seattle.politics

ClassWarz wrote:


> In a study likely to raise the hackles of some conservatives, psychologist
> David Amodio and others found that a specific region of the brain's cortex
> is more sensitive in people who consider themselves liberals than in
> self-declared conservatives.

A study involving all of 43 students and with the article not
reporting how many classified themselves in each category. Shows only
the statistical ignorance of anyone who would take that seriously.

Of course the subjects were also college students who had not yet
matured in their thinking, another likely cause of skewed results.

> The brain region in question helps people shift gears when their usual
> response would be inappropriate, supporting the notion that liberals are
> more flexible in their thinking.

>From what I've seen, talking to friends and looking at responses on
this group, neither leftists nor those on the right are particularly
flexible. Both tend to stick by their beliefs in the face of evidence
to the contrary.


...

> The work grew out of decades of previous research suggesting that political
> orientation is linked to certain personality traits or styles of thinking. A
> review of that research published in 2003 found that conservatives tend to
> be more rigid and closed-minded, less tolerant of ambiguity and less open to
> new experiences.

Unreferenced research, how nice. I hope they used more than 43
subjects.

I'm afraid that neither side is particularly good at deep thinking.
However the left, IMHO, does less of it than the right. The left
typically is more likley to believe that the economy is a zero-sum
game for example. The left is also less likely to look at the deeper
levels of consequences of their policies, prefering to think that
their good intentions guarantee effective government programs.

The left is also more likely to fall for obfuscation disguised as deep
thinking, cf _Fashionable Nonsense_ by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont.

Anyone who claims that conservatives are less capable of deep thinking
than are liberals is likely himself guilty of superficial thinking.