WaPo - At Yale, we conducted an experiment to turn conservatives into liberals.

[TomCADem]

This is a fascinating article and study that sheds some light on why Republicans run campaigns heavily based on fear and scapegoating.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2017/11/22/at-yale-we-conducted-an-experiment-to-turn-conservatives-into-liberals-the-results-say-a-lot-about-our-political-divisions/?utm_term=.a14af0264a01

When my daughter was growing up, she often wanted to rush off to do fun things with her friends — get into the water at the beach, ride off on her bike — without taking the proper safety precautions first. I’d have to stop her in her tracks to first put on the sunscreen, or her bike helmet and knee pads, with her standing there impatiently. “Safety first, fun second,” was my mantra.

Keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe from harm is perhaps our strongest human motivation, deeply embedded in our very DNA. It is so deep and important that it influences much of what we think and do, maybe more than we might expect. For example, over a decade now of research in political psychology consistently shows that how physically threatened or fearful a person feels is a key factor — although clearly not the only one — in whether he or she holds conservative or liberal attitudes.

Conservatives, it turns out, react more strongly to physical threat than liberals do. In fact, their greater concern with physical safety seems to be determined early in life: In one University of California study, the more fear a 4-year-old showed in a laboratory situation, the more conservative his or her political attitudes were found to be 20 years later. Brain imaging studies have even shown that the fear center of the brain, the amygdala, is actually larger in conservatives than in liberals. And many other laboratory studies have found that when adult liberals experienced physical threat, their political and social attitudes became more conservative (temporarily, of course). But no one had ever turned conservatives into liberals.

Until we did.

In a new study to appear in a forthcoming issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology, my colleagues Jaime Napier, Julie Huang and Andy Vonasch and I asked 300 U.S. residents in an online survey their opinions on several contemporary issues such as gay rights, abortion, feminism and immigration, as well as social change in general. The group was two-thirds female, about three-quarters white, with an average age of 35. Thirty-percent of the participants self-identified as Republican, and the rest as Democrat.

[Gabi Hayes]

1. I love this, from my favorite songwriter, and one very attuned to psychological peculiarities in

these days of The Royal Scam run rampant

"All those right-wingers suffer from an enlargement of the amygdala in the lower brain. It makes them paranoid and aggressive."

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-last-word-donald-fagen-on-right-wing-paranoia-steely-dans-future-20160613

[Glamrock]

2. Not arguing the science.....

But I can't grasp why so many white people are "scared". Shit man, I'm a white people. I'm not scared of anything but prison. White priveledge is an all encompassing security blanket. My thoughts are that, while the results may be valid, they're missing something. Of course, I'm a recovering pothead/practicing alcoholic so what do I know?

[raging moderate]

3. Yes, it is as if they are all hypnotized.

Many of my fellow "white" people frequently shock me. Where does it come from? I must have been looking down at a dandelion when the flashy-thingy went off. I try to croak a few words, but my jaw is hanging very low. Then they act offended at my expression, make this strange snort, and storm off in a huff.

[tblue37]

6. Propaganda works. THAT'S where it comes from. They've been propagandized. nt

[Skittles]

4. explains why so many conservatives are gun humpers, too

[mountain grammy]

5. True that!