Week 10 post 1
This article is great for explaining narrative and how things like star wars have an impact
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_political_polarization_looks_like_in_the_brain
What political Polarization looks like in the brain, by Yasmin Anwar
Researchers from UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and Johns Hopkins University scanned the brains of more than three dozen politically left- and right-leaning adults as they viewed short videos
involving hot-button immigration policies such as the building of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, and the granting of protections for undocumented immigrants under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that liberals and conservatives respond differently to the same videos, especially when the content being viewed contains vocabulary that frequently pops up in political campaign messaging
“Our study suggests that there is a neural basis to partisan biases, and some language especially drives polarization,” said study lead author Yuan Chang Leong, a postdoctoral scholar in cognitive neuroscience at UC Berkeley
“In particular, the greatest differences in neural activity across ideology occurred when people heard messages that highlight threat, morality, and emotions.”
the study traces the source of neural polarization to a higher-order brain region known as the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, which is believed to track and make sense of narratives, among other functions.
the closer the brain activity of a study participant resembles that of the “average liberal” or the “average conservative,” as modeled in the study, the more likely it is that the participant, after watching the videos, will adopt that particular group’s position
the more participants adopt the conservative interpretation of a video, the more likely they are to be persuaded to take the conservative position, and vice versa
Your brain on politics
To establish that attitudes toward hardline immigration policies predicted both conservative and liberal biases, the researchers first tested questions out on 300 people who identified, to varying degrees, as liberal, moderate, or conservative
They then recruited 38 young and middle-aged men and women with similar socioeconomic backgrounds and education levels who had rated their opposition or support for controversial immigration policies, such as those that led to the U.S.-Mexico border wall, DACA protections for undocumented immigrants, the ban on refugees from majority-Muslim countries coming to the U.S., and the cutting of federal funding to sanctuary cities
Researchers scanned the study participants’ brains via functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) as they viewed two dozen brief videos representing liberal and conservative positions on the various immigration policies
After each video, the participants rated on a scale of one to five how much they agreed with the general message of the video, the credibility of the information presented, and the extent to which the video made them likely to change their position and to support the policy in question
To calculate group brain responses to the videos, the researchers used a measure known as inter-subject correlation, which can be used to measure how similarly two brains respond to the same message
Their results showed a high shared response across the group in the auditory and visual cortices, regardless of the participants’ political attitudes
neural responses diverged along partisan lines in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, where semantic information, or word meanings, are processed.
Next, the researchers drilled down further to learn what specific words were driving neural polarization. To do this, they edited the videos into 87 shorter segments and placed the words in the segments into one of 50 categories. Those categories included words related to morality, emotions, threat, and religion
The researchers found that the use of words related to risk and threat, and to morality and emotions, led to greater polarization in the study participants’ neural responses
Risk, threat, emotional, moral
An example of a risk-related statement was, “I think it’s very dangerous, because what we want is cooperation amongst the cities and the federal government to ensure that we have safety in our communities, and to ensure that our citizens are protected.”
an example of a moral-emotional statement was, “What are the fundamental ethical principles that are the basis of our society? Do no harm, and be compassionate, and this federal policy violates both of these principles.”
political messages that use threat-related and moral-emotional language drive partisans to interpret the same message in opposite ways, contributing to increasing polarization, Leong said
Leong hopes to use neuroimaging to build more precise models of how political content is interpreted and to inform interventions aimed at narrowing the divide between conservatives and liberals
IMPORTANT TO NOTE; is that the responses of conservatives, particularly of those who are extreme, responded to fear based in selfish roots, and liberals fear was held in fear for the wellbeing of society as a whole
How Humility Can Help Us Bridge Our Political DividesBY JILL SUTTIE
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_humility_can_help_us_bridge_our_political_divides
A large percentage of americans are unwilling to engage with people who have opposing political views, which is creating more animosity
This is especially worrying considering how many crises we’re facing—a pandemic, racial injustice, climate degradation—that require cooperation, trust, and solutions a diverse citizenry can get behind
“Humility is a kind of a master virtue that can pull along other virtues if people develop it,” says humility researcher Everett Worthington
Humility, as Worthington defines it, is multifaceted, involving an awareness of our personal strengths and weaknesses, as well as a willingness to acknowledge those weaknesses while working to improve upon them. It requires presenting ourselves in modest ways, while caring about the well-being of those around us
A growing body of research shows that being humble may be useful in bridging political differences. That’s because humility helps people let go of defensiveness, take in information that challenges their political views, and see the humanity in people on the other side of the political spectrum. Though it’s not always easy to embrace—especially for those who wrongfully equate it with weakness or a lack of conviction—humility may be what we desperately need right now in the United States.
Why we should all be more humble
Considering the research on perception, it’s pretty clear that, when it comes to understanding others, we all have weaknesses that could use improving.
Research suggests we are not always very good at understanding what another person is thinking or feeling, even when trying to “put ourselves in their shoes.” Often, we are better off simply asking people about their experience and being open to listening than trying to second-guess anyone
Cognitive biases may be partly to blame.
For example, the fundamental attribution error—attributing others’ actions to their fixed character traits rather than considering what outside forces contributed to their behavior—can make us misjudge others or believe they “get what they deserve.”
This can explain why we label a colleague who falls behind at work “lazy” or “incompetent,” instead of realizing they may be managing difficult issues at home or have too many assignments—or why, when we see people fail to evacuate during a disaster, we call them “stubborn,” even though they didn’t have the means to escape to safer ground
Our brains often trick us into seeing only what we already believe, too.
For example, one study showed that people assigned to watch a demonstration reported different levels of protester violence depending on whether they agreed with the cause being protested. They literally could not see the same events in the same way.
Research has found that people often mistake how large differences are between people without noticing their commonalities. For example, people in different political parties tend to misjudge how far apart they are in terms of their beliefs and hopes for the country. This can create a lot of antipathy, which makes it hard to come together.
humble people are more likely to think an opponent could know something they don’t know or have experienced something they haven’t experienced. People with less humility, he adds, would consider people who disagree with them to be suspect, unintelligent, or morally deficient—not endearing qualities.
“How I see the infallibility of my own position (and, by implication, an opposing position) determines how willing I am to demonize people that are on the other side,”
“People high in intellectual humility are going to pay more attention to the reasons for their views,” says Newman. “That means they are going to notice the limits of their knowledge and the limits of the evidence in favor of their position, and be more receptive to new information.”
believing in a “growth mindset” around intelligence—that people aren’t naturally intelligent, but can grow in learning through trial and error—was what led to increased intellectual humility, suggesting that adapting a growth mindset could indirectly affect how accepting we are of other views.
“Anybody who’s doing their best to be respectful is going to end up having a more positive interaction than someone calling each other names or being verbally aggressive,” he says. “The more politically humble people are able, the more able they are to have civil conversations about political differences, even if they disagree.”
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_narcissistic_leaders_make_organizations_less_ethical How Narcissistic Leaders Make Organizations Less Ethical by mickey butts
A narcissist's bad behavior infects their organizational culture even after they're gone
A new paper by Berkeley Haas School of Business professor Jennifer Chatman and her colleagues shows not only the profound impact narcissistic leaders have on their organizations, but also the long-lasting damage they inflict.
Like carriers of a virus, narcissistic leaders “infect” the very cultures of their organizations, the researchers found, leading to dramatically lower levels of collaboration and integrity at all levels—even after they are gone.
Chatman and her colleagues found that narcissistic CEOs have a dark side that reveals itself slowly over time. Their exploitative, self-absorbed behavior sets them apart from the charismatic, “transformational” leaders they are often confused with.
They are also paid more than their non-narcissistic peers, and there’s a larger gap between their pay and that of other top executives in their companies, often because they are so good at unfairly claiming credit for others’ accomplishments.
Narcissistic leaders get their companies involved in more lawsuits, as well, Chatman and her colleagues’ research has found
How narcissists affect organizations
There’s a colorful saying that the “fish rots from the head down”—employees see leaders acting like jerks, and they become jerks, too
Narcissists infect the culture through the policies and practices that they directly influence, or—more often—that they fail to institute
They often choose not to put in place strong policies governing ethical behavior, conflicts of interest, and pay equity between men and women, as well as practices that promote teamwork and encourage people to treat others with civility and respect.
Yet the mythology persists: Don’t bold, visionary leaders like Elon Musk of Tesla or Steve Jobs of Apple need to be a little bit narcissistic in order to have the self-confidence to launch innovative and supremely risky ventures? The answer is a definite no, says Chatman. “You can have confidence and be innovative, and not be self-involved, exploitative of others, overconfident, and risk-insensitive,” she says. “Bill Gates is a perfect countervailing example. But somehow, the lay public, especially in the U.S., has developed a view that leaders are supposed to be loud-talking and overconfident.”
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/would_more_social_justice_make_you_happier
Would More Social Justice Make You Happier? By jill suittie
While there is a lot that we can do to increase our own well-being, our social and political environments play an important role in our happiness, too.
In particular, research suggests that supportive government policies like health care coverage and parental leave make a difference in how we feel in our everyday lives.
Now, a new study finds that people who live in countries that promote greater social justice tend to be happier.
In this study, researchers Salvatore Di Martino and Isaac Prilleltensky used data from the EU Social Justice Index, which scores countries on indicators like
their equity around education
health care for ethnic minorities and the poor
unemployment levels for both native-born and non-native-born people
non-discrimination policies
gender representation in government,
and “intergenerational justice” (meaning, low public debt, good pension policies, and low greenhouse gas emissions per capita, for example)
They compared these scores to how satisfied Europeans are with life, based on interviews with nearly 170,000 individuals across 28 countries at six different times between 2008 and 2017. The researchers made sure to rule out contributing factors like a person’s age, gender, or occupation, or a country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
not only does a country’s social justice contribute to people’s happiness, but it is the second strongest predictor of their life satisfaction. Only a country’s social capital (the strength of family relationships and larger social networks, the level of trust in institutions, and the degree of civic participation) mattered more to people’s well-being.
Why does social justice matter?
Prilleltensky argues that fairer welfare policies allow people to spend less time worrying about meeting basic needs (like health care, education, and child care), freeing them to pursue individual aspirations and to be more productive.
“It’s not coincidental that Black Lives Matter has the name that it has,” he says.
It’s also likely that greater social justice builds trust in institutions and in communities, and that, in turn, improves our relationships with others, says Di Martino. It may help reduce prejudice, too, as people who are less stressed tend to have less need to find a scapegoat for their problems
“It’s likely that countries that enjoy a good level of social justice will be less discriminatory toward migrants, asylum seekers, or other strangers,” he says.
Other research finds that when Americans live in a state with more inequality, they also tend to take more economic and other risks (like drug abuse and gambling). “People who feel they’re getting the short end of the stick will take risky shortcuts to achieve life satisfaction,” he says.
Obstacles to social justice
Even as evidence on the psychological benefits of social justice mounts, many countries still resist enacting policies to strengthen equality. Prilleltensky believes it comes down to hubris—believing in a myth of exceptionalism that keeps governments, like the U.S., from considering they have something to learn from others.
“At the cultural level, we have to contend with this incredible arrogance, that our ethnocentric way of doing things is the only way of doing things,” says Prilleltensky. “In the U.S., we’re paying the price for this extreme arrogance and hubris.”
It’s also possible that governments worry about the costs of social justice initiatives. But, as Prilleltensky points out, this is often just an excuse that doesn’t hold water.
“The reality is we in the U.S. spend more than any other country in health care, and we do far worse than any other country. So, there’s a disconnect,” he says. “Cultural mythologies that preserve the status quo—that’s the real problem.”
Di Martino adds that paying for social justice actually seems to benefit the economy, even its gross national product. In one of his forthcoming studies, countries with higher social justice showed higher GDP—but not vice versa, as you might otherwise expect. This means countries would be better off attending to their social justice policies first if they want to build a stronger economy…and enjoy greater happiness, too.
“If you live in a country that gives you resources and opportunities, that’s got a good level of social justice, people will likely feel more comfortable with their life, enjoy a higher GDP, and trust each other, as well,” says Di Martino. “That’s important to know.”
In star wars they are able to come together to avoid the end of the universe, despite the fact that so many of the planets are so different
https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/could-neuroscience-explain-what-trump-voters-are-thinking
Could neuroscience explain what Trump voters are thinking?
Political scientists are using neuroimaging to look directly at voters’ brain activity. Here’s what that research can tell us about the 2016 election
As Donald Trump emerges as the Republican candidate for president, the 2016 election has more people than ever wondering what American voters are thinking and why.
Enter the field of political neuroscience, which uses neuroimaging to bring research in biology, psychology, and political science together to see how the way our brains work affects our political behavior
We asked Ingrid Haas, director of the University of Nebraska’s Political Attitudes and Cognition Lab, what insights research in this growing field might give us about the 2016 election and the baffling rise of Donald Trump.
Does neuroimaging show that conservative and liberal voters’ brains work differently?
Yes. There are only a handful of political neuroscience studies using MRI that have examined differences between liberals and conservatives, but the existing work does suggest that there are both structural and functional brain differences between these groups
in the size of the amygdala, insula, and anterior cingulate—all areas involved in emotional processing and decision making. Beyond structural differences, research on how the brain functions uses what is called functional MRI, or fMRI to examine how the brain processes information by scanning people while they are doing a computerized task. This has also shown differences between Democrats and Republicans. So yes, there is some evidence that liberals and conservatives differ both in terms of how their brains are structured and how they function, but it is worth noting that this research is still very new. There's a lot we don't know yet!
Research in psychology and neuroscience has shown that conservatives are more likely than liberals to respond to group boundaries and that they prefer clear distinctions between “insiders” and “outsiders.” Another set of studies has shown that conservatives are also more responsive to negative emotions, like fear or disgust, than liberals are
neuroscience work suggests that both ingroup-outgroup processing and negative emotional responses are related to automatic processing in emotion-related regions like the amygdala. So, for some conservatives at least, Trump's statements about reinforcing group boundaries and protecting the group from external threats are likely to resonate. And these messages are more likely to resonate with conservatives than they would with liberals
When we dislike something, our brain gives a clear negative signal. We are also less able to think about the underlying causes of behavior in people we dislike, and this effect extends to political candidates.
Negative reactions not only make it less likely someone will vote for a candidate, but can also motivate people to go out and vote against a candidate they dislike. This is most likely if the negative emotion in question is anger. Anger is a powerful motivating force, because it is a strong negative emotion and leads to what psychologists call “approach behavior,” going out and taking action
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