I'll try to leave the commentary low, but wow. A recent study published by the University of Nebraska looking at everything from self-reported psychological differences to behavior in the anterior cingulate cortex which regulates conflict-response to negativity bias within the messages and media presence of each party has found that:
One organizing element of the many differences between liberals and conservatives is the nature of their physiological and psychological responses to features of the environment that are negative. Compared with liberals, conservatives tend to register
greater physiological responses to such stimuli and also to devote more psychological resources to them.
The study contrasts the behavior of the Republicans with the left stating:
Liberals consistently score higher than conservatives on empathy scales. From an evolutionary perspective, insufficient response and attention [from Republicans] to negative situations is clearly a problem but it is also the case that unrelenting vigilance and heightened physiological responses become a problem at some point.
In other words: Republicans see the world as more antagonistic and are not only more likely to perceive what might be an innocuous action as negative, but also more likely to respond to this so-called negativity. And if Republicans are annoyed at those results,
they probably wouldn't be too happy about another psychological study by scientists from Stanford and UC Berkeley which found:
Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism–intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure, regulatory focus, terror management), and ideological rationalization (social dominance, system justification).
What implications does this have for the real world? Pretty much where Republicans stand on every single gripping social issue in the status quo can be partially explained by this? Why do Republicans feel the need to interfere in gay marriage, an activity that otherwise doesn't affect their heteronormative lifestyle? Why do Republicans object so strongly to the freedom of abortion and birth control, activities that otherwise do not affect them? This confusing phenomenon (seriously, after deep thought for 5 years, I haven't thought of a single good reason justifying banning gay marriage) can be traced back to this empirically confirmed result of Republicans simply being more responsive to what they view as negative. And looking at issues like good ol' McCarthyism of the last century,
one very good analysis succinctly links this to broader problems like the immigration debate:
Conservative fears of nonexistent or overblown boogeymen — Saddam’s WMD, Shariah law, voter fraud, Obama’s radical anti-colonial mind-set, Benghazi, etc. — make it hard not to see conservatism’s prudent risk avoidance as having morphed into a state of near permanent paranoia, especially fueled by recurrent “moral panics,” a sociological phenomenon in which a group of “social entrepreneurs” whips up hysterical fears over a group of relatively powerless “folk devils” who are supposedly threatening the whole social order.
However, before we begin adding this as yet another reason to oppose the Republican ideology, we have to consider the caveat the Nebraska paper mentions at the beginning. John Stuart Mill always found that a "marketplace of ideas", in other words a balance of conservatism and liberalism, was important for maintaining the flow of progress, reform, and stability. As annoying as they can be at times, we might need a conservative voice in our lives (we just don't have to listen to it).
But then again, if I hear another Republican try to justify his/her open-mindedness and empathy by mentioning that Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves, was a Republican, I'm going to lose it.