Are Our Political Beliefs Hardwired into Us?

by Madeleine Kando

The terms 'left-right' in politics originated during the French Revolution when members of the National Assembly who were loyal to religion and the king stood to the right of president's chair, so as to avoid the shouts and insults that came from the opposite side, where the more revolutionary members took their seat.

There is nothing more guaranteed to create conflict than opposing political views, but as John Stuart Mills said: 'Having a party of order and stability and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.'

But what makes someone a 'leftist' or a 'rightist'? Is it something that you learn from your parents, like potty training? Do we acquire our political beliefs on our own? Or do we acquire them at birth, like the color of our hair? Is it the environment or the genes?

In "Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in political ideology," John Hibbing of the University of Nebraska argues that what makes conservatives conservative, is their heightened sensitivity to negative (threatening, disgusting) stimuli in the environment. We all react to negative stimuli, which is a good thing, or we wouldn't have been able to survive as a species. Our ancestors didn't approach a saber-toothed tiger cooing 'nice kitty', but wisely followed their negative bias instinct and ran for their lives instead.

It makes sense then, that someone with a heightened sensitivity to threatening situations will take less chances with the unknown, will seek group protection and in general stick to what is known to 'work' to keep safe.

One of the more interesting commentaries on Higgins' article says that the difference in negativity bias is caused by a difference in attachment security, i.e. how secure you were of the person that was supposed to protect you when you were a baby. Conservatives are more vigilant to negative features of the environment because of a general sense of insecurity, whereas liberals are relatively more secure. This is connected to how you perceive human nature in general. Are people inherently good or bad? Can you trust others? Do you have a pessimistic, Hobbesian view or are you more of an optimist, like Locke?

This reminds me of the difference between wolves and dogs. In the canine world, there is a four-week socializing window, when both wolf and dog pups begin walking and exploring. They retain familiarity throughout their lives with those things that they have come in contact with. Unfortunately, this window opens at 2 weeks for wolves, when they are still blind and deaf and can only rely on their sense of smell. For dogs it is at 4 weeks, when they can already see and hear. This makes them a lot less fearful by the time the window closes and explains why wolves can not be domesticated. They will forever remain fearful of humans. Their attachment security is much more fragile.

The idea that our political orientation is fueled by personality traits that are beyond our conscious control is not so far-fetched, but what do we do with this information? Some critics call the field of 'genopolitics' the modern day equivalent of phrenology, useless and misleading. It certainly reinforces the increasing polarization in politics.

The author(s) talk a lot about the right-wing brain as evolutionary useful for survival, but what about the opposite? Sometimes, it is the innovator who survives, and those who stick to dying ways perish: Had the Easter islanders had a revolution, maybe they wouldn’t be extinct. Or take Noah as a metaphor: he was the only one smart enough to build an arc. Everyone probably thought he was nuts. Or take the ancient Tahitians: The few who escaped to Hawaii to escape the Tahitians monstrous human sacrifice culture made it. Doe the author recognize this? That it is often the innovator who survives, evolutionarily?

Then, of course, there is the environment. What about level of education? Does cognitive ability determine whether a stimulus is considered threatening, prompting avoidance, or does it offer opportunity, prompting approach? Does economic security create more liberalism and less authoritarianism?

Isn't negativity subjective? Both Liberals and Conservatives perceive 'a bad guy with a gun' as a threat, but the solution is gun control for a liberal and 'a good guy with a gun' for a conservative. Besides, differences in negativity bias probably underlie variation in attitudes toward change generally, not political ideology specifically.

Then, there is the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. For example, compassion training have shown to alter the brain regions that are associated with empathy in response to the pain of others. Does a Liberal environment create a Liberal mind?

To get back to John Stuart Mills, even though it is good to have ideological diversity, a mix of both Conservative and Liberal values, there are times when we could benefit from one taking the upper hand over the other. At this moment in history, a more open, innovative, liberal, novelty seeking approach to solving our global problems would serve us better than sticking to the tried and true. The tried and true is sure to take us to hell in a hand basket sooner rather than later. leave comment here