1w ago

Ideology May Not Be What You Think but How You’re Wired

www.nytimes.com

In my experiments I’ve found that the most rigid thinkers have genetic dispositions related to how dopamine is distributed in their brains.
Rigid thinkers tend to have lower levels of dopamine in their prefrontal cortex and higher levels of dopamine in their striatum, a key midbrain structure in our reward system that controls our rapid instincts. So our psychological vulnerabilities to rigid ideologies may be grounded in biological differences.
In fact, we find that people with different ideologies have differences in the physical structure and function of their brains. This is especially pronounced in brain networks responsible for reward, emotion processing, and monitoring when we make errors.
For instance, the size of our amygdala — the almond-shaped structure that governs the processing of emotions, especially negatively tinged emotions such as fear, anger, disgust, danger and threat — is linked to whether we hold more conservative ideologies that justify traditions and the status quo.

28 comments

There's studies that claim that we can figure out people's political leanings based on brain scans.

Oh wow a reductive essay from NYT pushing moral relativism because "ideology is a biological difference." This is nonsense propaganda from an outlet that pushes war and genocide constantly. Real red-pill stuff. Less of this please.
- If you had paid attention, or read the article at all, you would have noticed that they noticed changes in brain wiring, but have no idea if it is certain ideology causing brain wiring differences or brain wiring differences causing certain ideology.
  You would have also noticed that it's an actual scientist talking, who doesn't seem to be making any outrageous claims, or anything you could call propaganda, no conclusions are drawn, so idk what the propaganda would even be for.
  It is a shortened article, which it also directly says in there, sometimes you just want a quick thought-teaser, allowing you to dive in deeper if it sounds interesting.
  It seems like you fall massively into preconceived notions, that while they may even be correct more often than not, your comment honestly just sounds like nonsense propaganda in this instance.
  
  it’s an actual scientist talking, who doesn’t seem to be making any outrageous claims, or anything you could call propaganda, no conclusions are drawn, so idk what the propaganda would even be for.
  when did you last read the definitions of propaganda
- Calling an interview a reductive essay is not a great look. Please be more constructive on Beehaw.
- Pretty sure the field of political science is not moral relativism
  
  Moral relativism is, in fact, pretty closely related to Political science, which is a field of sociology for which the "science" part is a moniker.
  Also I didn't mention Political science.

I always thought our ideological differences stemmed mostly from a set of axioms that we decide on based on our experiences (or prejudices for those who refuse to address reality). But going further and attributing prejudice to amygdala or rigidity in thinking to dopamine seems like a very straightforward explanation with lots of research already.
Pretty cool, thank you for sharing.

It's quite interesting how the way a person thinks isn't necessarily universal - some people are more rigid in their beliefs which has some correlation with a different chemical balance within brains and vice versa.
However, I'm quite skeptical when it comes to the concept of "ideological thinking" or "being prone to ideology", as that's not really how ideology works. Everyone is an ideological thinker, its how we view the world, have it make sense, it encompasses our thoughts and opinions at our most honest, lowest level. If anyone says that they're not "ideological", it's only because they don't recognize/understand what ideology truly is - after all, the classical definition of ideology is "that which you do without realizing it".
Having the ability to change ones opinions and be a more "open thinker" can be part of ideology itself - after all, that's what most people are taught in schools, and is part of the liberal MO (but with lots of exceptions on what can be changed of course, like what is "moral"). Reactionary ideologies promote the opposite view: the perfect world was in the mythical past where all was well, we should turn back time and go back to exactly how things were in that past.
At least from my perspective, a better conclusion could be that those who aren't as rigid in their thinking can actually change their ideology easier. That's how someone can step from conservatism to liberalism and vice versa, from liberalism to marxism, from conservatism to ultra-nationalism, but I'd argue that it's mostly up to our environments to make us disillusioned with our current ideologies/removal of the social reinforcement of them rather than there being something inherent to our brains.
- I agree with almost all of your comment. However, say you have two children (to keep it simple) they have the same environment as they age (except, of course home life - important). Same school, same neighbourhood, similar friends etc. Their macro is so similar but their micro could be very different. This, in the developing brain will have larger effects down the line and could create vast differences in ideology - especially rigid ideology. So whilst I agree with you that it may not be inherent (although developing brain in utero, who knows), I think there is something to be said for the dopaminergic deficit in the cortex and the abundance in the striatum.

Thinking patterns are reinforced physically, makes sense.
Outside of topical debates, the key difference between conservatism and progressivism is risk taking vs risk avoidance.

Haven't read the book, but the article linked (and a lot of political neuroscience in general) makes it appear the author believes there are only 2 ideologies; liberal and conservative which is itself a wild idealogy... Can anyone who has read it or other work by her confirm/deny that?

Hmm this seems to line up with some of the research (sociology) referenced in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt.

Interesting but I wonder if the samples in the study are diverse enough that they can make a definite conclusion.
Like, what about people in other parts of the world? Asia, Middle East, Africa. Do they have similar or different behaviours. How about difference in culture?
Also when she said ideologies, she only said liberal and conservative. What about progressive, reactionary? What about nihilism or taoism? There are so many ideologies out there and she is only measuring two?
- I don't think any real-world ideology can be neatly mapped to brain structures, and vice versa. A rigid thinker growing up in a Zapatist commune will turn out quite differently, and hold fast to very different values, than a rigid thinker growing up among Amish. And where questioning the status quo will land you also isn't predetermined: A Zapatist could deepen anarchic principles, they could regress towards democratic socialism ("we tried, but the world isn't ready yet"), an Amish could become a reddit Atheist, a philosopher, or a batshit crazy supply side Jesus Evangelical. Or, like, a welder, not caring about religion. Or a Buddhist.
  One thing's for sure it's never a good idea, from a progressive POV, to attack lentil stew: Don't fuck with the actually tried, good, and true. If the "traditional" in "traditional carpentry techniques" makes your eye twitch, seek help¹. When meeting a rigid thinker, make sure to establish rapport by showing your appreciation of such things, you'll find that suddenly they're much more amenable to listen to new (to them, or in general) ideas. In this case, centrism actually is enlightened: It allows you to circumvent the old vs. new discussion and get into good vs. bad which ultimately is what actually matters.
  ¹ Unless a hipster happens to have cornered you. My condolences, then.
  
  Oh this is such a good comment.
  Yeah, the reason I have my doubts is that what one culture view as "conservative" might be considered "progressive" due to difference in tradition.
  And it is not something that can be neatly divided into two sides either.
  For e.g., in feudal Japan male homosexuality is accepted but the society is very male dominated. On the other hand, there are rights that women have which would be considered "progressive" by Western standard at that time, such as women did not need to share wealth with husband, which means the wife can be more wealthy than the man and might be the one sponsoring his work.
  I had seen some conflict in culture between some Asians and "American liberals" on issues such as cultural appropriation and affirmative action. Liberals blame "conservative" Asian values for their disagreement. But from the Asian point of view, the two ideas could be considered "regressive".
  Take affirmative action as example. The thing is, higher education was something considered to be attainable only by the rich. Their modern examination system was designed so that a poor student who studied hard and get high points can be on "equal footing" with the rich kids.
  University admission in South Korea, Japan, China are mostly determined by score and score alone. This is their way of pursuing "equality" and therefore cannot understand why American "liberals" would prefer a system which would discriminate base on race.

We don’t choose our ideologies in any meaningful sense - we gravitate toward them based on how our minds are wired. So no, it’s not really about what you think, but how you think. That’s why I don’t moralize people for their beliefs, even when I strongly disagree. I don’t believe they could think otherwise.
A theory I’ve been working on lately is that our worldview rests on certain foundational beliefs - beliefs that can’t be objectively proven or disproven. We don’t arrive at them through reason alone but end up adopting the one that feels intuitively true to us, almost as if it chooses us rather than the other way around. One example is the belief in whether or not a god exists. That question sits at the root of a person’s worldview, and everything else tends to flow logically from it. You can’t meaningfully claim to believe in God and then live as if He doesn’t exist - the structure has to be internally consistent.
That’s why I find it mostly futile to argue about downstream issues like abortion with someone whose core belief system is fundamentally different. It’s like chipping away at the chimney when the foundation is what really holds everything up. If the foundation shifts, the rest tends to collapse on its own.
- True. Also, core beliefs are all equally unbased and irrational. The desire for growing trees and saving lives is equal in this way to the desire to nuke humanity away. There's no rational foundational ground to either of these things, we just evolved to care for ourselves and our surroundings because it ensures our survival and passage of the genes. That's how the concept of good won, not because it's any more rational than evil.
  Personally, my core belief is that all people are fundamentally good and should be treated equally with love, care, respect and dignity. Thereby, I adopt ideologies that promote full economic and social equality, namely socialism/communism.
- A good tool/exercise for analyzing your (and other's) beliefs is logic trees, with the goal of taking any complex belief and determined what your core axioms are, being on the lookout for tautologies (God is real -> because the Bible says so -> because God is real...) and axioms that don't hold up to scrutiny.
  If you do the exercise correctly then you should find that most of those "beliefs that can’t be objectively proven or disproven" have belief dependencies that can be objectively (and often easily) proven/disproven.

This is liberal cope.
I've seen tons of Bernie people from 2016 become Trupists. Several have become full-on groypers. The reason is clear: Bernie got curbstomped and these people are still looking for some other solution because they're still precarious.
Liberals are still clinging to the basket of deplorables. They want to think that not being a liberal is a moral failing, or a sign of weak breeding or something. They can't admit that all the punching left they've been doing over decades while scolding, preening, etc and sucking up to corporate elites they serve has created the terrifying right-wing moment that we're in. And they'll going to be smugly declaring themselves to be on the right side of history as they get thrown into the camps with the rest of us.
EDIT: by the way:
Leor completed her PhD as a Gates Scholar at the Department of Psychology
Yes, that is the "Gates" you're thinking of.
Also she's probably a criminal:
Leor was listed on Forbes 30 Under 30

Contemporary phrenology sure is a wordy ordeal

That is fascinating! I need to read it.

There is an upside to the rigidity of thought that ideologies bring - a person is less likely to be confused into something batshit crazy, at least if their initial conviction ain't that.
Most people are not history/politics grads and their opinion can be manipulated relatively easily as they don't have a very solid knowledge base to counter the presented evidence.
Without ideology, we'd have people switching between socialism and fascism in no time.

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