6/30/16
Lions and tigers and bears, oh, my...
Lions and tigers and bears, oh, my...
The
other day my daughter came home to pick up the baby, distressed because of the
latest terrorist attack in Turkey. Her biggest fear grew from the realization that the world
was a dangerous place and she couldn’t protect her child from everything. What if someone could
have guaranteed her child a life safe from terrorists, would she then vote for
that person, regardless of their other qualities?
What would your answer be?
For my daughter, I don't think she would because she’s a liberal.
My prediction is tied to some pretty interesting research on how liberals and conservatives react to fearful situations It has
little to do with bravery and everything to do with how each group acquires and
processes information. For example, in one study, volunteers were asked to look
at various images, some of them pleasant, like a happy child or a cute bunny,
and some unpleasant, like maggots or a spider crawling on someone’s face. (And may I
say, ewwww?)
Mother Jones
This would be me, looking at the spider thing.
Conservatives
reacted differently to the negative images than the liberals did. They had a
much stronger emotional reaction, significantly stronger. They also noticed the images faster than
liberals and gazed at them longer. So in terms of accessing information, conservatives are likely to see more negative information than liberals are and to spend more time processing it.
Here’s another one: A long term study started with
little kids and followed them through young adulthood. The more anxious they
were as children, the more they trended towards conservative ideologies as
adults. Whether this is biological or environmental or some combination of both is still open to question. There are definite differences in the parts of the brains of liberals and conservatives that operate in processing some kinds of information but cause or effect? Up for grabs. More on that in a later blog.
One more: Being exposed to fearful stimuli actually moves people's political attitudes to the right, at least for the short term. For example, in one study, folks were asked to watch several different videos. Afterwards, those who watched the scary/disgusting ones had moved towards the right. The others had not. You can find one of the videos they used here. It's a scary scene from Stephen King's IT:
And so on.
So what does all this mean?
To me, it means conservatives are more vigilant than liberals. They're on the lookout for danger and spend more time checking it out. That’s a very useful
trait to have in a society. These are the people you want guarding the camp at
night. On the opposite end, liberals are more likely to be open to new things, less fearful of the unknown. You could see both these strategies play out as the Senate debated the Iran Nuclear Treaty. Generally, conservatives voiced strong fears that this treaty put us at risk. Liberals were more open to the notion of controlling Iran's nuclear program through diplomatic means. I strongly believe we need BOTH viewpoints working together, to keep us hopeful and to keep us safe. But I'm not holding my breath.
It also means you can better catch the attention of conservatives with fearful advertising, so I imagine we’ll see a lot more of that during the next four months. Especially since more fearful people move to the right.
PS: Here's what my daughter said: It's unrealistic to believe you can wipe out all the world's terrorists with bombs. In fact, it can make the problem worse. So until candidates figure out the big picture, they cannot protect my daughter and I won't vote for them for just that one issue.
