From theLA Times website today:
Brain study finds political divide
Researchers show that liberals and conservatives approach everyday decisions differently.
By Denise Gellene, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
11:07 AM PDT, September 9, 2007
Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.
Proving what I've always suspected-- the brains of liberals are different... and fundamentally better than conservative brains.
Using a remarkably simple little experiment scientists at NYU and UCLA will report Monday in the journal "Nature Neuroscience" that political orientation is seen in differences in how the brains of self identified liberals and conservatives process information.
The full article, which details the experiment and its neurological conclusions is here but there are a couple of highlights that I just love--
"...liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives..."
and--
"...liberals were 4.9 times more likely than conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts and were 2.2 times more likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy..."
and we musn't forget--
"...liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas."
Now, I know that this study seems a little on "duh" side, kind of like the research which showed that men prefer attractive women, but still it's nice to have proof of what we've always had to just assume to be true.
Plus, it'll be fun watching Bill-O, Limbaugh, Hannity et al's frantic efforts to discredit this study when they're supposed to be busy selling the Petraeus fable.