Provincial elections are just around the corner and the question you would like to ask of people you know or think you know is: “Who are you going to vote for?” You are hoping, of course, that their answer will jibe with your own aspirations for getting the B.C. Liberals out of office once and for all. If they tell you that it is none of your business, you should already know the answer if you know them at all.
I’ve been looking at a series of studies done at various universities in the States and Britain that have figured out the political inclination of people by studying them from various angles. It used to be thought that the way a person voted was based on parental influence, education level and other social stimuli. We now know that it goes much deeper than that.
As one study said: “Political orientations are instantiated in the patterns of each individual’s physiological and cognitive responses to emotionally laden stimuli.” Basically put, it means we try to make our own environment to be consistent with pre-existing physical and emotional needs.
One way of doing that — once you are of age — is to advocate certain political positions. So, subconsciously, some people would make an effort to vote for a government that supports the arts and provincial marine parks, while others would think that would be an extravagant waste of money. Psychology scientists are now able to label the former as liberals (small letter l) and the latter as conservative (small letter c). Other scientists, studying the thought processes of “conservative” thinkers, have labelled them as “low-effort thinkers.” These people also “accept and maintain differences between people and groups. This acceptance of hierarchy is also a component of political conservatism.” These “low-effort thinkers” also prefer the status quo over any radical change.
A third study by the University College London, England on this topic actually did brain scans (MRIs) of a large group of volunteers. They found “substantial differences between the cognitive styles of liberals and conservatives on psychological measures.” They related “political attitudes to gray-matter volume.” In particular, to certain parts of the brain. Liberalism was associated with the anterior cingulate cortex, largely found on the left side of the brain, while conservatism was associated with the right side’s amygdala.
With the use of external stimuli, they also observed that conservatives “respond to threatening situations with more aggression than do liberals.” This last study seemed to indicate that parts of the brain are associated with politics — the left side of the brain being liberal while the right side more towards conservatism.
All this being said, we all know people who fall into the middle of the political road — having neither a larger, developed right or left side of the brain. These people should not be encouraged to vote as they screw things up for the conservatives and liberals who do vote, (but who have no idea why they vote the way they do, simply because they were born with either an oversized anterior cingulate cortex or amygdala), but who are damn sure their point of view is the right one.
Frank Martens
Summerland
