Political beliefs hard-wired into brain, say neuroscientists

[flamingdem]

University of Southern California neuroscientists are studying how political beliefs affect the way people process new information. (Yahoo News photo Illustration; photos: AP, Eric Gay/AP, Andrew Bret Wallis/Getty Images, AP 2)

Neuroscientists at the University of Southern California led a study that found people are less likely to change their minds on political issues than on apolitical ones when presented with contradictory data.

The reason? Like religious beliefs, political opinions are intimately linked to how someone sees his or her own character and sense of community in a way that apolitical opinions simply are not, according to the researchers.

Their new study, published Friday in the journal Scientific Reports, found that people are more apt to reject evidence that challenges their opinions on subjects like immigration and gay marriage than evidence that challenges their opinions on topics like Thomas Edison or heart disease.

“If a belief becomes incorporated into our personal or social identity, then it’s much harder to change. We wanted to see what’s going on in the brain when people resist belief change,” lead author Jonas Kaplan said in an interview with Yahoo News. “You sort of become committed to this version of yourself that has a set of beliefs around certain topics.”

Are people willing to consider counterevidence to their opinions on early predictors of intelligence? Very likely! Are they willing to do the same for immigration policy? Many simply won’t budge.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/political-beliefs-hard-wired-into-brain-say-neuroscientists-200505131.html

[eniwetok]

1. I also believe that the nature of the belief system plays a role...

If a belief system meets certain criteria...
Convinces people they're moral actors in some greater cause...
Offers plausible explanations to meet most objections...
AND one is convinced the other side(s) are acting for nefarious reasons...

then there's a really good chance the person will get locked into a self-justifying belief system that lacks the intellectal tools to disprove the system from within. At that point a person will self-propagandize.

[Nevernose]

2. There's a few problems off the top of my head

First, they only looked at self-identified strong liberals.

Secondly, the researchers apparently draw no distinctions between "beliefs," "facts," and "values."

Thirdly, I think at least some of their facts are either inaccurate or at least dubiously truthful. Drowning deaths vs accidental firearm deaths, for instance, or who invented the light bulb.

Finally, I'm always suspicious of anything Sam Harris is involved in (even if I do read his books).

[Igel]

3. Most of this kind of research,

done by neuroscientists or psychologists without difference, winds up being (a) poorly done, (b) widely misrepresented and misconstrued, (c) and serves to confirm what the researchers and their readers always knew to be true.


It's nice to see they've rediscovered the backfire effect yet again, though. Too bad nobody gives attribution for repeated discovery (unless, of course, the discovery had been forgotten).

[Donkees]

4. There was similar research about a decade ago. In essence, it reported that the brain files beliefs

and facts without judgment in the same area of the brain concerned with the sense of self. Whatever anyone chooses to believe is treated the same by the brain. The difference is the role the ego plays and the state of its development, whether one uses emotional reasoning or acts as an observer looking at various facets of a situation.