Liberal Brain Vs. Conservative Brain: A Scientific Study

Conservatives fear what they don't understand.

Just ran across the results of a fascinating study I missed that ran here in April. The study purports to determine the difference between the brains of liberals and conservatives (OK, liberal buddies, stop with the jokes about conservatives not having a brain to study).

The April 7 issue of Current Biology has this revealing information, gleaned from a study of 90 young people (questionnaire, MRI scan) and determined that "structural differences support the notion that liberals are better equipped to make sense of conflicting information while conservatives are better able to recognize a threat." I won't go into the structural differences here, but the link will explain them to you.

Liberals are "open to new experiences."

According to the CBS story, study author Dr. Ryota Kanai of the University College of London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, says, "Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's political orientation. Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure."

The study seems to confirm "several previous reports showing that conservatives are more sensitive to feel threatened or anxious in the face of uncertainty, while liberals tend to be more open to new experiences."

(Photos: Scared man, grist.org; looking to the horizon, trekearth.com)