
And they fall back to arguments such as Human rights?
And the need for hunting in a modern day society.
Or even The need to eradicate pests who eat there live stock,

With modernday shoping, And electic fences.
Those arguments can be rationaly debated.
Special hunting clubs who provide the guns for use in that area Could also Rationaly provide a Safe way for people to hunt for leasure, Or for game meat.
And the human rights argument Isnt even Rational to begin with,
"every human shal have the right to carry or own a device for killing"

yet the extreemists cannot see these rational arguments.

I supose the same can be said for Anti gun people.
But I beleve they are in the right.

[Kanamori]

(A few funny bits about how the results are presented, arranged in no specific order and not necessarily being cohesive to a larger point.)

It would be interesting to know how they qualified "comitted Democrats and Republicans." (http://news.emory.edu/Releases/Polit...138113163.html) One would think a system to reliably qualify such a thing is difficult to find.

What contradiction are they shown? It doesn't seem clear whether or not the contradiction was very real, and presented in a very factual and "this is the truth" sort of way, or whether it was a made up contradiction, i.e. a huge contradiction that most would be disbeleiving of in the first place.

And then, somewhat tying in w/ Adrian's point about the bow-tied pyschologist, I would be tempted to say that these contradictions shown would be seen much less seriously in an obvious lab setting, like an MRI machine where they are asking you questions about political candidates when you are "obviously partisan."

In such a case, where the contradiction is questionable because of the setting and you are dealing w/ somebody who feels strongly about their candidate, I see these results as hardly surprising, and I question how well they can be transferred to the real world, let alone how people feel about certain ideals rather than how well they are manifested in some person.


The bit about reinforced positive feelings after they are given an explanation about how their candidate actually isn't being contradictory, I would also think to be totally obvious.

Beyond that, I would be curious to know, on average, how they rated the contradictory statement-deeds, since it doesn't even tell us, just that the typical reasoning sectors weren't used as much and that they came to "biased conclusions."


(Having clafied the meaning of this study's results, I feel I can now joke around with some of you)

This study seems like a way of reinforcing the conclusions that some of us have come to about neutrality in politics.

[Soulforged]

On a side note, I think humans survive thanks to the fact that they reason very little about any subject and take many things for granted unless they are forced by circumstance to reconsider them. And I am not sure that a middle-aged psychologist in a bow tie is everybody's idea of 'circumstance'.

Very interesting. I've the same opinion myself.
But in reagards to the subject. I don't think that a scientific study was necessary in order to determine that. The average person will never study all possibilities, evaluate them and then choose in base to that conclusions (always considering that the studies show a veridic conclusion). Since the first half of the past century, here in Argentina, a system of "lista sábana" ("sheet list", named that way because it was unfoldable and very large) was used to describe the composition of the party. The very purpose of such list was to confuse the voters, plain and simple. The person wich votes will always vote because of the campaing and always on the heads of the party, not the entire commission, by putting it on this list they provoqued a massive general confussion in all citizens, confussion that still lasts until today.
Last time a voted it was totally irrational, I only looked for a name wich I liked. (it's serious)

[A.Saturnus]

This is known as 'cognitive dissonance' ever since Leon Festinger and research associates baptised the term in A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957). Briefly put, it says that people refuse to learn or accept facts that contradict what they already know or think they know.

That's not entirely correct. Cognitive dissonance is most often used to describe changes of attitude. But you're correct that it applies here. Cognitive dissonance is about that behaviour is stronger than attitude. If you perform a behaviour X it is not easy to maintain the attitude that X is wrong. That means attitude changes to reevaluate X as positive. Likewise facts are ignored when they would mean that past behaviour had been wrong.
It is not so much the attitudes that lead people to defy counterevidence but the effort they put into defending these attitudes.

[Adrian II]

It is not so much the attitudes that lead people to defy counterevidence but the effort they put into defending these attitudes.

As I said, my personal hunch would be that this effort involves quite a bit of reasoning, not its absence as the research seems to indicate. What is your take on that, A.Saturnus?

[BDC]

It's hardly a surprise to anyone that politicians don't use reason. Just look at Blair's policies on practically everything.

[Lemur]

BDC, again, this study deals with the lemmings, not the Disney team shoving them off a cliff ...

[GoreBag]

I always wondered why Christmas Lemmings was harder than the original.

Adrian's post makes a lot of sense to me.

[Just A Girl]

As I said, my personal hunch would be that this effort involves quite a bit of reasoning, not its absence as the research seems to indicate. What is your take on that, A.Saturnus?

Ive already expressed an oppinion on that matter But i was ignored

[Adrian II]

Ive already expressed an oppinion on that matter But i was ignored

I am sorry, Just A Girl. A.Saturnus is a professional psychologist, therefore I was particularly interested in his view. That doesn't mean I ignored yours.

[Don Corleone]

I'm wondering if the emotional excitement that was detected wasn't so much a rush to carry the subject past the incontrivertible news so much as it was relief at the ability to develop a theory that worked around the facts presented....


What's that you say, W actually increased spending, as a percentage of GDP, more than Clinton and Carter combined?!?!? Even after accounting for the war?!?!



*long pause*

I know.... the economists are all Democrats and they purposely devised a system of economic statistics designed to make Bush look bad. If the data came from Republican economists, it would show that Bush actually cut spending.... Four more years, after all!!!

[econ21]

I think it is a fascinating study & very plausible. People with closed minds on a given subject don't need to think when presented with awkward evidence - they just block it out. Doing so may rise to uncomfortable emotions, but afterwards may give a "rush" when successfully accomplished. I think I personally experienced something like this the other day when encountering Adrian's post about 49 academics and 9/11. Reading their stuff led to uneasy emotions and it felt good shortly afterwards to just dismiss them out of hand without thinking about their specific claims.

By contrast, people who are open-minded will have to reconsider their positions and think about what the new evidence implies.

As I said, my personal hunch would be that this effort involves quite a bit of reasoning, not its absence as the research seems to indicate.

I suspect you are thinking about the apologists for certain beliefs who may have to go into great logical contortions to get their beliefs to square with uncomfortable facts. But I suspect such activity is largely for public consumption - I doubt either the apologists or their less articulate fellow-believers go through such a cerebral process privately beforehand to satisfy themselves that their beliefs are still valid.

[Adrian II]

I think I personally experienced something like this the other day when encountering Adrian's post about 49 academics and 9/11. Reading their stuff led to uneasy emotions and it felt good shortly afterwards to just dismiss them out of hand without thinking about their specific claims.

Funny that you mention it, I had the exact same experience because this group did not fit in with my image of the United States either way. I had a lot of reasoning to catch up with.

There is no way that the sort of conspiracy they suggest could be succesfull in an open, transparant society such as the United States. Besides it has no basis in solid evidence, and what 'evidence' they have is almost entirely suggestion and hearsay.

This left me with the other option that did not fit in: the wacko option. Every country has its stock of idiots lurking in the bushes, and the bigger a country is (and the U.S. is big by almost all criteria) the more bushes it will have and the more idiots hiding in them. So far so good. But the American academic elite are usually relaxed and in touch with reality, to the point of sedateness, and the scientists in particular are either brilliantly or boringly efficient at what they do. And the elite of former higer government officials usually don't throw away their future over some wild claims either.

Yet here we had 50 of them dropping their trousers in public and going 'Look what fools we are!'

Amazing... But don't worry, I am adjusting my image to the facts, not the other way round!