Do Our Political Beliefs Have a Biological Basis? | Newsweek Health

- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: thinkgra @ 09/18/2008 4:54:47 PM

I'd like to see if these findings extended to confrontations with real spiders or bunny rabbits. Is this about reactions to threatening images or the ability to discern between real threats and images of threats? I would react differently to a tarantula than a picture of a tarantula, but then I'm pretty liberal.

- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: eprn17 @ 09/18/2008 4:21:07 PM

I consider myself a liberal and yet I know that my reaction to unpleasant or frightening images would be strongly negative, so how can my beliefs be explained by my fear/disgust reactions? On the other hand, I did become more patriotic and pro-American after 9/11, and I realized that fear was the factor that changed my previously near-left attitudes to something closer to centrist. There could be a connection between fear and conservatism, but I don't think this study is the one that explains it.

Posted By: oldtactics @ 09/18/2008 4:05:15 PM
- Reply
- Report Abuse
This is a spoof article, right? What a worthless piece of writing, I hope the author didn't actually get paid to research this. Newsweek would have been better off just posting the interview rather than allowing things like "In other words, on the level of physiological reactions in the conservative mind, illegal immigrants may=spiders=gay marriages=maggot-filled wounds=abortion rights=bloodied faces. " to be printed, especially since it's a complete misrepresentation of the study and its findings.