In an article, written early 2008, Jim Giles, in the New Scientist explores potential scientific basis for differences in people with affinities to either a liberal or a conservative ideology: "Are Political Leanings All in the Genes?"which I stumbled onto cross-posted at The Center for Genetics and Society (CGS.)
Admittedly, I add little analysis in this, my second and noobie diary posting. After searching dkos for a number of key words, it appears the original article may have missed mention (?)
Main stream media has ratcheted up questions of direction of the conservative party. The Dialog at dkos has focused upon drawn and moving (err, or unmoving) party lines.
Perhaps the substance of article is contextually more relevant today than it was originally early in the election year.
I wanted to initially point out that, Jim Giles the article’s author, reports that researchers, contacted in the article’s writing, shared that their studies have attracted little attention outside academia; none said that professional politicians had expressed interest in their work. That seemed interestingly shortsighted to me. Perhaps these bodies of research are politically too sensitive to be component in political dialog?
Gile’s article raises a larger question, "If we are hard-wired to disagree are debate and policy analyses irrelevant?"
John Alford, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston, Texas proposes one response:
"Alford says his work shows that our reaction to homosexuality, like homosexuality itself, is in part determined by our genes. But over time, he adds, policy still changes. Arguments over gay rights in Europe and North America now focus on issues of discrimination at work and the right to marry. Just 50 years ago, much of the debate was about whether homosexuality should be legal. The two sides still do not understand each other, but protest movements, media pressure and other factors have helped change the issues they fight over. "The fact that people exist at poles doesn't eliminate the persuasive element of politics," says Alford."
The article also wraps up with Alford:
So the guy at the bar may never agree with you, but perhaps realizing that can be liberating. "We spend a lot of energy getting upset with the other side," says Alford. We often think our opponents are misinformed or stubborn. Accepting that people are born with some of their views changes that, Alford points out. Come to terms with these differences, and you can spend the energy now wasted on persuasion on figuring out ways of accommodating both points of view.
Other bits along the way through the article that I thought were highlights included:
"Evidence to support this idea is growing. For example, twin studies suggest that opinions on a long list of issues, from religion in schools to nuclear power and gay rights, have a substantial genetic component. The decision to vote rather than stay at home on election day may also be linked to genes. Neuroscientists have also got in on the act, showing that liberals and conservatives have different patterns of brain activity."
And...
"Using data on 2500 adults from across the US, he shows that people whose version of the MAOA gene is efficient at regulating the brain chemical are 1.3 times more likely to vote than those with a version that is less efficient. By itself, 5HTT did not show such an effect. But Fowler found that this gene interacted with the environment in an intriguing way. Members of religious groups are known to be more likely to vote and, among this subset of subjects, those with a particular version of 5HTT were 60 per cent more likely to vote."
And...
"Electrodes placed on subjects' skulls revealed that liberals had greater ACC activity when they had to hold back from pressing the button. Liberals also had higher activity immediately after making a mistake, and the greater the activity, the better their performance over many rounds. The results, says Amodio, suggest that basic brain mechanisms, such as those that control habit formation, may distinguish liberal minds from conservative ones."
John Jost, a psychologist at New York University, and colleagues surveyed 88 studies, involving more than 20,000 people in 12 countries that looked for a correlation between personality traits and political orientation. (American Political Science Review, vol 99, p 153 ) They found:
"Some traits are obviously going to be linked to politics, such as xenophobia being connected with the far right. However, Jost uncovered many more intriguing connections. People who scored highly on a scale measuring fear of death, for example, were almost four times more likely to hold conservative views. Dogmatic types were also more conservative, while those who expressed interest in new experiences tended to be liberals. Jost's review also noted research showing that conservatives prefer simple and unambiguous paintings, poems and songs."
Some of the article's information is useful for me, for example, it occurs to me that if conservatives are four times more likely to score high on some scale measuring of "fear of death"... that fact might go some distance explaining not just "why" and "who" scare/threat campaigns target, but also why liberals take such strong offense or we just laugh at it.
Again, for any with further interest the full article can be found here:
http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/...
[New Scientist magazine’s stated mission is to report, explore and interpret results of human endeavor set in the context of society and culture. It reports its readership demographic as: avg. household income $108K; 75% readers prefer to set trends rather than follow; 86% of readers educated to "degree level" or higher ~ 27% of a doctorate degree...]
UPDATE: I changed the diary's title from "The Biology..." to "The Behavioral Genetics..." before it dropped off the recent posts list to see if that generated any more interest. Hope that is not against the rules. I appologize if it was.