Spiders, Maggots, Politics

Interesting - I don't buy the 'mammal on a hot rock' scenario. What I think ti means is that those who are liberal take a more neutral overview of things - and don't allow stirring images to determine what is overall a more realistic way of looking at things. The reactionary behaviors of conservatives seems to be what drives their policy-making, not calm reasoned thinking.

I agree - conservatives see threats where there aren't any. From what I can tell liberals have evolved to have an ability to look at a sitiuation logically and neutrally, while conservatives seem to react more viscerally and primitively. 'Me, mine.' 'Aww cute bunny'. 'Bad man, kill.'

Biology may influence political beliefs, but biology is about survival of groups, not winning elections. Clearly neither being more reactive nor less reactive will work for every situation. However it's true that for many conservatives, biology doesn't even exist. E.g., conservatives are more likely to make connections like Homosexual = Evil, even though we know that many person biologically don't fit into the male-female scheme.


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So, conservatives are wiser because they respond to threats.....by supporting actions that have nothing to do with the threat, and actually make things worse. Like, "there's a spider on that guy's face! Let's blast his neighbor's house down because I think there might be spiders of mass destruction hiding there! Why don't you get it??"

This simply shows that "liberals" think first before reacting. A real black widow spider is a potential threat, but a photo of someone with their pet tarantula is not a threat. An real infected wound is a threat. A photo illustrating the medical use of maggots in wound treatment is not a threat. A bunny outside is cute unless its eating your garden, then it's a threat. Bunnies can be both cute and annoying, depending on the situation.

The real issue here is that conservatives see threats where there aren't any and react to all their perceived threats in the exact same way: kill it now. They also fail to perceive potential threats to their overall wellbeing (such as garden munching bunnies) if the threat's appearance is physically appealing. (*cough* Praying-For-The-Apolocypse-Palin*cough*)

I really do not care for this article. Nor sure if this makes me a Republican or Democrat but I do know that privatizing Social Security is off the table know. Don't you all wish we would have put Social Security into the hands of Lehman Brothers, AIG or any of the other financial train wrecks?

What a bunch of horse manure.

???fear about some liberal boogeymen who will come and take away everything that is important to you: your money, your job, your neighborhood, even your safety from terrorists. The study for all its flaws seems to reinforce that notion."

Um...???Republicans are going to re-institute the draft, take away all your freedoms, and strip away old people???s Social Security, all while making you pray to Jesus six times a day!!!!???

This is not playing on fears for political purposes? Please do not try to rationalize one political persuasion over another. People have many, many different reasons for voting the way they do, and fear is certainly a factor used often by both parties.

This again? Didn't they have a similar "Republikanz r dumm!!!" story based on some "scientific study" right before the 2004 election as well?

How "scientific" is a study that reaches a conclusion based on the ignorance of those running it. For thousands of years it's been known that enlightened minds perceive the world differently, i.e., they understand that looking at a picture of the moon (a symbol) is a poor substiture for being there. They're two different realities. To jump to the conclusion that everyone's mind is as shackled as the study leaders, hence their conclusion most be factual, is embarrassingly stupid. Those whose minds can perceive the difference will respond accordingly i.e., a picture of a spider and a picture of a bunny are indeed the same-they are "pictures"-and therefore will result in the saem response. This study does a good job of demonstrating that those who cannot tell the difference between a picture and the real thing should NOT be allowed to run a country. And the over 4000 people who have paid wth their lives for this mistake on the part of American voters are a testament to the danger posed to the entire planet by the ignorance brought to light by this ersatz study.

How "scientific" is a study that arrives at a conclusion based on the leaders' "belief" that they understand what they're seeing. At best, the conclusion is nothing more than an "interpretation" based on the leaders' pitifully limited limited knowledge. For openers, they reveal their ignorance, i.e., incorrect view, hence their inherent bias, by demonstrating that they are not capable of discerning the difference between the moon and a picture of the moon. These are two distinct realities. To think that everyone automatically "experiences" what it's like to be on the moon by looking at picture of it, or even the image of it in the sky is hardly an accurate understandinf of reality. This has been known for thousands of years.

I can't help stating what to me seems obvious: there is a confusion between what is merely a physiological response and the "biological", which here implies heritability, of the genetic kind. Our fear responses can be acquired through experience, at an early or even not so early age and so mimic "instinctive" ones. (think P.T.S.D). This obsession with genetics is so tiresome, futile and even wasteful. Wouldn't the money used for this study be better used elsewhere?

I think that reactions to a perceived threat are actually based on an individual threat threshold for that specific threat, rather than for threats in general. Beneath the threshold for that specific threat, a person will use more logic than emotion when making a decision. Above the threshold, the reverse occurs. I'll agree that it's possible for a political view to be shaped in part by having a lower or higher threat threshold, but I'm pretty sure that's not the only factor. For me the difference between a liberal and a conservative is this - A liberal has a lower threshold to threats to his/her personal liberty, while conservatives have a lower threshold to perceived threats to their personal beliefs, which are deeply rooted in traditions. Conservatives believe in maintaining traditions without re-evaluation, but liberals tend to re-evaluate older thinking and form new ideas - they tend to think more and are thus less emotional. I think logic and emotions are actually opposites. The problem that extreme conservatism causes is that it doesn't try to truly justify actions by using logic and re-evaluation - there is simply an assertion that if it worked before it will always work and therefore must be the correct course of action. But life is dynamic, change is inevitable; only the adaptable can progress onwards. Liberals accept changes in life more easily because they are more used to interpreting and predicting the outcome. Conservatives are inherently afraid of outcomes that they cannot predict or control. But fear and anger are emotional cousins and this is why extreme conservative attitudes tend to lead to violent activity in order to preserve the status quo. Liberals can be provoked to fear and anger only when they feel that outside forces are taking actions that limit their freedom to exercise total control over themselves.

While the threat hypothesis seems reasonable it could be that, in this study, that Conservatives are more sensitive to the content of the picture while the Liberals are more sensitive to the fact that they are looking at pictures and not real, 3D, situations. Perhaps the Liberals react less because they are more analytically aware that they are viewing simple pictures and no threat is imminent while the conservatives have greater trouble differentiating the "story" in the picture and real life. Maybe this is why Conservatives see so much danger in violent or sexually explicit films, games or recordings while liberals tend to see these all as "fiction" and see less danger, and maybe are less affected.

Maybe the low-reaction subjects were just smart enough to realize a picture can't hurt them. Seriously, the experiment wasn't so much a test of political belief as it was one of intelligence.

I'm intrigued by the idea that conservatives have more visceral reactions to "threats", but I agree with the poster who pointed out that these were IMAGES of (supposedly) scary things, and not actual scary situations. Think back to Michael Dukakis coolly explaining why he wouldn't support the death penalty even if his wife were raped and murdered -- it was only a question, not an actual event that happened. Maybe liberals tend to intellectualize more (for good or ill).

I do think that American conservatism has become mostly about fear, however -- fear about some liberal boogeymen who will come and take away everything that is important to you: your money, your job, your neighborhood, even your safety from terrorists. The study for all its flaws seems to reinforce that notion.

Interesting study, I have always tended to be politically liberal, and never been especially afraid of spiders, so it rings true to me. But one of the upsides of not having a reactive fear of spiders is being able to think more rationally about whether the spider is actually dangerous. Objectively, a rabbit bite is as bad or worse than most spider bites. If the spider was a black widow or brown recluse, I think spider-on-a-face would be a more alarming image! The researcher alludes to a sense of Iraq as a threat as the reason for conservative support for that war, most liberals accurately judged that Iraq was probably not a direct threat to our country. After the fact, most people know that the sense of Iraq as an imminent threat was an illusion, heightened by the Bush Administration's intentionally playing on people's fears. There's a huge moral danger in this tendency to reactive fear leading people into many regrettable choices, even starting wars. Being able to consider it in a more emotionally neutral way could be the salvation of the world. And it's worth remembering what Jesus tells us: "perfect love casts out fear." Political scare tactics don't help people to choose love.

I think whoever chooses to put stories like this, or any story having to do with research - should know a little something about actual research before printing such pathetic stories. You are influencing people thinking with this sort of trash research. Most people cannot tell the difference between valid and invalid studies and then believe this stuff because they saw it in "print". Your little disclosure statements are not enough to truly inform people who do not understand what it means to have such a small and biased sample. The investigator even gave himself away as being biased. I agree that this article is not good enough to be featured on Newsweek, unless you have gone all "Entertainment Tonight " news like so much of the American news we unfortunately are enduring.

I thought this was a very interesting article. It also helps me understand why the Republicans try to instil fear into the voters to vote for their side. It works!